this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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Hmm. Consider what folks would think if someone put up signs in Spanish and English on a US beach, where the Spanish text had scary (and false) warnings and the English text did not.
There isn’t a large influx of Spanish speaking tourists who demand that the locals speak in their language in the US. This is more akin to a shopkeeper blaring speakers with high pitched tones that only teenagers can hear.
You're fucking kidding right? Spanish is the second most spoken language in the US. It is the second largest first language as well. It is the second largest monolingual language.
I'm all for multiculturalism. I'm an immigrant. But let us not live in a pretend world.
What you’ve said is true, but it doesn’t negate my point: the frustration felt by locals dealing with entitled tourists demanding their language be accommodated. The US doesn’t have a similar problem to Spain on that front.
Eh… it’s probably not so much that they are demanding their language be spoken…
More a case of the tourists are probably being dickheads in general and the locals have had enough of their shit. That and the locals would like to be able to enjoy their own beach without having to wade through masses of tourists.
I mean, it depends where you go in Spain right. If you're working in an office in Madrid and someone gets annoyed that you don't speak English that's one thing, if you're working a restaurant in an area that makes all its money from tourism, then surely it makes sense to make those people bringing in the dough feel comfortable.
The US has the world's largest spanish speaking country sharing a 2000mile land border from coast to coast with it. Do you think that Mexican's don't travel to the America? What is exactly disqualifies the above sentiment from applying to America, vs applying to Spain?
When Mexicans travel to the US they don't demand that everyone else speak Spanish.
Why would UK tourists be uniquely entitled compared to any other nationality?
Have you met Brittons? Especially the kind that typically go on package holidays to Spain?
I guess you'd have to ask them.
Actually Spanish is the largest spoken 'native' language in the world. English is the largest spoken language total because so many people have it as a second language.
Edit. I have to make a correction. Mandarin is the most spoken. I had not looked this up in about ten years but they combined two dialects to make near a billion native speakers. Spanish next at 485 million then English at 380.
While your correction is important, the whole idea of Mandarin being one language is also a bit messed up. The different Spanish speakers of the world will have a much easier time getting together and understanding each other than the various groups of Mandarin speakers.
Where one language ends and another begins is largely political, which makes it difficult to make a fair count.
Where else is Spanish a "native" language other than Spain? It's spoken across South America and some of Asia, but that's due to colonialism the same as how English spread. The natives of South America didn't speak Spanish before they turned up.
Lots in the US speak it as their first language. I have not seen it broken down or country. There are 485 million people that speak Spanish as their native language. English comes in third at 380 million.
That is definitely not true.
Actually you are correct. It is Mandarin than Spanish than English. For native speakers that is. A couple of Mandarin dialects were combined since I last looked.
You're so right but we've also codified that in the US. We intentionally have no official language and provide our legal and government documents in more than one language. This is a unique quality and knowing the official language is a cultural and legal expectation in many other countries.
A little context: There's more than 40 million native Spanish speakers in the US, whose language has the same legal standing as English. That's more people than the entire state of California. More than ten million more than Texas.
Whoever assumes they're all "illegal" or "unwanted" immigrants should take a moment to reflect on why the cities of California have all these strange names like "Los Angeles" and "San Diego". They were there before the English speaking. And we all know who were there before them, making the whole "immigrant" argument kind of moot anyway.