Mister Scratch wrote:Well said, Tarski. I have never really understood why so many people (I.e., white Americans) whine about not understanding Spanish, or whatever other language. The U.S. is the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world, and yet why is it that the average, very low income Mexican immigrant has a better grasp of two language than 99% of white Americans? The complaint should not be that the "Others" speak a different language, the complaint should be that Americans are too lazy/dumb/racist/xenophobic to put in the time learning other languages.
I don't think this is entirely true. At least, not in all cases. Of course immigrants eventually learn the language, but it is usually the second generation that does. My wife's family, for example. Her Uncle has been living in Utah for more than a decade, and he still cannot maintain a coherent conversation with me in English. The Brazilians in our family have a tendency to form enclaves and stick together whenever migrating abroad. The same is true in Orlando, where an entire section of the city seems like Brazil.
Sure, Americans are lazy, but no more so than citizens of most other countries, especially Brazil and Mexico! I feel like I am on vacation down here, even though I work two jobs. It seems like every other day is a freakin holiday, which we get paid for, and we get two hours for lunch every day. Also, the government has made it virtually impossible for companies to fire anyone. Seriously. If you get fired from a salaried job, they have to keep paying you unless they can prove you stole from them or something to that effect.
Oh, and everyone receives an extra month's pay at the end of the year. Most government jobs in Brasilia receive two month's pay. The result is that people get paid too much for doing too little and once they get a job they don't try to maintain it. They don't need to because they can't get fired. So customer service in this country is the pits.
And people here go on strike all the flippin time and while they are on strike the government makes the companies continue to pay them. I work at Banco Central where a strike just ended after 9 weeks or protest. Their gripe was that they wanted more money. The Bank offered a 34% increase and the people rejected it because it would go into effect at the beginning of next year. A freaking 34% increase!!! So after another 10 days they gave them what they wanted and the increase took effect immediately. This is an annual event too. Every year every company experiences a strike.
To understand the insanity of this process, take this analogy. A man who mows grass for a living comes up to your lawn and says he will cut your grass for 50 bucks. Five other people are fighting for the job and offer to do it for less. You decide to go with someone who does it for 35 bucks. So after making the employment contract, you expect the man to do his job. But half way through his work he decides he wants to charge you 60 bucks instead. By law, he does not have to finish his work, and you have to pay him the 35. The only way to get him to finish legally is to pay him his desired increase. This idiotic legislation has created a society of con-artists who know how to work the system.
There are English schools around every corner, but few actually learn the language. The only ones who speak it sufficiently are those who lived in an English speaking country for some time. Incidentally, I lived in Spain while on my mission, and it was very hard to find someone who could speak English. I know that is different in other European countries like France and especially Switzerland. But the Spaniards were far more intolerant towards the "Gypsy" Morroccans than Americans have ever been towards illegal immigrants from Mexico.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein