Please speak English!!!!!

[justapixel]

I live in California and I've never had any restaurant worker not speak English.

I work in a school, and I do see non-English speaking people quite a bit, but they aren't bringing me food. Sadly.

 

[Eeyore'sthebest]

I won't get into the fast food debate because I think that's been beaten to death (and yes, only spanish at my McD's too).

My pet peeve is why do I need to press 1 for English. Why can't I automatically get English and have to press a button for Spanish???
Sorry that just really gets to me. And my DGF came over from Sicily. Learned English the way everyone else did back then, you just spoke it until you learned it. And English was only spoken outside the home, Italian was reserved for the home only.

 

[Charade]

I'm tired of every restaurant I go to here not having employees that speak English. Its a real pain at a drive-thru. I think I've eaten at more places where they dont' speak English than that do. I want turkey, not ham on my sub. I want the meatloaf at Boston Market, not dark meat. I should NOT have to learn Spanish to be able to order my food!

Grrr.....vent over!

Racist!! Bigot!! Homophobe!! (I threw that in just in case the drive-thru person was gay).

 

[toto2]

Maybe it as been said before , but they will hire the people who are willing to work at those ridiculus low wages !

If we expect our fast foods , Walmarts etc to be cheap , what it means is that the salaries will be very low , and very few people are willing to work for these low wages.

 

[SwedishMeatball]

To MY standards? Somehow my standards are ridiculous that employees at McDonald's should be able to understand two clearly-spoken word from their own simple menu? Give me a break.
I would think an employee at McDonald's being able to understand the words Egg McMuffin and Orange Juice would be to the company standards because the company standards should be geared toward selling their merchandise. If their standards are different from mine and apparently they are -- then they lose my business since their employees can't manage to sell me their own merchandise.

That reminds me of their old slogan "You deserve a break today".

 

[aprilgail2]

I have 2 wendys that are close to me, one closer than the other...I will go to the one that is further away just becuase their employees speak english without a thick accent where I can't understand what in the world they are saying!!

 

[lg3]

I won't get into the fast food debate because I think that's been beaten to death (and yes, only spanish at my McD's too).
My pet peeve is why do I need to press 1 for English. Why can't I automatically get English and have to press a button for Spanish??? Sorry that just really gets to me. And my DGF came over from Sicily. Learned English the way everyone else did back then, you just spoke it until you learned it. And English was only spoken outside the home, Italian was reserved for the home only.

ITA!!!!!! That drives me crazy too!!
Let's not even get started talking about non-english speaking IT "help".

 

[Miss Jasmine]

You all are too busy pressing 1 for english to hear the spanish spiel of pressing 2 for spanish.

 

[eeyoresnr]

A drive-thru employee that doesn't speak English?!?! I've never encountered that, and I've lived in Florida.

we live in Florida too and this is my husbands biggest pet peeve ge gets so frustrated there have been times when he just says forget it. I am a little more patient as I lived in California most of my life and the last 20 years I dealt with it enough that I understand pretty well.

 

[SplshMtn99]

At least they're working and trying to make a living and not using language (or lack of skills) as a crutch while trying to squelch off the government! I give them loads of credit for coming to this country LEGALLY, trying to learn the language and supporting themselves.
This might be the only opportunity they have to practice their language. They may go home and have parents who don't know the language and can't practice on them.

Regardless, I find that people who come to us from other countries are grateful to be here and are often harder working than their teenage counterparts that work these fast food jobs.

OK, but what about the ones born here who can't speak English.

 

[LindaG4458]

I live near the Jersey SHore so I alway go to the boardwalk. And NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH. They hire all this people fron Poland and Russia. And they are every where. Every SHop and food place. It's very annoying. And then in the winter when some of the shops are still open. Where are the Russian people. Back in Russia. Its no fair because I tried to get summer jobs at theese place (and I speak english) but no I'm jobless this summer.

Sorry that was a little rant.

This is happening up here in the White Mountains, too. We have many Eastern Europeans working in all the fast food restaurants here in the valley. By the end of the summer I might get the correct order at a drive-up window. These are legal workers, too. Know why they are so popular? If they are working in this country for less than 6 months neither they nor the company have to pay FICA taxes! That's a big chunk of cash.

Ther was an article in the paper about a young man who had worked at a local camp for several years. He was told that he wouldn't have his job this the following year (I think this was last summer) because the camp owners were hiring foreign help instead.

 

[BuckyFan04]

How is Madison in the springtime?

March, especially early March, can be pretty miserable--cold, rainy/snowy, and windy. It gets more mild towards the end of March (some days with temps in the 50s). April can be a toss up. Some years it's cold and rainy (temps mainly in the 40s or low 50s), some years it's very mild (60s and some 70s). May, I think, is very nice, with temperatures usually in the 60s and low 70s. There are still some days in the 50s. We rarely get snow in May. A few years ago, we got a dusting of snow in early May, but that's pretty unusual. The downtown/campus area is very pretty in early to mid-May with all of the flowering trees and plants blooming. It's very pretty by the lakes (Mendota and Menona) as well. Generally, the east side of Madison is the lower-income area of the city, while the west side is a bit more upscale.

We have probably 7 or so Spanish-speaking workers at our McDonald's in town (not Madison). They don't work the counter or drive-thru though. They work in back, preparing the food, so they don't really come in contact with the customers. There is at least one lady who doesn't know one word of English, but I think the rest know a few basic words and sentences at least. Several of the managers speak fluent Spanish, and at least two of them are hispanic themselves, so that helps out with the language barrier.

Other than at the fast food restaurants, there aren't really any non-English speaking employees at all in our city. Our city (about 22,000 people) is over 98% caucasian. The number of non-English speaking hispanics has dramatically increased over the last 15 years in the southeastern area of Wisconsin. That increase is evident whenever one goes to the malls or to the Walmarts in the area. At least half of the people I see shopping at those locations are speaking Spanish.

I don't see it as a problem if they are making an effort to learn English, but I have a problem with those who make no effort at all. Like others have said, if you live in our country, you need to learn English. Learning English would open up better job opportunities for these people and give them a chance for better lives, in my opinion.

 

[Pirate Me]

Ah! There is this McDonalds near us and there is this one woman at the counter that hardly speaks any english at all! We talk slowly.
Our order goes like this:
~Hi, can I have a soda, medium fries
~So-what?
~Soda
~Oh, ok. What soda?
~Coke
~Choke who?
~ Coke!
~Oh, ok. And fries? Medium? *pause* Wait, what you want fried?
~No no, I want French fries, medium.
~Oh. Ok. Thank for coming, have nice day.

No, I am serious. It gets annoying and it takes a long time to put our order out.

 

[ConcKahuna]

Racist!! Bigot!! Homophobe!! (I threw that in just in case the drive-thru person was gay).

But I thought everyone who lived near DC could at least understand when someone was talking in Gay?

 

[Simba's Mom]

A drive-thru employee that doesn't speak English?!?! I've never encountered that, and I've lived in Florida.

Wow, you need to come to Laredo, TX! When DS first moved there, he'd stop at the local McDonalds drive thru on his way to work and for about a month he had no idea what he was going to get to eat because no one who works there speaks English. That's common around here.

 

[SplshMtn99]

My mom was born here in 1932. Her parents spoke french. She went to a french catholic school in an area with alot a French Canadians. Spoke french at home & church. Then at 13 yrs old, she had to go to the next town over to go to a public high school. Guess what? She HAD to learn English. No free pass. No getting translators or french speaking teachers for them. Learn English or don't pass your classes & don't graduate. She learned it. And that's what she's spoken ever since.

So, why do they get free passes today & not have to learn English even when they are born here like my mom?

 

[brasswillow]

After all, our country does not have an official language, so it is illegal to not hire someone just because they don't speak it.

The weird thing is there are some places here in Arizona, such as banks, that won't hire you because you only speak English. That doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Poohbear123]

DON'T COME TO MIAMI, YOU HAVE TO SPEAK 3 LANGUAGES HERE!!! if you speak english you are in the minority.

 

[Daxx]

OK, but what about the ones born here who can't speak English.

That's what school is for ... to learn how to speak English properly. A lot of children who are born in the USA have parents who are ESL and have spoken to these kids in their native tongue since the day they were born. They have to get the experience in school.

I had a student who came to me straight from Russia at age 5. She was not in the USA for more than 2 months before she started Kdg. I had to teach her English. Her mother spoke broken English and she would converse w/her DD in Russian. I was afraid that, w/school being the only place she'd speak English or hear it, that she'd have a difficult time picking it up. It was difficult for her at first to be in a foreign country, not knowing the language, alphabet, letter sounds, numbers, etc. and having to learn these things in such a short amount of time. But, she did it. I remember holding up a crayon saying "crayon" and have her repeat the word. Then, I would color with it and say "blue". She learned it. She learned to sound out letters and blend them to read words. She left my Kdg. class w/a good command of the English language and was able to sound out and read English. Sure, she has an accent and prob. always will ... but she speaks English w/an accent and you can understand her. Thankfully, she has classmates in the neighborhood and she can practice w/them. Her mom speaks broken English and I'm sure that's of some help as well.

That's where the difficulty lies -- some children go home to families who speak to them ONLY in their native tongue b/c it's all the parents know how to speak. The kids don't get the "extra" practice that they may desperately need. Often, the kids are the translators for their parents at parent-teacher conferences, etc.

It's often left up to us teachers to help these children get the English language and comprehension education that they need. As much as we try, we don't have all the time in the day to focus primarily on English nor do we have the ability to work on it at home w/them. We do our best in the alloted time we have. We hope that the school socialization will help them become competent w/the language.

We are finding that the area that our school is in is becoming a home to many immigrant families. We're seeing more ESL students coming into our school than we have in years past. It's pretty amazing -- two years in a row, I have had ESL students. Two years in a row, our enrollment of ESL students jumped. One year, we had 4 ESL students enter, last year we had another 4 enter. That's ESL students in a school of 125 students. Four years ago, our school didn't have any ESL kids. While the area is changing, we are doing our best to adapt these kids to the English language and getting them to speak and use proper English. We don't have ESL classes b/c we're such a small school.

The biggest problem that I have to deal with, it seems are the kids who DO speak English as their native language but have terrible grammar and choose to speak in Ghettoese. "She ain't gots none". "He gots my pencil." "Hims Mom is coming to get him" "They's don't got lunch today" Huh? What? Those kids were born in the USA and my ESL's have a better command of English than they do!!

 

[SplshMtn99]

Daxx, yes, I know. See my post #76. But my mom can speak English even though she went home every day to a french house. French was ONLY allowed at home & church. English every where else. They were ENCOURAGED (taught) to use English. Not fall back on their French. Work, school, friends. When she moved out, it was just English.

Today's youth, fall back on their parents language too much. I think society "lets" them too. My mom said even though it was a english / french area.....English is what was required by most & in most places. So they had to learn it.

I appreciate your teaching efforts. My DSIL teaches in rural NH & was saying they now have the same situation you described above in their school - compounded with poverty & some homelessness thrown in for good measure.