Canada Day!

[ms_interpret]

Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians. I got thinking about Canada Day, patriotism, and national anthems this morning, and I have a few things running through my head that I"m going to try to get down coherently. Don't expect much

Comments

[sunnydale47]

the least they can do is learn basic words and contribute to society

How can you equate one with the other? People who don't speak the language may be quite productive and making an important contribution to society. By the same token, there are plenty of native speakers who are contributing zilch and just taking. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

If I moved to another country, you'd better believe I would learn the language (and I actually did do this)!

It's very nice that you had the resources and educational background to learn the language of the other country. It's also a lot easier to learn if you actually have a chance to practice. I daresay if you had been living in an area where you never heard any language but English, you would have found it difficult or impossible to learn the host country's language.

You can't compare your experience with that of an immigrant who lives in a homogeneous community of other immigrants from their former country, who may have had little education in their home country, and who have no way to learn the new language. It's apples and oranges.

Don't be so impatient. A generation is only 20 years. In a few years that crop of immigrants will be gone, replaced by their children who are native speakers in both languages. Too many people are unable to take a longer view ... they need everything to happen right now. It just doesn't work like that.

[duncandy]

I had no choice but to learn the language, and I did so by assimilating. Obviously I was also more than willing and made the effort, instead of just finding a bunch of English-speaking people and using the excuse "I don't have a need to learn the language." It had nothing to do with resources or educational background. I think a lot of people come here and don't care to learn. That's the point I was trying to make, is all.

By contributing to society I mean learning about the area you move to, learn the history, therefore making informed choices about issues in the community that will in turn affect the country.

[ms_interpret]

I think you're being pretty judgemental and using the 'If I can do it, anyone can' logical fallacy. It's simply not true that if one person can do it, any person can.

It's not an excuse to say, "I have no need to learn it", if you're an immigrant and the area you live in is entirely of your home language. It's a fact of life. If your area is Yiddish speaking, as in Sunnydale's example, that's the language you use. You are talking about something different, and honestly, I can understand your frustration. But I can't see how you can say it had nothing to do with resources or educational background. What if you moved to Canada to live with your family, had no money, and worked a little family run shop for 16-20 hours per day like so many immigrants do? When would you have time to learn English? And what if you had no formal education in your native country? How would you even go about trying to learn decent English?

Also, where did you go? And were the people decent to you when you first got there and didn't speak a word of it? Or did they sigh loudly, snark at you, or worse, bitch you out for not knowing their language? Because I've seen that here so many times that I cannot for the first second blame people for not attempting English with English speakers.

I'm not trying to be a bitch about this, I'm really not. I just think there's a colossal lack of understanding and compassion for immigrants on the part of most of this country (and even moreso in the one to the south), and I will always do my part to try to change people's mind on this issue. :)