Members Funkee1 Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 I have recently discovered that, here in California, anyway, there are a huge number of people who are immigrants, but who have mastered two languages, but neither of them is English! I know several people now who are from China or Korea, who are fluent in Spanish, and several Hispanics who speak mandarin or Korean. What gives with that? Aren't the Asian languages very different than latin based ones? How does this work??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rummy Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 My guess is that all these immigrants are forced to work manual labor since they can't speak the language very well. And, well, from what I've seen (at least in Chicago), there is a lot of Spanish speaking people working those jobs as well. In order for them to communicate, they have to find some sort of common ground, and well, I guess Spanish is one of them. I remember when Ichiro first came to the States, Piniella spoke to him in Spanish, because they both spoke it. I'm Korean, and I only speak Korean and English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Funkee1 Posted August 6, 2007 Author Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 My guess is that all these immigrants are forced to work manual labor since they can't speak the language very well. And, well, from what I've seen (at least in Chicago), there is a lot of Spanish speaking people working those jobs as well. In order for them to communicate, they have to find some sort of common ground, and well, I guess Spanish is one of them.I remember when Ichiro first came to the States, Piniella spoke to him in Spanish, because they both spoke it.I'm Korean, and I only speak Korean and English.I just think it's amazing. So0me people think Immigrants are stupid, but to me it seems like a sign of intellegence to be able to master two very different languages. Still, it makes me wonder........why not English? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pugflop Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 I have recently discovered that, here in California, anyway, there are a huge number of people who are immigrants, but who have mastered two languages, but neither of them is English!I know several people now who are from China or Korea, who are fluent in Spanish, and several Hispanics who speak mandarin or Korean. What gives with that? Aren't the Asian languages very different than latin based ones? How does this work??? English isn't Latin based in the traditional meaning of the phrase. I imagine the Asian languages are radically different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Funkee1 Posted August 6, 2007 Author Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 English isn't Latin based in the traditional meaning of the phrase. I imagine the Asian languages are radically different. I know. I was referring to Spanish as Latin based. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BEAD Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 Maybe they have more motivation to take part in the spanish/korean sector of californian community than the english speaking one. Or, maybe it's just so much easier to get someone to translate into english that it's not a high priority. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rummy Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 Oh, and I think the language Fillipinos speak (tagalog?) is supposed to be very similiar to Spanish. So, there's one connection between Asians and Spanish. I don't know why they won't learn English first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pugflop Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 I know. I was referring to Spanish as Latin based. Oh, my bad. Here they tend to learn English, but it sucks. Unintelligible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BEAD Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 English isn't Latin based in the traditional meaning of the phrase. I imagine the Asian languages are radically different. Pugflop! long time no see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members RockBass Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 Maybe the two languages share a lot of the same rules, like gendering nouns, etc.? English is one of the hardest languages to learn, because it's such a mutt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Basdyret Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 Maybe the two languages share a lot of the same rules, like gendering nouns, etc.? English is one of the hardest languages to learn, because it's such a mutt. Nope, the Chinese language doesn't have genders, and as it gramatically is an isolating language, it has nothing in common with latin grammar based languages as Spanish, French, Italian, etc. English is a mix of Old Germanic/Old Nordic and Latin based languages, which is why you have all those cow/beef, sheep/mutton, deer/veal wordpairs, for instance. Not that it has anything to do with the Chinese-Spanish comparison... I can assure you that the reason you find people speaking Mandarin and Spanish but not English is found in their communities and daily lives, not in the languages themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Pugflop Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 Pugflop! long time no see. Hey hey! Yes it has been. I've been spending most of my time at ebassist and neglecting HCBF for quite a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jateca Posted August 6, 2007 Members Share Posted August 6, 2007 ...all those cow/beef, sheep/mutton, deer/veal wordpairs... Isn't it Deer/Venison? Anyway weird thing happened to me in Beijing last year. Was stepping outside my hostel and a local fella comes up and starts speaking spanish to me. I'm pretty dark looking so he though I was hispanic. He didn't speak a word of English and I spoke even less mandarin, but we sat off for a bit having a conversation with my broken, pidgeon spanish. That's not really relevant, but just showed me how small a world it is. Actually, thinking about it, in a lot of places people are bilingual as the norm (catalonia in spain for example) it's just cos english is the international language that we can get away with being lazy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Basdyret Posted August 7, 2007 Members Share Posted August 7, 2007 Isn't it Deer/Venison? Anyway weird thing happened to me in Beijing last year. Was stepping outside my hostel and a local fella comes up and starts speaking spanish to me. I'm pretty dark looking so he though I was hispanic. He didn't speak a word of English and I spoke even less mandarin, but we sat off for a bit having a conversation with my broken, pidgeon spanish. That's not really relevant, but just showed me how small a world it is. Actually, thinking about it, in a lot of places people are bilingual as the norm (catalonia in spain for example) it's just cos english is the international language that we can get away with being lazy Hey, you're right - I was a bit too fast with the wordpairs there...! Of course it's calf/veal and deer/venison I'm fluent in Mandarin, so I never heard Chinese people speak anything but that and poor English, which they take any opportunity to try out with us foreigners, but I did notice that they sometimes take a French name for their "foreign name" (did you ever notice that they all call themselves something like "Flora", "Angel" or "Marc"??). They all think that those are common English names, for some reason. I once tried giving a group of first graders in a Chinese primary school English names that sounded like their Chinese names, but their teacher thought that was really strange and decided to distribute the names randomly instead. Oh well, another OT story... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Kindness Posted August 7, 2007 Moderators Share Posted August 7, 2007 I can assure you that the reason you find people speaking Mandarin and Spanish but not English is found in their communities and daily lives, not in the languages themselves. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jateca Posted August 8, 2007 Members Share Posted August 8, 2007 Hey, you're right - I was a bit too fast with the wordpairs there...! Of course it's calf/veal and deer/venison I'm fluent in Mandarin, so I never heard Chinese people speak anything but that and poor English, which they take any opportunity to try out with us foreigners, but I did notice that they sometimes take a French name for their "foreign name" (did you ever notice that they all call themselves something like "Flora", "Angel" or "Marc"??). They all think that those are common English names, for some reason. I once tried giving a group of first graders in a Chinese primary school English names that sounded like their Chinese names, but their teacher thought that was really strange and decided to distribute the names randomly instead. Oh well, another OT story... Fluent in Mandarin? Very impressive, I couldn't even get past basic vocabulary, and I doubt I was pronouncing that right anyway! Couldn't get my head round the 4 tones thing. There are a few odd names, but most were pretty usual, Tom, Annie etc. Pure speculation, but while I was there I noticed that a fair few things from Western culture that have infiltrated the native Chinese culture have gotten a bit skewed in translation, so to speak. For some reason, everywhere I went a chinese-language version of 'Auld Lang Sine' was being played on the radio. Very surreal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Keithrt99 Posted August 8, 2007 Members Share Posted August 8, 2007 I'm fluent in Mandarin, so I never heard Chinese people speak anything but that and poor English, which they take any opportunity to try out with us foreigners, but I did notice that they sometimes take a French name for their "foreign name" (did you ever notice that they all call themselves something like "Flora", "Angel" or "Marc"??). They all think that those are common English names, for some reason. i think it's acutally more like: Tony, alan, paul, frankie, jeff, bobby. every chinese person i meat who has an "american name" has one of those. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mmb Posted August 8, 2007 Members Share Posted August 8, 2007 I didn't think black people could be classified as bigots. Isn't that just for reserved for WASPs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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