I’ve hears stories of some Americans telling other people who are speaking a non-English language “This is America, speak English!” even if the conversation has nothing to do with them. Why do they do this?
Because people should be speaking American in America
Hablo un idioma americano
Yeah I’ve heard people basically say things like that.
When I have a chance I usually respond with a variation of, “ since the American Indians were here first, which of their languages should we be speaking?”
because racist people are stupid and ignorant
True.
Also, there is a psychological effect of people either feeling excluded from a conversation, or suspicious that they are being secretly insulted when they can’t understand it.
Some people are shit
I find the type of people that get angry at those that don’t speak English, usually have not a single interesting thing about them so they use English as an excuse to feel superior. It’s funny because the type to get angry at another language, rarely can speak English better than a 4th grade level.
Exactly! I have a friend who said a similar thing to his daughter, who came to him crying because her friends said she was not American enough because she wasn’t white. My friend said “you’re top of the class, excellent at sports, well spoken, well educated and very friendly and polite. They try to attack you for the sake of doing it, they try to find something bad about you, and they get nothing. So what do they resort to? Skin color!” (and yeah, I know this is about language, but it’s pretty much in line with your comment.)
I do not give 2 shits about people speaking foreign languages out in the ether for the most part. Having said that, there are 2 instances I can think of that grind my gears.
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You order an Uber, and the guy who’s driving is on the phone with someone, and is speaking another language with them the whole time. This is more just for the fact that this is shitty customer service for someone who works on tips to an extent. For whatever reason, this seems to only be an issue with foreign speaking people. My guess is maybe they’re talking to family back home? I certainly don’t tip those people who are doing it, but I don’t care enough to call them out on it either.
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As a poker player, they have rules about speaking English only at the table. This prevents collusion. I will absolutely call people out for English only at the table especially when there is a live hand going on.
For the first point really no matter what language they are using on the phone it’s bad service regardless. There already have been enough studies that says talking on a phone do still distract you from driving and makes it more dangerous.
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This is not an American thing. People around the world are biased against immigrants.
It’s not JUST an American thing. People are biased against outsiders and people that are different.
Ftfy
No. That’s not a fix. You’re still focusing on this being American, while it is pretty universal.
goddamn bro, just let your racist flag fly proudly huh?
You need to realize there are americans, born here, with generations going back hundreds of years, that still speak other languages. And still get the snide ‘this is america’ bullshit.
The post may include immigrants but that’s not the entire population. what a chudworthy moment.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: rule 1Sorry but chud is not a protected class.
I think you maybe read something that the op didn’t write? Pointing out that “there are racists everywhere” is in itself not a racist statement.
This is not an American thing. People around the world are biased against immigrants.
this is their statement - assuming anyone they hear not speaking english are immigrants.
it’s incorrect.
Sure it’s incorrect, but saying someone is racist because of that is asinine. It’s not like they said that they are worse people just because they’re immigrants, it was just a shortcut for saying “people who speak languages other than English in day to day conversation”. Don’t get hung up on such details.
y’all are just too racist to realize. goddamn
It’s almost funny how hung up you are on that
Funny how you have zero shits to give. Privileged life huh?
Its not incorrect. People around to world are biased against immigrants, and someone who is stupid enough to get mad at someone speaking another language is also stupid enough to assume that they are not from the US even if they were born and raised there.
People around to world are biased against immigrants,
sick racist fucks like you perhaps.
Are you unable to consent to sex due to low IQ?
Well, since you’re going to go there - Your mom didn’t seem to think it was a problem.
I remember smoking outside a pub near Chinatown with a mate something like ten years ago when two Chinese people went by speaking Chinese, and he said “they should be speaking English; this is Britain,” so I asked why, and he couldn’t explain why. Just on a vague principle.
Beats me, I live in Arizona and hearing other people speak Spanish is a daily occurrence. I don’t get even the slightest bit upset by it and I feel like you’d have to be insane to care about such a thing.
So maybe you have it here, some people are insane.
We have this reputation here in Quebec to be generally angry at people for being really aggressive with people who are not speaking French when visiting. I’ve never experienced nor was witness of it, but I believe it when I hear people say they’ve had issues with some of us Quebs too. We have our fair share of idiots, like most nations.
Happens in every country and in every nation. This isn’t a strictly American issue
Yep, went to france to kearn french, was questioned (by an idiot) why I didn’t knew (spoke) french well.
They exist in all countries.
Don’t you DARE speak French in France unless you’re a native speaker!
That country is the reverse complaint put forth in this thread.
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Same.
Of course, the first phrase I made absolutely certain I could rattle off was “excuse me I don’t speak French well”. Deliver that with a smile and they can be pretty damn forgiving.
Xenophobia.
Sorry, as a Greek-American (currently in Greece), I disagree with most of the people here. When you’re part of a new country, you need to be able to do your business with the authorities in the official language. For that, some level of understanding the native language is required. In fact, to get any passport from any country, you need to have a B1-level understanding of that country’s language. So yes, being in a country, you need to know the basics. And if you don’t, then make sure you learn the basics within 6 months, in order to be able to live there without issues. I don’t see that as xenophobia, I see it as common sense.
I moved to Greece from the US this year with my French husband. He doesn’t speak Greek. I can tell you, it has been a nightmare for him doing paperwork, and I need to go with him EVERYWHERE in any government office in order to get setup. It wasn’t pretty in the first few months, he was full of anxiety and he wouldn’t leave the house without me.
Also, I worked in Germany in my youth, for a few months. I couldn’t understand most of what was said (although I could pick up a few words, but certainly couldn’t speak back). It was a nightmare. There were no free programs back then to learn the language, and so I went there without any preparation. Today, I wouldn’t have done it that way. I would first learn the language in some basic form (today there are apps to do that), and then move there.
USA does not have an official language.
No, and I do not agree with the above poster, but we’re aided in that most of our forms are in both English and Spanish, the two most common native tongues of people who live here.
Legally, yes. But you’re going to have a bad time if you don’t speak at least some English.
A friend of mine moved to LA from Germany to work for his German company. German was an option for the test at the DMV. He said the test was gibberish so he turned it in for an English test.
Do you expect a couple of foreigners visiting America together to speak English to each other while they are in the US?
We’re talking about people living there, not tourists.
Do you expect two people from the same country who moved to the US and live in the US to speak English to each other?
To each other, of course not. But to others, yes.
Homie, stop making shit up. Noone is giving grief to tourists for not speaking the native language of the country they are visiting.
Do you expect two people from the same country who moved to the US and live in the US to speak English to each other?
It’s called xenophobia, the fear and dislike of anything foreign. Some people believe that if your group isn’t dominant it will be dominated, and peaceful coexistence isn’t possible between different groups.
These people are afraid that, if the English language isn’t forced onto other people, one day other people will force a foreign language onto them.
Not everyone disliking something is necessarily phobic towards it. That’s just one possoble explanation.
It would greatly benefit your argument to provide another possible explanation.
They could simply
A) dislike X
B) hate/despise X
C) came to the logical conclusion, that X is bad/wrong/shouldn’t be/whatever
D) genereally mistrusting against X due to a careful nature
E) have had traumatic experience with X (e.g. Being raped/attacked by a member of a specific ethnicity) and hence totally overreacting to an otherwise harmless stimulus, even forgetting the rules of civil behaviour
Those all don’t mean there’s the medical condition of a phobia for X.
A real xenophobic has an irrational fear of anything unknown/alien. Doesn’t mean the person just hates e.g. Mexicans for no real reason. It might even like them once they get to know the better, which often just won’t happen as phobics tend to avoid the cause their phobia instead of treating it.
I just dislike the lax use of medical terms until they’re bereft of any real meaning.
So, a person who yanks “speak English!” to someone, could have many reasons to do. None are neither polite nor politically correct. While the asshole is probably just the uneducated asswipe, the phobic could be helped and probably even feels bad afterwards for being so compulsive and insulting.
Xenophobia isn’t a medical term. All the examples you listed are xenophobia.
It’s literally in the term. But yeah sure, it’s easier to just smack the same label on everything. Whatever makes you happy.
Some words just have more than one definition is all. It’s not about me, it’s about the dictionary.
That’s a myth.
It’s good old-fashioned xenophobia and is by no means unique to Americans or English-speakers even in the modern era. Anyone who has spent enough time in certain parts of France, Italy, or Belgium has probably encountered it at some point.
It’s everywhere but it is probably most prevalent in countries with a strong nationalist core and, in my opinion, ironically occurs most often in countries that have really fucked around with having an empire in the last century or so.
