Most everyone I've met in San Diego is able to communicate with a Spanish speaker using very basic vocabulary.
"Banyo?"
"over there."

When I worked at CompUSA they jumped at the opportunity to have a Mexican who knew how the wizard in a CPU operated. A ton of business was from people across the border for American Retail technology, yet need someone to answer their questions with no loss in translations.

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SuspicionVandit: Are you God?
Paul Van Dyk 09-24-2009: No, but I can sign your sleeve under that name if you let me!

i spoke more spanish in scotland haha.

In Miami people would ask if I spoke spanish and Id say "not so much that i prefer it over english" and theyd then they just speak english to me.

Again, only places ive HAD to speak it were scotland to a spanish guy and in Spain.

quote:

Originally posted by TweeK arent we smart? good one. But for the most part i'd say spanish is on the rise. Its most common around cities with a high hispanic rate: NYC, LA, Chicago, Miami, Houston. Spanish being my native language i can relate to this. I have notice the increase in the amount of Anglo and others taking part in learning spanish. Not so much in actually learning the language but breaking that language barrier between the two languages. The number hispanics is in this country is increasing rapidly by the day which makes "spanish" a not so foreign language after all.

Your "smart dumbass" title fits you well, except for the "smart" part. I'm simply making a statement that if you travel in an area already known for having Spanish speakers, you're going to have a much better time than if you traveled through other areas of the country. Thus, traveling through the South and then claiming "Spanish is no longer a foreign language" is a bit premature and completely ignores the rest of the country. Is the amount of Spanish speakers, both native or domestic, increasing? Yes. Is Spanish no longer a "foreign language" to the overwhelming majority of the US? No.

There is a lot of spanish speaking people in jersey, for real. Theres towns such as cliffside park that you're better off speakng spanish than any other language.

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quote:

Originally posted by Frenchie I wish they had Spanish as a mandetory class here. Instead they want to make chinese a mandatory class to take. Fuckin' chinaman are OVERTAKING US. RUUUUUUUUN.

it's great being able to speak english, chinese, and spanish.

quote:

Originally posted by Frenchie make Chinese a mandatory class

Is there a reason?

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Everything is beautiful. Let the music carry you. Baby I will follow you forever. Nowhere else I'd rather be when you're lying next to me. Let the music carry us together.
anti-JennyPie Alliance
SuspicionVandit: Are you God?
Paul Van Dyk 09-24-2009: No, but I can sign your sleeve under that name if you let me!

Immigration will continue to provide exposure to Spanish, but it will probably never surpass English. Opponents to immigration think that Spanish will somehow surpass English as the primary language in the United States, and I'm not saying it won't far in the future, but immigration opponents said the same thing about German a century ago - I think like 20% of the US population is descended from Germans and I don't know any "German Americans", myself included, who can speak German at all unless they took it in school.

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quote:

Originally posted by SuspicionVandit Is there a reason?

Yes because the chinese almost over populate Toronto and they only expect an increase.

im gonna learn spanish but only because alot of really hot latin chix here in LA dig guys that speak spanish

Plenty of Spanish speakers over on this side of the coast. Not that I blame them, the Spanish did explore and populate areas of California long before it joined the Union. There's only one problem I have with the growing use of Spanish here in the US: employment. I'm starting to see way too many ads in the classifieds that require the applicant to speak two languages fluently. A few years ago, most would have said bilingual preferred, but now it seems like you're screwed if you don't know how to speak Spanish, customer service jobs especially.

I just think that's wrong. No one should have to be forced to learn another language just to be able to work in this country, with the exception of English, because that is the language of the land. Flame me all you want, but if I moved to France or Denmark, I would not expect to be employed until I took some time in learning their language.

Yo soy un MOJADO=I am a wetback.TRUE STORY

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america controla

At school we had to learn german or french, no choice, we were just told which one we'd be doing. then for those in the higher intelligence stakes, we learnt the other the next year, so i did 5 years of german & 4 of french. No real use to me, I still want to learn spanish, dutch, danish, portuguese and probably some more. I love how people from other countries are so good at languages yet we're bad here. We in the uk need exposure to them at first levels of school so we have a chance to become fluent in them