For one thing why the hell should i have to press one for English when i need to sign my name for a card, or for customer service, second if one more person comes to me asking for me to write out his check because he knows no English im going to kill them, to make it worse most people call me racist. [/list][/quote]

It is pretty annoying and time consuming, and it'd make things easier in certain cases if everyone had to speak English, but that's not going to happen because "that's not the American way." If English were made the official language, it'd make things easier, but it'd limit others' freedom to speak in a different language.

it wouldnt limit there freedom to speak in another language, but it would make it less convinient for them

Well, if Spanish was your first and only language, it'd be pretty limiting if Customer Representatives were only allowed speak English.

Not if you were in Mexico.

Laziness. All of the Asians who emigrate to the US have no trouble learning English, so why can't the Mexicans? Instead, the mothers will send the kids to school to act as translators while they sit on their *ss all day watching soap operas, demanding equal rights and welfare for illegal citizens. I live in South Florida. I know this.

It's infuriating when one can't even get a job down here because they can't speak a foreign language in their own, native country.

The point is no one race should be given any special rights. Imagine if we were expected to know the language of every race that moves here. Mexicans should be given no special rights. Yet I had people trying to shove Spanish down my throat every year in school and I live in ALASKA! Japanese, Korean, and French are FAR more useful up here. Because of how hard they tried to jam Spanish down my throat I refuse to ever learn that language, but because other races seem to be less full of themselves and don't EXPECT us to know their language, Watashi wa nihongo wo sugoshi hanashimasu. (I speak a little Japanese.)

And no I don’t think we should provide translations on everything. This is a primarily English speaking country and I believe if you want to live here you need to learn our language. Just like how I would not move to Japan or Mexico expecting them to know English. That’s not racist. That’s practical.

I'd fill out their checks... made out to cash... then cash it myself. Don't like it? Learn English dammit!

your a south Floridian too? It is bothersome that most in my area don't try to learn it

There was a time, just after the second world war, when England took a great number of Jamaican immigrants. They learned to speak English so we could understand them, they dressed like us, they got jobs and they did everything they could to get on and fit in, despite a massive amount of prejudice at the time.

Now however, we have immigrants from all over the world, who come here, sign on for government benefits, scream about equality when they don't get their own way, and work illegally for cash while they collect their benefits.

Naturally the government don't do anything about them, just in case someone points a finger at them and screams racist.

Don't fret though. The time is coming when there will be a social explosion: too much unemployment, too many one sided decisions in favor of immigrants etc, etc. When that happens there will be a major mess.

I can't speak for England, but I feel I can speak for the southern United States and Mexico.

To play devil's advocate, if you may call it that...

It's time, ladies and gentlemen, to get real about immigration in the United States. Particularly, it is time to realize that the US is not a nation of, by, and for Anglophone white people, and this is going to continue. Most immigrants from Mexico (and other Spanish-speaking countries), racist presumptions aside, are not lazy loafers milking the system for all it's worth. I have known, lived amongst, and studied so-called "illegal" immigrants at several points in my life, and if people could muster just the slightest bit of empathy we wouldn't be having this conversation. Multilingualism is the norm for most people in the world, and I don't think it would hurt most estadounidenses to branch out a bit, especially considering our rather marginal grasp on English in the first place [case-in-point the title of this thread].

Let's move ahead with knowledge instead of assumptions.

Lately I've been getting really annoyed when I try to read directions for something and it's not in english.Sometimes I have to literally hunt for the english version!I myself feel that having two languages in America will further complicate things just as in "The tower of babble".Sure,plenty of european countries have more than one official language,but I've noticed that these countries are also divided into different subgroups.This seems to separate groups of people to the point that they each claim they're own region of the country (see switzerland or belgium) and assosiate it with they're individual native cultures.The way things are going in America,This could easily happen,but it's not going to be a good thing.Not if we want to maintain America as it is today:Wealthy with a strong military.With the seperation of regions into english and spanish speaking,we could loose all the things we americans never took for granted.

Curious, how many here are bilingual?

I used to speak French fluently, but now it's so-so.

I speak Spanish fluently, albeit with the occasional hilarious and embarrassing error in vocabulary.