Thread: Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English

Quote:
Furthermore if you ever call customer service and the representative tries to pass a heavy indian accent for english, please don't waste your productive time and just toss the malfunctioning product in the garbage - no need to purchase products from the same company in the future.
I went through those years and came out living simpler and happier




I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS DEBATE. I THOUGHT ONCE THEY PASSED YOU ON TO THE GUY IN INDIA IT WAS CODE THAT YOU HAD TO THROW THE PRODUCT AWAY AND NEVER BUY FROM THAT COMPANY AGAIN. HAS ANYONE ACTUALLY GOTTEN SOMETHING FIXED ONCE YOU GOT DIVERTED TO INDIA? IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? i THINK A GUY IN INDIA ACTUALLY MANAGED TO NUKE MY CABLE BY REMOTE SOMEHOW BY AUTHORIZING THE WRONG PULSE - SOMEHOW I FEEL THAT SHOULD BE BANNED BY AN INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSLE TREATY OR SOMETHING. AND THEN THERE WAS THE GUY IN INDIA THAT REFUSED TO CORRECT MY ADDRESS FOR A PENDING DELIVERY EVEN WHEN WE SHOWED THEM THE EMAILS WE SENT GIVING THEM THE RIGHT ADDRESS AND FURTHER EMAILS NOTING THEY'D TRANSCRIBED IT WRONG. AND THEY HAD SOME REASON.....LIKE THEY AREN'T RESPONSIBLE FOR GETTING OUR ADDRESS WRONG BUT WILL SEND A NEW PRODUCT TO THE WRONG ADDRESS AGAIN IF IT DOESN'T GET TO THE RIGHT ADDRESS THE FIRST TIME THEY SENT IT TO THE WRONG ADDRESS.

Originally Posted by loueedacat

I THOUGHT ONCE THEY PASSED YOU ON TO THE GUY IN INDIA IT WAS CODE THAT YOU HAD TO THROW THE PRODUCT AWAY AND NEVER BUY FROM THAT COMPANY AGAIN...?

I have a confession to make. Has anyone else received a phone call from an undesired caller before and pretended to be Indian in order to get out of the phone conversation? I do this on occasion at home when soliciters call me, but I've done it at work once or twice too. "Hang on let me connect you to our customer service department. (put caller on hold and then resume with Eastern accent) Heddo dis is Parjeeb, hah meh A hep you?" and then just string them along for the ride in circular broken-English discussions haha

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

I have a confession to make. Has anyone else received a phone call from an undesired caller before and pretended to be Indian in order to get out of the phone conversation? I do this on occasion at home when soliciters call me, but I've done it at work once or twice too. "Hang on let me connect you to our customer service department. (put caller on hold and then resume with Eastern accent) Heddo dis is Parjeeb, hah meh A hep you?" and then just string them along for the ride in circular broken-English discussions haha

That's awesome

I'll sometimes use a little Spanish, but anymore people know it. I'll have to work on my "Indian" accent

my 2c:
I live in Texas, and as a result, was forced (against my will) to take 3 years of spanish when I was in high school. consequently, although my accent esta muy malo, entiendo mas (muy mas) que hablo. I personally don't care if someone speaks english well or not, as long as they can make themselves understood. I think we all know of a certain inner-city dialect that is technically english (if only in the loosest sense) but I find much harder to understand than spanish, which is not my native tongue.

when dealing with other people (especially back when i worked as a waiter) I would communicate based on attitude. if they came in speaking spanish and acting entitled and refusing to even try to speak english, i would pretend i didn't understand, screw their order up, etc. if they made an honest attempt to communicate, i would speak spanish to them. same goes for "english" speaking types. if they rolled into the restaraunt speaking that peculiar dialect that eschews the use of pronouns and consonents, i would flatly refuse to understand them. invariably, they would switch back to normal english if they wanted their orders right.

Originally Posted by jockeys

if they rolled into the restaraunt speaking that peculiar dialect that eschews the use of pronouns and consonents, i would flatly refuse to understand them. invariably, they would switch back to normal english if they wanted their orders right.

Funny how that works out, isn't it? I once had a gentleman come in speaking that very dialect who needed to talk to my supervisor. Once he was done with his speel, my boss goes "I didn't understand a word of that, but based on what I know, you're not getting [the thing he wanted]." Let's just say he didn't use that dialect with her any more. On this topic, I will say this one word: Airplane

All I ask is that people try. When I visit your country, I'll do my damndest to try to be passable with at least the essentials.

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

All I ask is that people try. When I visit your country, I'll do my damndest to try to be passable with at least the essentials.

Common courtesy is what I would hope for also!

Originally Posted by Quick Orange

On this topic, I will say this one word: Airplane.

The gentleman says he will have the fish.

I don't know that I agree that all citizens or residents should be required to be "fluent" in English, but they certainly need to know enough to get by in society. Whatever that level of involvment may be. For example, I've pretty much given up on ever going to a gas station for directions. 99% of the time, the person working there doesn't speak enough English.

Now, what really drives me crazy is when newcomers not only refuse to learn the language, but then expect everyone else to accomodate this. The fact that we have instructions to vote or get a driver's license in other languages is infuriating.

For those of us who had ancestors come here speaking other languages, I think most of them did what they had to do to earn a living. But if you told them that the state was going to teach their children in Italian or in German or in Chinese, I think they would have gone through the roof. They wanted their kids to "melt" in with society and they knew they needed to speak English to get ahead - to be "American". That's what we're losing these days.

Jordan

How can you make it a law for an immigrant to read English when it isn't the law that a natural citizen read English, or read at all for that matter?

Originally Posted by jockeys

The gentleman says he will have the fish.

Butter it up and drag 'em through the garden.