Pajamas Media

90 Comments

1. Brian Barker:

I know that Obama wants everyone to learn a foreign language, but which one should it be?

The British learn French, the Australians study Japanese, and the Americans prefer Spanish.

And this leaves Mandarin Chinese out of the equation.

Interestingly then, nine British MP’s have nominated Esperanto for the Nobel Peace Prize 2008.

You can see detail at http://www.lernu.net

Aug 3, 2008 - 2:02 am 2. Paul:

BTW, which foreign language does abominal obama speak! Would he be able to interpret Spanish if he heard it himself? Or any other non-English language? Just asking, since he has not publicly spoken anything other than English, as far as I know.

Aug 3, 2008 - 3:44 am 3. Buck Smith:

Obama only speaks english – what a poseur.

Aug 3, 2008 - 5:59 am 4. chuck,:

Obama’s preference for that particular language is connected to a large voting block whose support he needs, and they aren’t Slovenians. But enough of the amazing talking flea. Let me put in a stronger plug for Latin.

It should be taught early and taught hard. First, because Latin takes brute grinding memorizing, which has gotten a bad reputation. But having to memorize instills discipline and stick to itiveness, a valuable lesson to both the clever and the less so. Then too, Latin is an excellent training ground for the faculties of observation and deductive reasoning. Owing to the way Latin is built, where the meaning of a sentence is dependent on the endings of the constituent words, you must notice details, and examinging them, carefully eliminate the various possibilities of what the sentence might mean one by one, until you are left with the answer. The value of this to the training of future scientists is obvious.

Lastly, making kids think and write within a language whose basic vocabulary is seemingly limited to words like Bravery,Liberty, Wisdom, Loyalty, Virtue, Justice, and whose “celebs” are soldiers, heroes, givers of law and philosophers is good for the little buggers’ souls, and will produce better American citizens.

Aug 3, 2008 - 6:26 am 5. JFP:

Not only should one learn Latin, but one should learn it from Reginald Foster:

http://frcoulter.com/latin/foster/foster6.html

Aug 3, 2008 - 6:45 am 6. pappy:

b.o. talks a lot of jive, we the people should learn other languages, but AITCH will still be jiving.

Aug 3, 2008 - 6:50 am 7. Joseph:

Thank you Mary. I always enjoy your writing, born of actual experience, something Obama seems to lack. Short version: Obama is an ignorant, pretty-boy jackass.

Aug 3, 2008 - 7:42 am 8. Steve McCullough:

Si se puede!!

Aug 3, 2008 - 8:19 am 9. DrawMaster:

Interestingly enough, I chose Spanish for my doctorate language reading requirement nearly 40 years ago. Passing the second of two five-hour courses in Spanish Reading Proficiency met the language qualifications where I studied. One summer, I simply enrolled in the second course, gambling that I wouldn’t need the first course despite never having seen written Spanish before. I received an A. Why did I take this gamble? How could I be sure that Spanish was right and I could bypass the first course? Maybe it’s the five (5) years of Latin and two (2) years of Greek I took in secondary school. You think?

Aug 3, 2008 - 8:30 am 10. newton:

Based upon the years I spent as a native-speaking and fully-educated Spanish tutor at a community college here in TX, I learned that most people don’t want to learn Spanish for the thrill of it, but to get college credits out of the way or to adjust to the inevitable necessity of having to learn it. I not only encountered traditional students, but also nurses, police officers, and others who had to learn Spanish if they were to, at least, keep their jobs. I only knew of one person who learned Spanish for its own sake – a psychiatrist from Norway who also knew five other languages.

Nowadays, learning French, German, or any other language seems to have become a matter of having fun doing it; however, learning Spanish has become the equivalent of dragging you into bath water kicking and screaming. There’s no love for Cervantes, Borges, Neruda, or Fuentes: only total confusion when someone comes speaking Spanish at your beauty salon, for instance, and you don’t have an idea of what they want. And Heaven help you if someone crashes your car and shouts every insult in the Spanish language, while you stand there not knowing how to defend yourself.

I know the meaning of being forced to learn a language for the sake of survival. I had to take English by the horns if I was to earn a degree here in America, let alone get any job. It’s not easy doing so, but when I finally learned to appreciate it, English finally sank into me. (Does Barack Obama understand that English is today’s global lingua franca?)

If Barack Obama thought he was doing Americans a favor by shaming them into learning another language, and Spanish to boot, he couldn’t be more wrong. Of course, the fact that foreign languages are not part of the curriculum in many elementary schools – exactly at the time when children pick up any language with ease – is a shame and an error that must be corrected at once. But forcing someone to learn it because “millions of non-English-speaking Spanish-speakers depend upon you”? Oh, no! That rubs too many people the absolute wrong way.

(Sure, I could have gone on and earned a double Master’s in Spanish and English. But to suffer through reading a single book by Noam Chomsky?!? Fingernails on the chalkboard, and two truck-fulls of Metamucil and Advil! I’d rather happily listen to three hours a day of Rush Limbaugh!)

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:00 am 11. M.:

My recently graduated, home educated daughter reads two classical languages: Greek and Latin. We chose these in order to improve her English.

Judging from some of the communications I see on mainstream news sites and in newspapers, I’m beginning to believe that these should be required of all journalists and editors. For example, when one of them writes, “myself” instead of “I,” it sets my teeth on edge. Surely someone whose profession IS the English language should be able to speak and write it correctly!

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:19 am 12. Lewis A. Morris:

If Mr. Obama, and most of the other politicians, listened instead of talked, they would know that there are vast differences in the languages of The United States. Brooklynese and Bronxese don’t sound anything alike. Chicagoese, Gheechee, and Cajun don’t even sound as though they are from the same continent.

Not to mention that this is not a hotel: we didn’t invite them (particularly the trespassers) and we don’t need to cater to them. It’s not as if they are tourists, spending money every where that they wander.

Lastly, I ask that you, and other writers, refrain from referring international trespassers as immigrants. Immigration is a legal process that they have avoided. They are criminals because they broke the law.

Thank you.

Lewis A. Morris
Cumming, GA 30040

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:27 am 13. el gordo:

Obama didn´t get the point: there is no “English-only” movement. There is simply a justified concern that the US is becoming a bilingual nation, which doesn´t really have any rational upside.

As the author says, “…he does not value learning for its own sake, but sees it as a political tool, another way to use education to advance social goals.” I think that´s a plausible explanation. With Obama, everything seems to boil down to social engineering.

On a personal note, I´m an English-speaking German, but what good are my two languages if I visit the US and end up in a place where I need Spanish? I work for a French company and the French love their language, but the international corporate language is English. All those French, German, Dutch, Italians and Spaniards talk English to each other.

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:29 am 14. Phillip Burke:

How do we get the word to the clueless liberals? Not too many of them read Mary Grabar…

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:31 am 15. Tony Donovan:

The only reason to learn Latin these days, is to be able to read Juvenal and his vicious Satires in the original. Or, if you plan to enter the priesthood. Or if you, like Mary Grabar, are going for a PhD and need a reading knowledge of Latin to do research of one sort or another.

But that’s it. Any other reason that might be given for studying Latin can just as easily be given for learning Spanish.

For example, the Spanish verb structure is just as complicated and obtuse as anything Latin has to offer. In almost every case where an English word is derived from Latin, it has a cognate form in Spanish so that knowing the Spanish derivative rather than the Latin original can be just as useful for an English speaker.

In addition – and something not mentioned in Grabar’s article or in the commentary section by readers, Spanish is a living, SPOKEN language, whereas Latin is no longer used for ORAL communication (except, perhaps, by the Pope and similar luminaries…although I bet His Eminence curses in Plattdeutsch and not in Latin).

That is to say, being able to SPEAK a language fluently is vastly different from being able to READ in that language with ease….they are completely separate skills.

I’ve known (American) PhDs in Spanish who are internationally recognized experts in some aspect of Spanish literature who speak LAUGHABLE Spanish.

Further, the fact is that MOST Europeans DON’T speak a foreign language. Most Frenchmen speak French, period. Ditto with most Spaniards, Italians and so on.

The multi-lingual Europeans Obama was referring to are the highly educated businessmen who really have no counterpart in US culture.

Most businessmen in the US are anything but highly educated – it’s a difference in culture that breeds these opposites.

And I’m talking about EDUCATED, not about TRAINED. Most American MBA’s are highly TRAINED individuals who are whizzes in their fields. But I’ve met very few who are truly EDUCATED in the classic sense of that word.

The result is that a European businessman would most likely get along with and feel more at ease with an American professor of European literature than with his professional American business counterpart.

(You can see this is the US job market where “bilingualism” is supposedly highly sought after. But almost all these jobs are for lower echelon positions…..they don’t actually mean they’re looking for an EXECUTIVE type person that speaks a foreign language. Completely different in Europe where ALL executives are expected to at least know English). (And, in the US, bilingualism means SPANISH…..not bilingual anything else).

(PS….this approach and attitude towards foreign languages has been a major factor – if not THE major factor – in the pathetic and risible fiascos suffered by our governmental intelligence services in recent decades). And guess what….in this area, NOTHING has really changed despite 9/11.

My bottom line? I agree and disagree with both Obama and Mary Grabar. But most of the really important language issues are missing in their arguments.

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:35 am 16. Ditto:

I took German in high school and college, sang Latin throughout my school years in choirs and wanted, at some point, to learn Spanish. When I moved to California, my stubborn German blood boiled at the number of jobs unavailable to me as an American, because I was not “bilingual”. I actually applied for one and the woman interviewing me began to speak in Spanish. I don’t know what she said, but I answered her in German. Funny thing… I didn’t even get a thank you for applying letter.

Without discussing the merits of the Bible as a true history, I think most can agree that its parables are at least illuminating and thought-provoking. If one considers, for example, the fact that God felt people who worked together with a strong purpose could achieve just about anything (Tower of Babel), he confounded them by giving them different languages so they could not understand one another. I find this very instructive, personally. If you think about it, those who want to work together have learned a common language.

As newton points out, English is today’s global lingua franca. Wouldn’t it be great if politicians like Ahhnold weren’t scolded for encouraging Latinos to immerse themselves in the language of their adopted country until they were fluent, rather than listening to hacks like Broke Back oBama chiding us for being linguistically lazy? The argument in that case, I believe, was “Latinos are too busy working to learn”. Right. And the rest of us sit around on our kiesters eating bon bons. I hear the radio all day from Latino workers. If they played an English speaking station, they would learn English faster. Obama’s speech is the product of a politically-motivated apologista mentality and makes no sense at all.

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:42 am 17. Dave II:

“Obama needs to be reminded that the United States is not in Europe.”

What??? And give up on all those fawning masses that yearn to catch a glimpse of the Chosen One?

Why…it’s because of the WORLD that we need to elect Obama! It’s OUR MOMENT…it’s OUR TIME as citizens of the world!

(Gag…sputter…cough!)

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:49 am 18. Charlie (Colorado):

Okay, so if we’re going to argue for Latin, let’s take it all the way and teach Sanskrit. It’s a root of all the European languages, it requires memorization, it stretches the mind with a new alphabet (loosely, devanagari is not strictly an alphabet), it has extensive and beautiful literature, and it prepares you to deal with a billion and a quarter people.

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:55 am 19. Kim Thurman:

Great article Mary. You hit this one out of the ballpark.

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:58 am 20. Javelin:

Are we still stuck on this again? I guess this is the daily Hate Obama screed.

Aug 3, 2008 - 11:27 am 21. Javelin:

Kim Thurman,
Wow, your metaphor is as off base as it is trite.

Aug 3, 2008 - 11:44 am 22. charles austin:

Closer to home, bilingualism is de rigueur in Canada, but does it inspire more division or unity there?

Aug 3, 2008 - 11:47 am 23. cubanbob:

Obama is a fool in the Orwellian sense.
Europeans need to learn various languages to get by in intra-European affairs. Americans have no such need. Superimpose a map of western Europe over a map of the continental United States. Americans can drive the distance from Portland Maine to Portland Oregon in one nation without having to speak more than one language. The same distance superimposed on a map of Europe is the distance from the North Atlantic coast of the UK past France and way beyond Moscow. How many languages are spoken in the points between? We do not have that problem.

Aug 3, 2008 - 11:52 am 24. M.:

I’m not necessarily arguing for Latin or other classical languages. As I said, we used it as a vehicle for improving our daughter’s English, both grammar and vocabulary. Latin in particular is certainly useful in the scientific fields as well, including medicine.

My point is that even professional communicators are deficient in their command of English. Every day I meet young people who are bright and hardworking, yet I know that these will be held back from achieving their potential because of their very poor English communication skills. They aren’t all Spanish speakers, bilingual, or even from a minority group. This is the shame of our public education system, and not the fact that they haven’t learned a second language.

I do not believe that my daughter’s education suffered because she didn’t study Spanish or another spoken language in high school. Her SAT scores will bear witness to this. She has chosen to study German in college. German may be very useful to her since she is a pianist and is pursuing a music major.

Aug 3, 2008 - 11:57 am 25. Jim in Marietta:

Several years ago I was talking with a German contractor at my workplace. He told me a story about his high school days. It seems that he was part of a French language class who made contact with a French high school class who were studying German. They decided to get together in a neutral place to practice on each other. When they did get together, they found that neither group could understand the attempts of the other to speak the language they were studying. They ended up being able to communicate only because they all knew English.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:05 pm 26. ZEITGEIST:

[...] MARY GRABAR on what’s wrong with language mandates. [...]

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:10 pm 27. LeatherPenguin » Speaking in Tongues:

[...] via WikipediaPajamas Media » Obama’s Language Mandate: Why It Feels Like Hungarian to Me Obama needs to be reminded that the United States is not in Europe. In a country this large, with a [...]

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:11 pm 28. NonVibrant:

Plenty of Czech grammars were written long before 1790, the date of Dobrovský’s (German-medium) “Lehrgebäude” – this was the 1st monument of the revival of the Czech language, which had been banned by the Austrians after their destruction of the Bohemian kingdom in 1618. In fact, dating to about 1290, Czech is the oldest literary Slavic language apart from “Old Slavonic” (really Old Bulgarian), which dates to the 900s; Polish in the 1300s and Slovenian in the 1700s were essentially following the Czech lead.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:20 pm 29. Self-hating boomer:

This really has less to do with languages than it does with this narcissist scolding the public. It’s right in there with telling us to inflate our tires. We haven’t had such a nanny running for president since Carter, and we all know how well that went over.

This is a sneak preview of what we can expect from an Obama administration. Better get used to being “told” by the POTUS.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:21 pm 30. Dr. Ellen:

I boiled over on this particular exhortation long before Obama. The local public radio had an Earnest Advocate explaining how hard it was on immigrants when their bosses did not speak their language. We all SHOULD become bilingual!

Hosanna! I cried. This is Minneapolis. We have sizable Hmong and Somali populations, substantial Hispanic, and more people than I’d like who speak only Ebonic.

Which should I learn first? And what will you say, kind Advocate, when I learn that tongue, then people from other groups come to me for hire and I shamefully cannot speak THEIR language? Where does it end?

The answer is the same as it is for all identity politics: it never ends. I say it’s broccoli, and I say to Hell with it.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:31 pm 31. Steve:

I agree Kim, this is a great article. And yes Javelin, a lot of people dislike Obama’s condescending attitude, like yours.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:41 pm 32. M. Simon:

Si se pudenda.

And please before you complain look up the meaning.

I think you will find the meaning combined with the slang understanding quite sexist.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:42 pm 33. rasqual:

I’m conservative, but I often find myself at variance with fellow-conservatives on account of my disdain for public schools (which my fellow conservatives sometimes share, so this gets interesting

We’re gringos in a community that’s about 96% Latino. Those who derive the most benefit when they come of age and begin work are bilingual. Just today I had a conversation with a Latino friend who has a remarkable opportunity on account of her bilingualism.

Latino kids emerge from the public schools bilingual. The gringo kids do not. If their parents wish them to be bilingual, they’ll have to pay for Spanish lessons (let’s not pretend that high school Spanish classes are as effective as K-12 instruction in English, which is what the Latino kids receive).

This is an inequity favoring Latin-speaking folks. It freaks me out a bit that my conservative English-only acquaintances fail to appreciate this, inasmuch as the market favoritism toward bilinguals — especially in heavily Latin areas — is pronounced and obvious.

Public schools are reinforcing this inequity with their emphasis on English rather than bilingualism. Ironically, this means that those who speak Spanish will end up with market advantages likely to reinforce the presence of Spanish in America as an important determinant of market advantage.

Alas, some of my acquaintances arrive at their policy preferences on this matter by way of bigotry, and I find it ironic that in their case especially, their chosen preference couldn’t be more counterproductive of the ends they’d prefer to see (English only, everywhere).

Meanwhile, in our high schools a “second language” is still being required as if this developmentally late, token nod in the direction of old-school liberal arts paradigms is worth anything at all — whether from a standpoint of genuine education or market practicality.

There are extreme views in this debate, but too rarely do I hear the complaint that bilingualism is an advantage that our public schools are visiting predominantly on Latinos, and too rarely on anyone else.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:45 pm 34. Chuck Pelto:

TO: Mary Grabar, et al.
RE: This Multi-Lingual Stuff Is ‘Stupid’

I say this because I’ve heard reports, from years ago, of people taking their children into an ER and having to explain to the attending physician what the problem was THROUGH A TRANSLATOR.

Furthermore, earlier, I saw an experiment in multi-lingualism in the Army fail before my very eyes. A young lieutenant who spoke mostly Spanish was assigned to my infantry battalion as a platoon leader.

He could not express himself well to his troops that he was supposed to lead in battle.

He was politely ‘relieved’ of his command because of that inability. The experiment was an abject failure.

What is the lesson to be learned?

Where it becomes a matter of life and/or death, ONE language is required to be understood by all.

Why do you think all air-traffic control language to manage aircraft flights is done in ONE language?

Obama and these other people who espouse multi-language are being ’stupid’.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[Stupid, adv., Ignorant and proud of it.]

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:45 pm 35. M. Simon:

Look up the meaning of puden da and tell me Spanish isn’t sexist.

Aug 3, 2008 - 12:46 pm 36. bc:

hic,hike,hoke
eram, eras, erat,
veni,vidi,vici

How’m I doin?

Aug 3, 2008 - 1:11 pm 37. Phineas Worthington:

The attack on English by the left has been going on since before the fad of multicultural bilingualism. In my life, it started with the radical feminism, then the political correctness asserting the inherent sexism and racism of English. Both seem rooted in similar forms of nihilistic hatred of America, the West in general, and our successes.

Aug 3, 2008 - 1:47 pm 38. efgoldman:

The bigger problem, hinted at by several posters and M. in particular, is English illiteracy.

Bless my 8th grade English teacher. Miss [not being politically incorrect - in those days it WAS "Miss"] McQuide. She knew I had gotten by on glibness and grades-ahead reading ability for years. She kept me after school for weeks, learning the parts of speech, correct usage, and diagramming sentences. No-one, anywhere, teaches diagramming sentences anymore. Drudgery? Sure. Did I hate her at the time and for some years after? Absolutely. Forty-five years later I write for a living. I don’t pretend to do anything particularly creative or artistic, but I represent the company who’s letterhead I use well and appropriately.

And no, I never took Latin, even though I am part of a generation in which it was almost universal.

Actually Obama is right for the wrong reason. Everyone *should* have three years of a foreign language (not necessarily Spanish) as part of a well-rounded education. But well-rounded education is gone along with diagramming sentences in English, and its a shame; also a larger issue for another post.

Aug 3, 2008 - 1:59 pm 39. Has Everyone Gone Nuts? (GM Roper):

Thank you JFP for the Foster link… What a hoot of a read that was.

Aug 3, 2008 - 2:05 pm 40. JPP:

Exactly right. Un-ending, mass, illegal immigration from Mexico is a form of invasion and Americans who don’t realize it, are either foolish or benefit financially in some way from this invasion.

No one is against, REASONABLE levels of legal immigration but illegal immigration and even mass, legal immigration are both growing problems that need to be reversed soon, else we will lose our country to Latinos and Muslims. Does that sound hateful and racist to you? I don’t hate an individual Latino nor Muslim but I do not want either of their cultures to become a major force in our nation. To those who love to speak Spanish and worship Allah, I say, stay in those nations that are Latino and Islamic.

Aug 3, 2008 - 2:58 pm 41. R. Rutherford:

Would anyone care to define “the English language”? Our vocabulary is twice the size of any other because we freely adopt from every other language and freely generate new words all the time. Much of what we read and hear nowadays would be incomprehensible to English speakers of 100 years ago — let alone the Founding Fathers.

The big difference for us from Europeans is that we live (at least I do) in a place where we can travel a thousand miles in any direction and always communicate in our native tongue.

Aug 3, 2008 - 2:59 pm 42. Jonathan Rubinstein:

Ms. Grabar’s comments are far too mild actually. The movement to teach English as a foreign language reinforced a predisposition among liberals to give African-Americans a pass as they sought to recover from a century of quasi-slavery. The perpetuation of their ridiculous ideas in the face of a plummeting of literacy in this country goes deeper than the weakening of our economy. IF we create a bilingual society, while the rest of the world is learning English, we will destroy the basis for a democratic Republic. We are creating classes of people to act as shepherds and interpreters, which means they are and will be set above others. It will not be possible over time to have a rule of law in the sense we have known in the past. We will create a new kind of imperial law which will sit above two distinct language communities. This is a true disaster in the making. Learning to read and write English must be made an effective requirement for permanent residence. If the public has to pay the bill for this, it will be well spend. But it is a necessity which needs to be imposed NOW.

Aug 3, 2008 - 3:01 pm 43. R Cooke:

I say it in jest, but where I live, the only reason to speak Spanish is to talk to the help.

Aug 3, 2008 - 3:24 pm 44. dirigible:

“I don’t pretend to do anything particularly creative or artistic, but I represent the company who’s letterhead I use well and appropriately.”

A typo, I trust. But you won’t be representing MY company.

_________________________

Gentlemen:

Get out of the Dark Ages. Take the time you spend mastering a foreign language, and learn some calculus instead. In my business, math is what separates the movers ‘n shakers from the audience.

Aug 3, 2008 - 3:28 pm 45. Vance:

The fact is that if you speak any other language than English, and then learn English, you can go practically anywhere in the world and communicate since it is the second language of choice nearly worldwide. So the motivation value is high and the rewards substantial, plus, many countries teach it to children at an age when they can soak up an extra language with ease.
I know French (from having grown up in Canada) but I’ve hardly used it for twenty years. I know Japanese, but it’s generally of little use outside Japan. For a Japanese person who learns English, it’s useful to them from Australia to Europe to South America–an excellent return on investment for the great difficulty involved in learning a second language. (If you’re one of those annoying people who can just “pick up” other languages in a couple of months, please go stick your head in a bucket of cold pudding. Thanks.)
So it’s not just the “dumb ugly American” stereotype at work here. It’s just that if you’re raised speaking English, one of the primary motivations for learning a second language is nullified.
Frankly, if I ever learn yet another language, it’s going to be Latin. Still in use after more than 2,000 years, language of the educated class and some of the world’s greatest writers for nearly all of those 2,000 years…and besides, old books in Latin are much cheaper than old books in English. I’d be a happy bibliophile.

Aug 3, 2008 - 3:29 pm 46. Javelin:

The whole theseis of this article is crap. No foreign power has conquered us and imposed Russification or Germanification on our students. Obama made some off the cuff remark that might have not been the smartest, but he hardly has a master plan to implement it, if any at all, AND THAT IS WHAT COUNTS. All this is the usual right wing character assassinating creeps have seized on something petty and turned it into something evil. I’m sorry, this article is garbage and if you disagree, then I can say that I only respect your right to have an opinion.

Aug 3, 2008 - 4:01 pm 47. Mexican Carlos:

WOW! The Author of this Article Completely Missed The point Obama was Trying to convey.

Obama is NOT saying to learn spanish to cater to illegals. He is merely saying Learn a DIFFERENT language to better yourself. It does not have to be spanish. Just another language that’s all.

See, this is the problem with republicans. They are a 1 issue party. Obama’s comments have nothing to do with illegal immigration, but self-improvement only. Leave it to narrow minded GOP sheep to turn it into an illegal immigration debate. The author of the post should do this site a favor, NEVER write an article again.

Aug 3, 2008 - 4:48 pm 48. Don Meaker:

Latin adds so much class to evil. “Neco es omnes, Dio se agnoscent.” See how nice it sounds?

I studied French in high school (near the Canadien border) Spanish in College, lived 4 years in Germany, and picked up Russian for business purposes.

The best textbooks for foreign languages? Asterix and Obelix, in your own language and the one you want to learn.

Aug 3, 2008 - 6:02 pm 49. Tony Donovan:

Some further comments on “learning” a foreign language:

If you “start learning” another language at the college level, forget it. It’ll always be a struggle for you. Exceedingly few will ever reach a reasonable level of SPOKEN fluency.

The time to really learn a language in a permanent way is as early as possible and certainly before the age of 13. After that age, I don’t know, something happens to the human brain that mitigates against eventual fluency.

(It is quite common for CHILDREN in Africa, for example, to be fluent in several languages before they’re 10 thanks to their environment.

And have you ever heard “President Mugabe of Rhodesia….I mean Zimbabwe… speak English? Flawless…but that’s because he was educated in a Jesuit school).

The Japanese are notorious for their seeming inability to pick up even simple phrases in another language especially with a passable accent. The Chinese, on the other hand, believe in their heart of hearts, that no
language exists OTHER THAN Chinese.

If one of the reasons for learning Latin is to “train” the mind, then English speaking students should really study Hungarian, which, as I’m sure Ms.Grabar knows, is exceedingly difficult for English speakers to acquire. It would “train” the mind far better than Latin.

Of course, if you really are adventurous, you should study one of the Native American languages such as Ojibwa or Sioux.

As a group, they are unimaginably difficult for ANYONE to acquire even minimally. Try Navajo grammar, for example. It is at least 1000 times more involved and more nuanced than anything found in the European continent – or even the Asian continent.

Aug 3, 2008 - 6:26 pm 50. Ed Wallis:

Oh, “Mexican Carlos” and “javelin,” you scamps! …you Obamatrons!

“Obama is NOT saying to learn spanish to cater to illegals. He is merely saying Learn a DIFFERENT language to better yourself. It does not have to be spanish. Just another language that’s all.

DUH, kiddo. Obama is NOT making “some off the cuff remark” or saying to learn spanish to cater to illegals, he is “merely saying it” to troll for votes. “(S)omething petty” and “Just another language that’s all” my posterior.

Aug 3, 2008 - 6:53 pm 51. Elizabeth:

Two reasons for bilingualism to be fairly low priority in the U.S.

#1: Worldwide, students learn their own language, and the world’s or the region’s lingua franca. Fine. In the U.S., children learn their native language, and the lingua franca — it just so happens that the two are one and the same.

#2: Learning a language takes time — hours out of the school day have to be devoted to instruction in the foreign language. Unless we increase the hours in the school day, or the days in the school year, children don’t have that time. Should English/reading lesson time be shortened? Math? Science? Already, new topics like computers/IT and multi-culti feel-good lessons take away lesson time — last year, my son had art for only half the year; the other half it was replaced by IT. As pitifully as American students perform, we can’t decrease instructional time in core subjects for something that’s simply optional, however nice.

I know, I’m preaching to the choir.

Aug 3, 2008 - 7:09 pm 52. Aaron:

The people who created a single currency to ease trade and assist travel want us to ditch our single language for multiple ones?

Aug 3, 2008 - 7:21 pm 53. newton:

Siento el informarte, Mexican Carlos, but we know exactly why Obama said it. He was not talking about self-improvement. He was insulting the intelligence of many Americans – including my German-learner husband, who said upon hearing about his quote, “He’s a jerk!” Barack Obama assumes that people don’t know what he means, but we weren’t born yesterday, as too many of his followers seem to be. Many people here have taken foreign language courses for one reason or another: I had to learn English to live here. And there are others who don’t have the language skill in them, no matter what language they try to learn. (Oh, I’ve seen them, too!) He didn’t have to insult their intelligence and think he could get away with it.

Besides, English is the global lingua franca It is the language of technology and commerce, the language of all classification societies in global maritime commerce, and the must-learn language for anyone who wants to do anything meaningful anywhere. Even on Spanish language TV, some of the longest-running advertisements are English language learning packages for adults and children. I never miss watching an ad for Inglés sin Barreras, for instance. Even the Hispanic population know the truth about life here: if you want to be somebody here, learn English!

One more thing: I know where Dr. Grabar comes from. I’m a native Puerto Rican. For many years after the Spanish-American War (1898), there was a strong popular resistance to the teaching and learning of English only in the public schools: the directives from Washington were to force students to learn it. Many were not happy with any overt plan by any American to impose English on the island by hook or by crook. The language issue was one of the reasons why the Nationalist movement was very strong in the island until the 1950s. It was not until a new governmental relationship with the United States was established in the island and a new industrial plan was implemented that people realized English was essential for modernization. A compromise was made: English for commerce and industry, and Spanish for cultural and identity preservation. It has worked well, so far. Nowadays, anyone who cannot speak English in Puerto Rico is S.O.L. when it comes to employment in just about any industry that requires it. And for those who have college degrees, have both languages tamed and come here to the Mainland, the job offers are endless.

Oh, BTW. Dr. Grabar has written here before, and I appreciate her candor for doing it. I venture to say she will do it again. ¡Te guste o no! (Like it or not!)

Aug 3, 2008 - 7:32 pm 54. Javelin:

he is “merely saying it” to troll for votes.
Okay I buy that. Then, so what’s the fuss? You all act like he wants rectal exams from all of us.

Aug 3, 2008 - 7:58 pm 55. miriam:

Just thought I would mention an interesting factoid: Benjamin Franklin didn’t think students needed to learn Latin and Greek, possibly because he never learned them. He did okay, though.

Aug 3, 2008 - 8:11 pm 56. Caped Crusader:

Mary you are off the mark again. I have found that travel in all 57 states is easier when one speaks Gaelic. Shame on you!

Aug 3, 2008 - 9:20 pm 57. Language-ism « The Rhetorican:

[...] Posted in Uncategorized by rhetorican on August 3rd, 2008 Mary Grabar makes a good point about the reality of mono-lingual America; and about Obama’s apparent [...]

Aug 3, 2008 - 9:40 pm 58. Diane:

I had a chance to visit Slovakia a couple of years ago, and found myself in the lovely Lake Bled area, staying at a five-star conference hotel. There were Italians, Germans, Israelis, Croats and yes, even Hungarians there. And do you know what language they uniformly used to communicate with the reception clerks, the waiters and cab drivers? Bingo. English. I even overheard a small group of businessmen leaving a meeting – all had heavy accents, but all had good command of English. This is the reality in Europe, and many other places too. A few years ago, my family was visiting the World Expo in Nagoya, Japan. Visitors from other Asian countries like China and South Korea were using English to get around! Didn’t hear much Spanish spoken.

BTW, I’d like to put in a plug for Hungarian – my own native tongue, though I don’t speak it as well as I would wish having emigrated to the U.S. at age 6. There are plenty of ethnic Hungarians living in Romania, Russia, Czech Republic, even Serbia, who have been forced to drop their native tongue out of expediency or political necessity, or both. A generation ago, Hungarian schoolchildren learned Russian and German as their second and third languages. Today, they study English — just like everyone else.

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:49 pm 59. Diane:

Sorry, I meant to write Slovenia, not Slovakia above.

Aug 3, 2008 - 10:59 pm 60. Edward Navarro:

I feel you misinterpret Obama’s speech, or perhaps distort its meaning so as to reach the conclusion you wish to make.

For example, his comment “It’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English….” you interpret as saying that ‘European’s multilingualism is a sign of intellectual superiority’. That’s a superficial interpretation that leaves out the all-important humor inherent in the original. There’s a vast difference between saying something jokingly, and proclaiming that something as an absolute truth. You’ve taken the former and interpreted as the latter.

Second example: “….you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish”. Here Obama is using a specific example to illustrate a general point, i.e., learning foreign languages is good. As a skilled orator, he chooses Spanish because it has particular resonance with Americans. Reading a marxist-socialist agenda into these words is a long stretch, to say the least!

Finally, you claim that “Obama is not imploring us to learn Spanish in order to read and discuss the works of Ortega y Gasset and Miguel de Cervantes, but to…[attend to quotidian concerns such as communicating with immigrants]“. Well, you’re never going to understand Miguel de Cervantes if you can’t understand your the person who cleans your house or office, and I, for one, would never discount the value of being able to communicate with another living human being.

Aug 4, 2008 - 1:13 am 61. Ed Wallis:

“Ed Nav…” though oyu write eloquently, your platitudes are as empty as those of The Obamboozler himself. Smoooooooooth, but unconvincing.

“Jav’s” indifference to “who cares if all he’s doing is trolling for votes?” reeks of his congenital moral equivalency.

Both of your arguments show a desire to wish something were as it were not, rather than as it is.

BOTH DELUSIONAL.

Aug 4, 2008 - 3:29 am 62. David:

I’m disappointed that Diane (above) didn’t point out that “Barack” is Hungarian for peach/apricot.

The problem with bilingualism is that of you are a non-English speaker then learning English will vastly increase your ability to access information and travel internationally. If you are already an English speaker, there is no obvious language to learn (unless you live in a non-English speaking country).

Aug 4, 2008 - 4:31 am 63. chuck,:

Spanish. Hungarian. Sanskrit. are all admirable languages, I’m sure, and other things being equal, your mind is better furnished by knowing them than by not. Still, they none of them can match the study of Latin for instilling the discipline of study, for developing reasoning powers, for acquainting us with the foundations of our Western Civilization (a four-letter word to the enemy), and for teaching sound morals. Flipping through my basic Latin textbook….On avarice: Semper avarus eget
On peace: Si vis pacem, para bellum…
On hard work: Labor omnia vicit….
On education: Officium sine litteris mors est…o
On courage in misfortune: Fortuna adversa virum magnae sapientiae non terret…

Obama doubtless picked up some Latin when he was the star and glory of shyster school, but clearly none of its benefits rubbed off.

Aug 4, 2008 - 5:52 am 64. MarkD:

The clueless one comes off like Barbra Streisand, scolding the peons for not air drying their clothes, while she files suit to prevent the peons from having access to her beach in front of her mansion.

I welcome the opportunity to express my opinion in November.

Aug 4, 2008 - 6:33 am 65. CR:

I learned Spanish 20 years ago while attending schools in South Florida. I can no longer speak Spanish because it did not come in handy. At the time, I was told by teachers and the media that speaking Spanish would be a valuable skill to have in our future economy. I was also told that learning the metric system was required because we would be using it, just like the rest of the world. Those people were wrong on both counts. I prefer metric because decimals are easier than fractions but I can do either equally well because it’s just math. Unfortunately, languages can’t be easily converted into numbers.

I currently do speak several languages, but not the ones you might expect. My knowledge of languages are of computer programming languages, all of which are based upon English. Perhaps I missed it, but I have yet to hear anyone making public calls for our children to be taught a computer language. We all depend on computers for a variety of daily tasks but hey, let’s learn Spanish instead of a far more valuable skill! If I want to understand a foreign language, I can simply write a program to translate it into English. This does not work for verbal communication but I don’t have a need or a desire to interact verbally with non-English speakers.

In my view, anyone who emigrates to America expecting their native language to be used publicly is asking for trouble. The same applies to English variants such as Ebonics, whatever that is. Some folks claim to want equal treatment in our system, but they go out of their way to show us how different they are under the guise of cultural heritage. I have always wondered why folks come to America at all if their native culture is so great. Why don’t they just stay home and revel in their culture?

Humans would be better off if we could communicate with each other using a single language. The energy we spend learning other languages, avoiding cultural mistakes, printing duplicate owner’s manuals, and writing computer translators would be better spent making the world a better place. How many trees were cut down to print 10 copies of the same large manual for my new router? The answer – nine more than should be necessary.

Aug 4, 2008 - 6:54 am 66. deguello:

The miracle mongering,scripted halfwit and affirmative action poster boy,delivered his Berlin speech in English , not German.It’s like that with all liberals;you learn spanish ; I don’t have to; you drive the econobox;I’ll keep my giant suv;You send your kids to be dumbed down in government schools;my brats go to private schools:ban guns;I’ll keep my posse of uzi toting security guards. Just another liberal hypocrite! Inc

Aug 4, 2008 - 6:57 am 67. John:

Shouldn’t our students learn ENGLISH first or maybe we should learn how to talk in da hood first.

Aug 4, 2008 - 7:05 am 68. CyaNeos:

You conservatives are so phony. Just reaching to find another bs voting issue that can be as effective as gay marriage in bringing out all of the redneck voters who suffer from Republican policies but vote for the republicans that scare by invoking that minorities are out to get them. And save your rebuttals I don’t take PJM commentary seriously.

Aug 4, 2008 - 7:25 am 69. Thiudareiks:

Couple of errors in the comments:

Sanskrit is not “the root of all European languages”, but a sister of other anciently attested European languages such as Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Church Slavic, Classical Armenian, etc.

Latin and French would be of little use in studying Old English, but German undoubtably would; Latin only in the fact that it is a highly inflected language, as is Old English.

Aug 4, 2008 - 7:55 am 70. John:

CyaNeos:
If you don’t take PJM commentary seriously then why are you commenting on it? Now I will refrain from further comments because I don’t take liberal commentary seriously. So why did I comment? Now I got a headache. Damn liberals.

Aug 4, 2008 - 8:09 am 71. SteveC:

I studied latin for four years, starting, appropriately enough, at the the Boston Latin School. Latin is a wonderful language with a rich literature and lively history. The letters of Cicero are as lively and meaningful as though written yesterday. Those who have not experienced this are truly robbed.

Beyond the obvious, Latin is the gateway to all modern romantic languages. It provides a base to understand other languages and is key to understanding much of the vocabulary of our own English.

Obama is a fool. Students today cannot even speak English. That should be primary. A second language is also important but not necessarily Spanish. Othello’s insistence on Spanish as a second language is merely an attempt to placate groups like La Raza and la Reconquista. It is a message to the illegals that he will open the doors of our country and ignore all existing immigration law. The bigger fool is the voter who doesn’t understand this

Aug 4, 2008 - 8:19 am 72. deguello:

CYaneos: Come up with an argument to refute those made by your opponents,instead of making allusions to ludicrous,patronizing libscreeds,like Frank’s “What’s Wrong with Kansas”?.Obama is a white Jimmy Carter on steroids;ie: a fool.Crying “racism” when someone disagrees with you,may work on the dying mainstream media;on the internet,it doesn’t cut the mustard.Try thinking sometime.

Aug 4, 2008 - 9:39 am 73. Jim:

“If you “start learning” another language at the college level, forget it. It’ll always be a struggle for you. Exceedingly few will ever reach a reasonable level of SPOKEN fluency.”

The military manages that, but we do have a failrly high failure rate.

People have cited three really good reasons to learna foreign language – rote-memory work, cognitive development and an ability to communicate in a useful langugae. Chinese hits all three buttons in a way none of the others mentioned does. There is a huge drudgery in Chinese of learning not only the cahracters but the vocabulary itself, since it doesn’t have any obvious structure. The grammar is superficially similar to English, but actually fundametally different. And the communicative value of Chinese is obvious.

For stretching a person cognitiveley the S’Kallam Salish they teach here in some schools is great, but pretty useless outside off the Olympic Peninsula. Spanish is too close to English to do that for you very well, and as for communcation, I’ll learn to cut my own lawn. For brute rote memorization, there are hundreds of thousands of obscure English words…………..

Aug 4, 2008 - 10:21 am 74. John:

Do you really think those so-called Spanish speakers crossing our borders at night speak classic Spanish? Not so fast there~! Most speak some colloquial dialect that is distinct to their village or region. Many cannot read proper Spanish at all.

The Spanish spoken in Mexico is not the same language spoken in the other Latin American countries. I speak pretty fair Tex-Mex since I live in south Texas, however when I encounter someone from, say, Guatemala, we can barely understand each other, if at all. Traveling further south compounds the problem. If a Spaniard arrives for the party, he has great difficulty with native Mexican Spanish speakers when he tries out his classic castillian on them. Usually resulting in snickers and blank stares.

Now, just what brand of Spanish does Obama want us to learn?

Aug 4, 2008 - 11:11 am 75. fiona:

Mary, what a terrific article!
Hope Obama reads it..

Aug 4, 2008 - 11:13 am 76. Paul From Hamburg:

newton: Spot on, mate. For a large portion of the world, the most important English sentence they will read is “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” As long as my American dollars are accepted around the world, I’ll just keep speaking English.

Mexican Carlos: If you are correct that Obama merely wants us to improve ourselves, and you think that is a fine idea, then you are displaying your own ignorance about the United States. How I choose to improve myself is my own business. No president, senator, or Chicago con man is entitled to tell me that my life would be better if I learned a new language.

Aug 4, 2008 - 11:49 am 77. John:

Paul From Hamburg
“How I choose to improve myself is my own business. No president, senator, or Chicago con man is entitled to tell me that my life would be better if I learned a new language.”

Well said, they, the government, need to concentrate on the economy, “war on terror”, out of control spending and the other things they are responsible for. I’ll take care of what I need to learn. We have enough government in our lives and wallet now.

Aug 4, 2008 - 12:48 pm 78. Akatsukami:

“You all act like he wants rectal exams from all of us.”

Damnit, javelin, get your euphemisms straight! That’s his universal health care plan

Aug 4, 2008 - 3:37 pm 79. deguello:

To Javelin and Carlos: Obama was pandering to get hispanic votes,just like any other sleazy politician.Rectal exams Javelin? What’s the matter, did you loose your mind and are trying to locate it?Under Obama,I’m sure you’ll get all the rectal exams you want,but I still doubt you’ll find your mind.At least you and mexican Carlos have finally confirmed the suspicions of many readers of this article, that you are both ojos de culo.

Aug 4, 2008 - 4:13 pm 80. sandra:

NOW we are clinging to our english language as well as our guns and religion-hey-BUDDY–we are clinging to our jobs and houses,get in touch with the REAL america or shut up for gods sake

Aug 4, 2008 - 11:21 pm 81. Night Owl:

“Humans would be better off if we could communicate with each other using a single language. The energy we spend learning other languages, avoiding cultural mistakes, printing duplicate owner’s manuals, and writing computer translators would be better spent making the world a better place.”

Well said. Printing things in multiple languages, time spent listening to voice menus in multiple languages, hiring translators, etc, all cost money. Economically one language makes more sense than many.

It should be obvious that if the world could speak in one tongue, all people would be able to truly understand each other, and maybe have a real shot at “coming together”, as the one-worlders like to gush about. Instead of fostering that concept, we have the elite pushing the “multicultural” agenda, that ultimately only serves to highlight our differences and unwittingly keep the old resentments and prejudices alive. It is a sad reality of human nature that we often distrust and fear that which is different.

The way I see it, the concept of multiculturalism (MC) can be used as an example of how out of touch the elite are from the lives of everyday Americans.

For the elite, MC is going to hear that educated foreign guest speaker at the University, the one with the charming accent and interesting outfit; and then going to have sushi at the latest “in” spot downtown. And when they return home to their gated community or doorman pre-war luxury high-rise, their kids can practice their French with the children of a diplomat from some exotic locale, who speak English better than they do.

For the average guy or gal, MC is driving home from a business trip a few states over, and having your car beak down in a strange neighborhood, where everyone is talking rapid fire in a language you don’t understand. And some guys in the back keep shaking their heads and laughing disturbingly, every time you ask the mechanic to please explain more slowly what’s wrong, and how much it will cost to fix.

Aug 5, 2008 - 1:03 am 82. Thomass:

el gordo:

“Obama didn´t get the point: there is no “English-only” movement.”

Or we are all missing the point. J. Goldberg argued it was a misdirection game. I agree. He changed the subject on us by bringing up another one that had the word ‘language’ in it… but no logical connection to the first topic.

He gave the example so switching in ‘math’ (instead of second language) to see his point. Example, we don’t need to worry about them learning English, we need to worry about us learning ‘math’. No logical connection. But, not really any different than switching the subject to us learning foreign languages… from the real issue of our concern about immigrants learning English.

Aug 5, 2008 - 2:16 pm 83. JayM:

M.:
Aug 3, 2008 – 10:19 am
——————————-
It makes me grind my teeth everytime Hack Obama improperly uses the objective case rather than the possessive case with a gerund as in “me being…” instead of “my being…”

Aug 5, 2008 - 5:27 pm 84. Mexican Carlos:

Oh DeGuello, You become more and more irrelevant everytime I see you. I didn’t,”loose” my mind deguello, It imploded trying to decipher your butchering of the English language. Your Broken English hurts my eyes. El Unico “Ojo de culo” es uste,Imbecil. Aprende hablar ingles, te miras como pendejo.

Aug 5, 2008 - 5:51 pm 85. Mladen:

From my own experience (English is my second language) I could say that knowing two or more languages helps not only in communication but in looking on problems from different angles.

Now, which language to pick? As I see it, in worldwide acceptance English is by far first with Mandarin Chinese and Spanish on second and third place. And I heard Mandarin is not the easiest one to learn. At least not for person with some European language background.

From the worldwide usage point, in the second tier would be languages like German, Russian, Arabic, French or Latin (and some other too) which are widely known in more then one country.

Or you could pick language if you feel affinity to culture of that nation… If you ever go to visit relatives in Old Country, they will be happy to chat with you. And remember, you cannot take for granted that everyone is fluent in English.

Aug 6, 2008 - 1:46 am 86. deguello:

Carlos: Your mind imploded several years ago,when the doctors told you that your syphillis had reached the tertiary stage.

Aug 6, 2008 - 2:20 pm 87. Obama Shirts:

How about our English language is a part of our culture. Do we need to lose our language and our culture? I think hardliners want one language and not multiple to keep our ties to the way things were. Look at all the Asian dialects such as hmong, mien, etc and how they are dieing. The same could happen to English if we aren’t careful.

Aug 7, 2008 - 11:01 am 88. Pajamas Media » Dear NBC Olympics Anchors: A Little Patriotism Wouldn’t Kill You…:

[...] NBC reportage brings to mind the tone of Barack Obama, whose take on ignorant Americans not knowing languages has been debunked this Olympics. Kobe Bryant was doing interviews over in [...]

Aug 20, 2008 - 8:31 am 89. collegekid:

I agree, kids can barely speak proper English these days, let alone learn a foreign language. I owe a lot to my 6th grade teacher who forced us to diagram sentences EVERY SINGLE DAY. No doubt, I hated the guy, but I still seem to know more about sentence structure and grammar than English majors (I’m a biochem major, math minor). ALSO, the American educational system completely fails at teaching students math. I admit, even after taking Calculus I, II, III, linear algebra, etc. I STILL rely on my calculator for simple algebra.

Apr 7, 2009 - 2:39 pm 90. collegekid:

**I meant ARITHMETIC, not algebra.

Apr 7, 2009 - 2:41 pm

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