Speak English! Options

[radhikaeatsraman]

Okay, here's the deal. Hosing (known as Hosing Yu in chat) works in retail twice a week. He will sometimes get customers who don't know English or even bother trying to speak it. It gets him pretty annoyed, and I can see where he's coming from. Yen, on the other hand, believes we shouldn't be angry or irritated with these people and try to be understanding.

I believe that while in the United States, you should at least make the effort to speak English, even if it's not the best. If you don't want to do that, stick with someone who can speak it. Don't go up to people expecting them to speak whatever language. Yes, this is the US, and yes, there are many different cultures here, but there is one language that unites us; that language is ENGLISH. I wish some people would just realize that.

[Gigi]

Are you talking about immigrants or tourists?

Because if that's expected for tourists, I don't think that's exactly fair. I'm sure the average tourist with an average intelligence understands that knowing the country's official languages and speaking them would be much more convenient and efficient than waving their arms around or pointing at stuff. If they had a choice, they would use English. Most people simply can't use it effectively, so why even try? Unintelligible English is just as bad as no English at all.

As for immigrants, I think they should attempt to speak English, especially in the United States. I can understand new immigrants not speaking English or French in Canada, considering we have a multicultural policy over here which encourages people to retain their respective unique cultures, but the U.S. is different, more of a "melting pot" of cultures. However, it's still required you know how to speak English and/or French before they accept you into Canada, so I suppose it wouldn't be much different.