Immigrants and language

[inferiare]

Refugees and those who immigrate lawfully are different. Here in America we have that citizenship test. You pass that and you can speak English and know some history and are able to function? Great, you're now an American citizen. It's those who hop the border (and no, I'm not targeting those coming from Mexico or whatnot, we get people crossing into the US from other places around the world) and come here illegally who I expect to learn the damn language.

If you've immigrated and you're a refugee from... well, I'll use Haiti as an example since they had a big disaster there. Yes, we'll help you get back on your feet, and if you're a French-speaking only, well... we're going to help get you to speak English. However, there has to be an effort being made as well, and not just "Hey let's take them for all they're worth and no do a damn thing to help the process!" I don't much care for that. :/ And hell if I'm going to help you if you aren't going to help yourself and try to make it easier for yourself.

[psychokind]

[quote="Freedan, the Dark Knight
Is it right to force someone to learn a new language when they've immigrated for those reasons? Bear in mind that English is frequently listed as one of the most difficult languages to learn, with our homonyms and such.

And what's the punishment if someone doesn't learn, or doesn't pass that exam? Deporting them back to whatever shithole they came from seems harsh; it could very well be a death sentence because they didn't learn English.[/quote]

it's absolutely right to force someone to learn a new language. english is one of the most easy languages in the world, it doesn't even have real capital writing! I actually didn't hear of a language being easier. imagine the "world language" being russian or japanese

punishment is deporting them back in whatever shithole they came from if you ask me. in germany however, you can't deport people back if there's the possibility for them to get killed then.

[Freedan]

psychokind wrote:

english is one of the most easy languages in the world, it doesn't even have real capital writing! I actually didn't hear of a language being easier.

I think you're underestimating how difficult it is. Of course, there are more complex languages out there, but learning any language is no walk in the park.

Have you ever read this poem? It highlights some examples (among many) of nuances to the language. And languages are generally easier to learn when you're younger, anyway.


"I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through.
Well don't! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard but sounds like bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth as in mother
Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose--
Just look them up--and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
Come, come! I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful Language? Why man alive!
I learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn't learned it at fifty-five. "


Edit: Fixed a mistake in my wording.

[inferiare]

Freedan, the Dark Knight wrote:

psychokind wrote: english is one of the most easy languages in the world, it doesn't even have real capital writing! I actually didn't hear of a language being easier. I think you're underestimating how easy it is. Of course, there are more complex languages out there, but learning any language is no walk in the park. Have you ever read this poem? It highlights some examples (among many) of nuances to the language. And languages are generally easier to learn when you're younger, anyway. "I take it you already know Of tough and bough and cough and dough? Others may stumble, but not you On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through. Well don't! And now you wish, perhaps, To learn of less familiar traps. Beware of heard, a dreadful word That looks like beard but sounds like bird. And dead: it's said like bed, not bead, For goodness sake don't call it deed! Watch out for meat and great and threat (They rhyme with suite and straight and debt). A moth is not a moth as in mother Nor both as in bother, nor broth as in brother, And here is not a match for there, Nor dear and fear, for bear and pear. And then there's dose and rose and lose-- Just look them up--and goose and choose And cork and work and card and ward And font and front and word and sword And do and go, then thwart and cart, Come, come! I've hardly made a start. A dreadful Language? Why man alive! I learned to talk it when I was five. And yet to write it, the more I tried, I hadn't learned it at fifty-five. "

Didn't I post that a long while ago?

English is definitely one of the harder, if not the hardest language for someone immigrating into America or another English-speaking country, I won't deny that. However, I have plenty of ESL (English as a Second Language) friends who do just fine with a ton of practice, befriending American people, and asking for help on how to speak the language. I was helping one of my Japanese friends in fact just last year with English! He asked for help on some papers for some classes, and it was mainly the tenses that he had problems on, and he's only been in the country for school for ~2 or so years.

And hey, Russian and Japanese aren't that bad for a language to learn I think, as an English speaker, Chinese would be one of the worst: two different dialects (Mandarin and Cantonese) and vocal inflection and intonation change the word, even if it's said the same way. The only real difficulties with Russian and Japanese? Russian has a ton of weird case rules that made me want to cry (genitive case can go die in a freakin' fire) but was otherwise pretty easy, and Japanese is mainly just learning the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets in writing (vowels and consonant+vowel has the same sound) and then learning a ton of Kanji as you go along.

[chicken]

oh you so make me want to post that poem i posted years ago about how stupid the english language is with boxing rings are squares and stuff

[psychokind]

rainichan wrote:

Didn't I post that a long while ago? English is definitely one of the harder, if not the hardest language for someone immigrating into America or another English-speaking country, I won't deny that. However, I have plenty of ESL (English as a Second Language) friends who do just fine with a ton of practice, befriending American people, and asking for help on how to speak the language. I was helping one of my Japanese friends in fact just last year with English! He asked for help on some papers for some classes, and it was mainly the tenses that he had problems on, and he's only been in the country for school for ~2 or so years. And hey, Russian and Japanese aren't that bad for a language to learn I think, as an English speaker, Chinese would be one of the worst: two different dialects (Mandarin and Cantonese) and vocal inflection and intonation change the word, even if it's said the same way. The only real difficulties with Russian and Japanese? Russian has a ton of weird case rules that made me want to cry (genitive case can go die in a freakin' fire) but was otherwise pretty easy, and Japanese is mainly just learning the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets in writing (vowels and consonant+vowel has the same sound) and then learning a ton of Kanji as you go along.

I don't understand how english could be a difficult language. no accents (spanish, french), no capital writing (all other languages? ), easy grammar (german has pretty weird grammar). russian / asian languages have different characters, and all languages without latin characters are more difficult, because the languages are less developed.
I've heard of esperanto and danish being easier.

@freedan: english is a very intelligent & flexible language, you can put together words and it easily makes sense. just by putting vocable after vocable someone can understand you, similar like german (both germanic languages). and we're talking about the basics of the basics here, not about poems

[inferiare]

psychokind wrote:

rainichan wrote: Didn't I post that a long while ago? English is definitely one of the harder, if not the hardest language for someone immigrating into America or another English-speaking country, I won't deny that. However, I have plenty of ESL (English as a Second Language) friends who do just fine with a ton of practice, befriending American people, and asking for help on how to speak the language. I was helping one of my Japanese friends in fact just last year with English! He asked for help on some papers for some classes, and it was mainly the tenses that he had problems on, and he's only been in the country for school for ~2 or so years. And hey, Russian and Japanese aren't that bad for a language to learn I think, as an English speaker, Chinese would be one of the worst: two different dialects (Mandarin and Cantonese) and vocal inflection and intonation change the word, even if it's said the same way. The only real difficulties with Russian and Japanese? Russian has a ton of weird case rules that made me want to cry (genitive case can go die in a freakin' fire) but was otherwise pretty easy, and Japanese is mainly just learning the Hiragana and Katakana alphabets in writing (vowels and consonant+vowel has the same sound) and then learning a ton of Kanji as you go along. I don't understand how english could be a difficult language. no accents (spanish, french), no capital writing (all other languages? ), easy grammar (german has pretty weird grammar). russian / asian languages have different characters, and all languages without latin characters are more difficult, because the languages are less developed. I've heard of esperanto and danish being easier. @freedan: english is a very intelligent & flexible language, you can put together words and it easily makes sense. just by putting vocable after vocable someone can understand you, similar like german (both germanic languages). and we're talking about the basics of the basics here, not about poems

The basis of the poem was to read it out loud and see if you could do it without making any mistakes in reading it. It's a little hard for a native speaker to do it. My Japanese teacher actually passed it out in class and had us all try it. I think maybe 2 or 3 people out of a class of 30 could do it without messing up. English, especially for East Asia natives (China, Japan, Korea, etc) is pretty difficult seeing as how they don't have a lot of the same pronunciations as the English language. That whole "Japan mixes up Ls and Rs!" is true: there is no true letter L in spoken Japanese, though the R line of consonants doubles as L (it has a weird sound to it anyway) but when you go through the Japanese alphabet starting on the A-line:
A
Ka
Sa
Ta
Na
Ha
Ma
Ya
Ra
Wa
N

So the non-existent letters that the Japanese don't have and English does? Confusing as hell and weird to learn. There's a lot of nuances in our language that makes it difficult to learn. I would try reading that poem that Freedan posted out loud, though.

[tay120n64]

Easy grammar?

What? When it comes to grammar and pronunciation, English is noted for not having a single consistent rule. Sometimes there's a silent letter, sometimes not. Sometimes you pronounce a word one way, other times not (as shown in the poem above).

The word colonel (pronounced: kernel) is a prime example of how the English language makes no sense.

Adversely, Japanese words are, if I am not mistaken, always pronounced as they are spelled, no matter what letters come where.

Also worth noting is Spanish, which has a grammar system that is amazingly simple and notably consistent in its rules.

(Grammar was my top subject, btw, and my college major before I quit)

[EverPhoenix]

then you have other languages (russian, for one) in which there are at least 6 cases of each word. learning them is a bitch, and even now - although i dont make many mistakes in speaking - i couldnt remember the cases and the rules. its all practice

[inferiare]

tay120n64 wrote:

Adversely, Japanese words are, if I am not mistaken, always pronounced as they are spelled, no matter what letters come where.

Sometimes. They have some odd rules in Japanese, but everything is always phonetic in Japanese, though while speaking quickly it sounds like there's letters missing (for instance, "desu" in normal conversation will have the "u" dropped off of it, but there is no singular "s" in the language so it's silent but not really if it's being spoken quickly).

As for what else was said, yeaaaah pretty much. Words like "Moth" and then "Mother" are said completely different, though the first part of the word is spelled exactly the same way. The only time it's said like "Moth" is if you're talking about Mothera.

@EP: Oh jeez, this. I hated the cases in Russian so much. Loved learning the alphabet and all, but the cases. They made me want to cry.

[psychokind]

tay120n64 wrote:

Easy grammar? What? When it comes to grammar and pronunciation, English is noted for not having a single consistent rule. Sometimes there's a silent letter, sometimes not. Sometimes you pronounce a word one way, other times not (as shown in the poem above). The word colonel (pronounced: kernel) is a prime example of how the English language makes no sense. (Grammar was my top subject, btw, and my college major before I quit)

isn't that what makes it easy? I mean, there's no difference in

"I'm going that way"
"that way I'm going"
"going that way I am"

you'd understand any of these. and you'd understand if I said "kolonel" instaid of "kernel" it's not about the sense, it's about how fast you can talk to or understand somebody.

[tay120n64]

psychokind wrote:

tay120n64 wrote: Easy grammar? What? When it comes to grammar and pronunciation, English is noted for not having a single consistent rule. Sometimes there's a silent letter, sometimes not. Sometimes you pronounce a word one way, other times not (as shown in the poem above). The word colonel (pronounced: kernel) is a prime example of how the English language makes no sense. (Grammar was my top subject, btw, and my college major before I quit) isn't that what makes it easy? I mean, there's no difference in "I'm going that way" "that way I'm going" "going that way I am" you'd understand any of these. and you'd understand if I said "kolonel" instaid of "kernel" it's not about the sense, it's about how fast you can talk to or understand somebody.

Fair enough. I think I see the point you're trying to make.

[psychokind]

tay120n64 wrote:

psychokind wrote: tay120n64 wrote: Easy grammar? What? When it comes to grammar and pronunciation, English is noted for not having a single consistent rule. Sometimes there's a silent letter, sometimes not. Sometimes you pronounce a word one way, other times not (as shown in the poem above). The word colonel (pronounced: kernel) is a prime example of how the English language makes no sense. (Grammar was my top subject, btw, and my college major before I quit) isn't that what makes it easy? I mean, there's no difference in "I'm going that way" "that way I'm going" "going that way I am" you'd understand any of these. and you'd understand if I said "kolonel" instaid of "kernel" it's not about the sense, it's about how fast you can talk to or understand somebody. Fair enough. I think I see the point you're trying to make.

yeah, you english speakers should be proud of that especially of this strange london-english(?) you know, the one that sounds as if you're drunk. I love this dialect

[inferiare]

There is that, yeah. It's better than say, Latin or Welsh where all of the verbs go at the end of the sentence or something. English is flexible, and I can see where it's a problem for people who didn't get to study it a whole lot in school consistently in a different country, but it's like how it would be for me to learn German (screw German and it's 13 ways to say "the"! )

[psychokind]

rainichan wrote:

There is that, yeah. It's better than say, Latin or Welsh where all of the verbs go at the end of the sentence or something. English is flexible, and I can see where it's a problem for people who didn't get to study it a whole lot in school consistently in a different country, but it's like how it would be for me to learn German (screw German and it's 13 ways to say "the"! )

yeah, we germans REALLY have issues with our articles...