Originally posted by PERFECT3435
grettlin,
i don't think yo ufully understood what i was trying to point out.
what i wanna know is why do we have to have for Spanish press 2?
what you are saying isn't wrong but in that case we should have:
for Farsi press 3
for chinese press 4
for russian press 5
for Hendonesian press 99
hope you see what i mean. my other argument is that i feel that i have to learn Spanisg in CA inorder to make as much money as others make. why? because businesses hire spanish speaking people over me. why? because people aren't learning the language that they are supposed to even though they may have lived here for ages.
again, hope noone sees my remarks as something rcist. i am just trying to be logical here.
I am the last person who wants to learn another language, but with all due respect they don't
have to learn English. The US does not have an official language. If Spanish speaking people are able to get along in the US without learning English it is because we allowed that to happen. You better believe that we didn't do it to help them out so much as benefit from their presence in the US. Companies have Spanish speaking customer service to earn their business and people learned Spanish to conduct business with Spanish speaking people.
As future medical practitioners we can't judge our patients based on what language they are able to speak. If we can't speak Spanish they will find someone who can, since many people are willing to learn Spanish to earn their business. I too will learn Spanish in order to earn their business, because it is a matter of basic survival in areas where there is a significant Spanish speaking population. You are welcome to not learn Spanish, but you can't complain that Spanish speaking people will not come to see you. It is your choice and nobody is twisting your arm either way. I don't mean to sound so harsh, but this is the economic reality that we face.
Regarding your argument that we will be forced to learn 5 or 6 languages; I don't think so. There needs to be a certain critical mass before businesses and people start catering to other languages. They are certain small geographic areas where other languages are catered to. For example, Tufts is in Chinatown in Boston. Tufts medical center has signs in Chinese and I'll bet they have people who speak Chinese at Tufts. You will find medical centers in different areas that cater to people who speak Hebrew, Arabic, Persian and a few other languages. In fact it is the medical profession that has to cater to the languages spoken in the immediate vicinity first, because it is our duty to care for these people in the best way we can. However, since people who speak these languages represent minute populations, I don't think other businesses and people will allow them to thrive without learning English. So eventually they will learn English, but even still medical/dental care is best provided in a person's native language. Someone in our profession will always be there who speaks one of these languages and will be willing to care for these populations however small they may be. I will not learn Farsi, because I don't think it will improve my business very much, and there will always be someone who natively speaks Farsi to take care of them. Right now Spanish is so widely spoken that you could lose quite a bit of business, and lose the ability to take care of quite a few people.
Again, I don't want to learn another language, but I know that I need to.
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