In Spanish, our teacher is always getting on us because we do not conjugate stuff right, because of this damned formal stuff, usted and ustedes...why in the world do we have to learn it formally? no offfense to anyone who is of a spanish origin, or who is at least trying to learn the lannguage of the country they are in.

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Elämä on (="that's what life is" in English).
It's not negative thing to learn foreing language. In Finland, 5% of our population speaks Swedish instead of Finnish, and they get all they need in their mother tongue! Yes, I think it is a little unfair for others, but it is pretty fair for those 5%. And everybody in Finland studies Swedish for them.

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I'm currently learning Spanish, and conjugating is the worst part of it. However, if you're bilingual, the chances of getting a job ANYWHERE increases dramatically.

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languages are okay.

in my school we had a teacher that was obsessed with languages, he managed to add two more subjects, one was conversation, and the other one lterature, both in english (i live in mexico), we had more hours learning english than maths or any other subject

it was horrible until our parents decided to make a rebellion and conversation was erased from the subjects list but still it was annoying for the months it lasted.

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Oh, come on. English speakers have absolutely no right to vent about this.
You born with a language that is understood almost worldwide and if you come to Spain and talk in english you´re going to be more or less understood.

But try this when you are spanish and you go to an english-speaking country. No one is going to make the effort to understand you, unless you speak them in english (specially in UK). And well, I´m not gonna say that english is as much difficult as spanish because I see that we have a lot of verbal times and conjugations.

That "we are in america" seems a bit prepotent... realize that there´s a world outside the U.S.

Another thing is what you say about formal speaking. I´m not using "usted" in my daylife activity, but it´s very used in jobs in which you have to deal with public and treat them gently. But its not as used as for example in german (which I´m studying) that they use "Sie" instead of "du" a lot, unless they´re talking to a friend.

 

 

 

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Well for one thing why should they learn English in the first place? Is it because its the most common used language in America? If that is it then all who speek English should learn about every languadge out there because 40% or more I could be wrong, speek a diferant language. And the reason your teacher whants you to learn the formal way to speek is because that is what they have to teach by law. You cant realy teach anyone the ebonics version of a language now can you?

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but why should we have to learn the languages of the other people that live in america when they are in america?


if i were to go to germany i would understand learning their language..but since wwe are in america and the origional language was english (in a very weird way)

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Hey Albus,

This is freak talk, no offence meant. Remember right after 9/11, when bush was asking people why did the US develop so much antagonism abroad? Ignoring other people's languages simply mean you ignore them, and contempt leads to hatred usually.

Just look at what you write : the US do not equate America, or am I mistaken? Canadians, Brazilians, Venezuelians, etc also are americans. In that simple respect, I'd suspect there are more people speaking Spanish than English in the whole of the Americas.

Good day to all

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I agree completely with this. People tend to say "american" referring to people from the US and that means a great lack of respect for other people who also live in that continent. And I know that lot of people from Argentina, Chile, Mexico, etc gets really sick when they see that US people are referred with the "american" word. If someone said "europeans" only thinking about Germany and France... I would get a little angry. In fact someone could say that U.S. are even less american than other countries because there isn´t too much indigens there...

In any case, learning a language is a great oportunity. I wish I had studied 5 languages in school instead of only two (apart from my native).

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I also had problems with formal spanish when I came back to Mexico after living in the United States with my dad. I had the luck, well not really, of living in Mexico and the United States since my parents are divorced, I lived the first 5 years of my life here in Mexico, then from 6 to 8 or 9 I lived in the United States with my dad (and I went to elementary school and learned English there), then from 9 - 11, I came back to Mexico to live with my mom, and I did 4th and 5th grade here, then I went back with my dad to the United States and did middle school over there. Then I came back after middle school to Mexico where I studied High school and went to the University.

The really huge problem was in high school, I failed spanish class and had to repeat it on saturdays. The only good thing that came out of all this is that I know spanish and english, but not 100% either one. I bet that if I would take english in high school In the United States I would probably also flunk it. About the formal Spanish, It did bring me some problems because some people really do get offended if you dont talk to them formally.

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