Austria goes "German Only" (page 2)

LDH

Hey Adam I live in California so I *do* hear you.

But do you complain about the shitty customer service you get from the little teenage American assholes?

If you are really having THAT many problems at the drive thru, cut back on the fast food or say "MANAGER" in LOUD English, LOL.

Why not hire an English speaking crew to do the landscaping? If your girlfriend lives in an apartment and the management don't speaky no English she lives on the wrong side of the tracks, IMHO.

The best jobs are found through networking, not the local newspaper. If you wanna keep the leg up that speaking perfect English gives you, join a service organization like Rotary or something. There are a MILLION valid business contacts there, all of whom would LOVE to have an honenst dependable hard-working ENGLISH speaking employee.

Speaking of it being 'your own neighborhood,' are you living in the same city where you were born or have you moved?

We Americans are spoiled rotten and we need to give the have-nots a break. They would love to speak English. Like I said, go to an Adult Education class and you will SEE that these 'people' want to speak English.

Some nationalities have a VERY hard time getting rid of their accents when learning English. Well, I was raised in Upstate NY and everytime I made a yearly trip down south, I'll be damned if it wasn't like they were speaking another language! I couldn't understand *THEM* anymore than I can understand some Cambodian kid working at Burger King.

Crikey, if they weren't working you'd have something else to bitch about!

Love,
Lisa

fodeja

Your headline is very misleading -- the proposed law cannot be considered a move towards "German only" in any way. There are still three official languages in Austria, as guaranteed by constitutional law. There are still bilingual road signs in certain parts of the country, bilingual schools, bilingual forms for all sorts of government business. This won't change. It shouldn't, as it's a fundamental part of the country's cultural heritage. Just like Italy shouldn't move to "Italian only", or -- as more extreme examples -- Switzerland to "Swiss German only", or Belgium to "French only". It wouldn't make sense at all. You might as well restrict American sports to baseball only.

The mentioned proposal just means that foreigners applying for citizenship should have a basic knowledge of the predominant official language in Austria, and that they will have to pass exams proving that. I think that's generally a fine idea, although the proposed implementation hasn't been well thought-out. For instance: if you've come to the country as a refugee, you probably didn't bring your savings account with you. As a refugee (or someone applying for that status - it can take years until things are decided), you are not allowed to work. So, if you like to stay and apply for citizenship: how are you supposed to pay for the language course? You'll have to depend on handouts -- which, of course, means that some right-wing idiots will blame you for exactly that.

f.

Adam

fodeja, pardon me for my misleading headline. I do not presume to know half as much about Austria as you seem to. In my defense I was simply using an article posted on another board as a segway into my support for a similar law here and my idea of free English classes to facilitate its implimentation. Incidentaly, the classes I suggest would, in this country, solve the problem of funding you mention in your second paragraph.

LDH, how's this? "Donday esta too pinchay manager, too pobre mohatho suseo? Esta is Ustados Uneedos, abla Englayz maricon." Think they'd spit in my food?

Princess

My husband took our five year old to Baskin Robbins for ice cream the other night. This particular one is owned/operated by Asians. The woman couldn't understand his ice cream order. He was really disappointed that such a fun outing became frustrating because the owner of this store didn't speak the language of her customers. He said she was nice at least, the last Baskin Robbins he went to the people were rude. We should at least have a law that to own a business you must speak the language of your customers, but I do agree with you Adam.

Princess

voltaire

Adam. I must confess that beyond about 20 words my German gets to be pretty well maxed out. I assume you have insisted that I am ' in fact, a dolt. Since I can't really be sure what you said I'll go with the tried-and true

ICH BIN RUBBER UND SIE SIND GLUE, EVERYTHING SIE SPACHEN BOUNCES OFF ME AND STICKS TO YOU!

Adam

Voltaire, I actualy know less German than you. I used a language translation site. Check the link below. I said something to the effect of "Voltaire, you dolt, you will never kick me out, NEVER! I will move powerful, unseen forces against you and force your relocation." and translated it to German, then used copy and paste. However, just now when I tried to reverse the process and put the posted German sentence back into English, it translated "Voltaire, form you dolt, you me for vacation never, NEVER! I shift the efficient, invisable forces against you and force your shift." Guess it's not 100% accurate. But it's fun!

http://www.systranbox.com/systran/box

expatbrit

<------Looking forward to meeting Americans who speak satisfactory English.

Expatbrit, snobby Limey class

Adam

Expatbrit, would you like a spot of tea with your crumpets?

expatbrit

Ooooooooh lovely!

Expatbrit

LDH

Well, I'll propose a unique solution. How about we pass a law that says that all Americans who can't speak the languange of ANY of the First Nations have to go back to their original country, too?

That way, only the peoples that were Native to this country will be here, and that sounds more than fair to me.

You guys are just feeling 'threatened'---a not unusual reaction---and you want to blame it on the non-English speaking.

If any of you want to read the *real* facts and figures, click on the below link to the US Dept of Education. I've done the trouble of research for you on the following topic:

English Literacy and Language Minorities in the United States

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2001464

The report provides an in-depth look at adult residents of the United States who were either born in other countries or were born in the United States but spoke a language other than English as young children. The report explores the English fluency and literacy of this population, their fluency and literacy in their native languages, and their employment patterns and earnings.

A direct quote from page 105 states : Non-English speakers were no more likely to be unemployed than English monolinguals.

So, according to what some of you guys are stating, these poor bastards are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Case in point:

Adam complains that he 'can't understand them at the drive-thru'; Princess complains her daughter couldn't even have fun at Baskin Robbins because 'the owner of the store didn't speak the language of the customers.' (Does this mean Asians don't buy ice cream at Baskin Robbins?)

OTOH, LB opines that

I personally would like to move to Fiji, have the goverment support me and give me a place to live all the while making certain everything is printed in English so I won't get confused

.

So either way, all you guys want to do is bitch and moan. If they're employed "you can't understand them" and if they're not employed "why should you have to pay for them to learn English?" Especially when the ones who KNOW English are hard to understand anyway because they still have an accent.

Screw it, let's shoot 'em all.

Lisa
Who has seen *more* than her fair share of misspellings, poor syntax etc committed by Americans on this forum.

Austria goes "German Only"

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