I have always tried to keep politics off of here but I've added a new category and I am going to start discussing the things that matter to me. As I get older, I find myself more in touch with the goings on around the world. Things such as Newt Gingrich shooting off his mouth about our country being bilingual.
"The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," Gingrich said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.
Ghetto talk??? Ohhhhh what an asshole. I know a lot of immigrants through my job. My coworker is Chinese. She's not from a ghetto and she learned our language as quickly as she could. I've worked with Russians, Swedes, Pakistanis, Indians, etc. and none of them are from a ghetto. They are well educated, hard working people who come here, learn our language as soon as they can, and the thing that idiot overlooks... they contribute greatly to our economy.
If immigrants come here to contribute to our society, they shouldn't be allowed to transition into learning our language? I wish someone would throw that pompous ass on a plane and drop him where they speak only Urdu.
I think of when Eva went to Brazil not knowing the language and how she cried a lot her first weeks as she learned it. I know I was beyond frustrated when I would call her and her host family would answer the phone. They even pronounced her name differently with a very strong accent so every conversation went off the rails quickly. If they didn't put her right on the phone, I knew she wasn't home but I had no idea what they did say. That got kind of scary a few times when she hadn't been in touch with anyone for several days.
In closing, while reading a little about english as a second language, I found this site which would be quite helpful to those learning our language.