English only? What's your opinion?

Question

I just recently read the article on Female Golfing requiring English, and was reminded of Nashville's (I believe it was Nashville) petition to make sure that communication agents (it was something like this) speak only english. I personally think that English should not be forced upon people. It is a complicated language to learn for people who are not native english speakers also. So my question is...what do you think? Is there an alternative?

Answer 1

people who live in the US should be able to speak and understand English.  if they can't or won't learn it, they don't need to come here.  I work at a public library and don't want to have to learn Spanish and French and sign language to help the patrons.  I have had to use all 3 at one time or another to communicate.  Only the hearing impaired have a good reason not to be able to talk to me.  

Answer 2

**** english.

Answer 3

I'm not an American but before I came here, I learned English.  Why should immigrants refuse to learn the language of the country they're going to? If they don't want to learn English, they should go back to where they came from. I agree that English shouldn't be forced on non-native English speakers but those people should be prepared to miss out on a lot of things.  

Answer 4

sorry i reallyy dont know y name is lyndsey whats urs?

do u know anything on order of operations

Answer 5

I don't really think it's necessary.  It is practically impossible for someone to become very successful in America and not know English, so there is no need to force it on people.  It is very possible, on the other hand, for a monolingual English speaker to become successful and get around life easily.  English is already the default language in most social situations in America; if some businesses want to use other languages to increase their consumer base, what does it harm anybody else?

The other thing I don't like about English only is that some of the policies affect education in Native American languages, which are already endangered.  Native Americans have already experienced so much oppression against their cultures, and I think that they should be allowed to use their schools to pass down their language and culture to the next generation.

Answer 6

Well I think that in order to live in the US people need to know alteast enough English to get aound. It will help them greatly! I also dont think its a bad idea for Americans to learn Spanish or other languages but we're too lazy it seems. We expect it to be English all the time wherever to go but get mad when people come here and speack Spanish.

Answer 7

No one is forcing people to learn English UNLESS they want to participate in events or live and work in English-speaking countries. Everyone is free to stay in their own country and speak their own language.  

Answer 8

For me it's simple. Learn at least the primary language of the country you want to live in. It's not too hard; I've been studying German for the last two years. Why? Because I want to live in Germany or Austria. I could of course get by with just English, but why put the burden on others? This seems a bit rude to me, so I'm doing my best to work at my fluency. I also started to teach myself Swedish recently; I have a strange urge to visit/reside in Sweden as well :)  

Answer 9

I second your opinion that English shouldn't be forced upon people just because it's the world's #1 language. Sadly, I noticed there are a lot of native speakers with zero tolerance towards other languages. I can't understand why it's over-glorified.  

Answer 10

I have no comment to make,as I donot live in the USA.However,it strikes me as ironic that a specification should be that "communication agents" should be able to communicate in only a limited manner...