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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"What do they call people who can speak two langauges?"
My wife, who is Filipina (naturalized citizen) and can speak 4 languages, asked me this riddle at dinner last night.
Her: "What do they call people who can speak two languages?"
Me(who only speaks English): "Bi-Lingual"
Her: "What do they call people who can speak more than two languages?"
Me: "Multi-Lingual"
Her: "What do they call people who can speak only one language?"
Me: "I don't know."
Her: "Native born Americans".
https://heavy.com/news/2018/05/aaron-schlossberg/
I told her this joke:
A Trump supporter traveled for the first time to Europe, spending his time in Italy, France, Portugal and Spain. After returning home I asked him how he liked his trip? He said, "It sucked, every place I went all I saw were foreigners"
We had a good laugh and a good dinner. I'm a lucky guy.
ExciteBike66
(2,383 posts)louis c
(8,652 posts)Tipperary
(6,930 posts)louis c
(8,652 posts)Grins
(7,239 posts)...between "their" and "there".
Must have gone to Wharton.
keithbvadu2
(36,962 posts)ThoughtCriminal
(14,050 posts)Not only can I speak English, I'm fluent in "Ugly American"!
Sophia4
(3,515 posts)understand the structure and form of language, where words come from and "think outside the box" of your own language.
It stretches a person's reality to include the realities of others. Learning other languages, being able to read and understand other languages, forces a person to understand just a bit of the values and cultures of the people who speak those languages in their daily lives
Every American child deserves to be able to learn a second, third, etc. language. It's wonderful to discover words anyway.
iluvtennis
(19,882 posts)in Spanish immersion program in Kinder thru 6th grade. They speak, read, write both Spanish and English. Their dad is Italian, so they learned to speak Italian at home. Learning multiple languages and about other cultures has been a life building foundation for them.
BTW, their dad (Italian born) speaks 5 languages -- Italian, English, Spanish, German, and French.
In my opinion, ppl who only speak one language are "afraid" of those who are multilingual cuz they can switch to another language and leave the English only speaker in the dark.
TlalocW
(15,392 posts)(I was getting it as a gift for my brother-in-law who is also conservative and a bow-hunter, but as it turns out didn't know much about Ted and when I asked him how he liked the book he sighed and said, "I thought it was some sort of weird drug humor I wasn't hip enough to get, but we saw him on TV, and he is just a big idiot. Recipes look good though."
It was in a long line that snaked through the bookstore in Tulsa where he was playing a D-List Celebrity Venue, and I was with my girlfriend at the time, who is from Colombia. We switched into Spanish a few times and got some dirty looks from people in the line. Girlfriend didn't understand why they were looking at us until I explained that speaking in anything but English is a sin according to the people surrounding us.
TlalocW
iluvtennis
(19,882 posts)... proves how unconnected and dumb they are. GAH
bluescribbler
(2,123 posts)My buddies would be sitting in a bar outside the Navy base at Subic Bay. The local women would be speaking English when talking to us, but Tagalog when talking among themselves. By chance, one of my shipmates had spent a year on shore duty in Subic Bay,, and had learned the language. He also spoke German, which I had studied in school, so we conversed in German when he wanted to tell me what they were saying.
TlalocW
(15,392 posts)I've had somewhat similar situations. While in college, my mom bought me two large paintings/portraits - one of a bullfighter in his traje de luces and another of a proper Spanish dama with the fan and the lacy mantilla in her hair - to encourage me to keep learning Spanish. They were only a dollar each, and it was one of those things your parents do that you just have to appreciate their thinking of you since there was no chance I'd ever own a home where those would look good.
Anyway, fast forward a few years to my first corporate job. A co-worker and I go to a Tex-Mex place owned by the parents of someone in HR, and they have a lot of similar paintings in the restaurant. I ask the HR director if her parents would like to buy a couple more; she calls them, and we set up an appointment. I take them in, and they immediately start talking in Spanish to each other. "What do you want to pay this guy? Ten each? This one is a little damaged, but they look okay. Twenty each?" When they said twenty, I figured that was good enough so I answer in Spanish, "Twenty each will be fine." The looks on their faces were great, but they quickly recovered. "Did you understand everything we said?" "Yep." "Where'd you learn?" Etc. So I walked out with $50 and a gift certificate for a free meal because the great thing about people with Mexican backgrounds (and I would assume most Latin countries) is it's a big compliment when you can speak their language.
TlalocW
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)a hell of a lot smarter than me!
Mr.Bill
(24,334 posts)Animals.
rsdsharp
(9,214 posts)A number of years ago, m wife and I took a trip to China. It was an American Express trip, and the company provided a tour guide, in addition to the Chinese guides. Roberto (who was Peruvian by birth) had hosted this trip many times. He told us recently he had a client on the trip who complained that there were too many Chinese around.
dalton99a
(81,637 posts)in China
eissa
(4,238 posts)We were at a get-together with several couples back in 2016, two of whom (trump supporters) had just vacationed in Mexico. They spoke glowingly of how beautiful their hotel was, the lovely beach, food, everything was divine....except "there were too many Mexicans."
airplaneman
(1,240 posts)Those who speak only one language actually understand no language at all.
That is because multilingual people realize that there is more than one way to say something and therefore realize that language actually affects our perception of reality. A single language individual would never realize this.
-Airpalne