If you wanna live here, learn [English]. (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

If you wanna live here, learn [English].
Tags: Political Leaders \| Language Politics \| United States
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Language Learning Forum : General discussion

74 messages over 10 pages: << Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 9 10

GREGORG4000
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5524 days ago
307 posts - 479 votes

Speaks: English*, Finnish
Studies: Japanese, Korean, Amharic, French

Message 73 of 74

05 May 2010 at 3:11am | IP Logged

I just met with my great-grandmother this year, hopefully next time I'll be able to speak with her in her native Slovak : D

But anyway, yeah, I agree with robsolete, although I really dislike politics...
1 person has voted this message useful

kmart
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 6125 days ago
194 posts - 400 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian

Message 74 of 74

05 May 2010 at 3:40pm | IP Logged

frenkeld wrote:

kmart wrote:

... what sorts of cultural aspects would you consider would undermine social cohesion? Wearing a burkha? Animal sacrifice? Public nudity? ... I'm just trying to think of things, and I can't come up with any.

I don't want to get too far from language issues, but let me remark that racial, ethnic, religious, and language differences often lead to disunity or worse - history is too replete with examples to cite any here.

Is it the differences that lead to the disunity or the lack of tolerance? It seems to me that you are saying that immigrants should conform to the "standard" culture to avoid disharmony - but what if the members of the standard culture (in the case of both our countries we could say "the previous waves of immigrants") adopted a more tolerant attitude - wouldn't that make for a nicer world?
If previous waves of immigrants HAD conformed to the dominant culture, wouldn't our current societies (ie Oz and USA) be less interesting, and wouldn't we be less tolerant people without the engagement and challenge of relating to others with different viewpoints and cultures?
And I can never understand why "too many examples" mean that it's impossible to give even one!
And I know I am wandering off topic here, but the 2 things do seem to be inextricably linked in the minds of so many - "learn English and conform to our culture" - people give reasonable explanations as to why one should learn the native language of an adopted country, but I cannot find a good explanation as to why that also means abandoning one's culture !
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