Recently, there was an article that said that 11 million adults in America cannot comprehend written English in its simplist form.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051216/ap_on_...WtkBHNlYwM3MTg-

My opinion on this is that America and the rest of the world should abandon the English language at some point in the future and use an easier language such as Italian or Spanish. The spelling and grammar rules are more complicated than necessary. By switching to a simpler language, America's public schools can spend more time teaching practical skills (like carpentry or auto mechanics) and not have students spend so much time memorizing silly things like Proper Nouns and where to put the commas and apostrophes. Doesn't it seem a little ridiculous for people to spend 13 years learning the rules for their own language? 13 years is an awefully long time to be learning a language.

The Question for debate then is
What options should be done to address the problem?
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1. Should people be expected to master the English language?
2. Should English the Official Language of America?
3. Should the leaders consider getting America to gradually abandon the
English language and use an easier language?

Q#1. My wife and I had this same discussion last week. Her first language is Spanish and she was helping my youngest with English finals and my son, was arguing the book is wrong that "holiday" isn't a noun. I remembered that my wife had argued that the Spanish teachers in high school and college hadn't mastered Spanish and often could be proven wrong. I always thought dissecting sentences was a terrible waste of time while going to school and the time could be spent much more economically on something like teaching amortization rates on a mortgage or how to properly balance a checkbook. Then in 1972 I took a college course on Korean language while stationed in Korea and the Korean teacher was astounded that most of the students had to be refreshed in English in order for her to explain Korean using terms like nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on... To properly learn a second language you must first learn the first I guess... EDITED TO REMOVE INFLAMMATORY COMMENT. I don't mean that in a bad way because both of my sons have to learn and pass Spanish when English surrounds them on TV and friends and they have equal difficulty with Spangles.

Q2. Yes because all of the laws and tax codes are written in English and to translate into multiple languages would break the budget.

Q3. I pick Korean, it has fewer rules but there are the Chinese characters you must learn to express yourself completely.

I’ll let an Italian speaker give us an opinion on his language, but I can say that Spanish isn’t easier than English. For one thing, there are those pesky accents in various shapes to deal with. The rules governing the construction of Spanish words, in my opinion, on average make them longer than English words. Then there’s keeping track of masculine or feminine clarifications in prepositions, definite articles and adverbs.

However, I think someone learning Spanish may have an easier time learning other Romance languages.

Should people be expected to master the English language?
Yes, so long as they live in a predominantly English-speaking country.

Should English the Official Language of America?
Yes.

Should the leaders consider getting America to gradually abandon the English language and use an easier language?
No. As I stated IMO English is the easier of the two languages. But so what if it is as you suggest? Why dumb it down for people? I’m disappointed enough as it is with Hollywood and movie critics. Not to mention the costs associated with reeducating a nation as big as ours. I'd rather spend illiteracy money on 11 million adults instead of 100 million.

In my opinion, any resources we have for literacy should be used to help students learn BETTER English. Too much of the time, short shrift is given to spelling, grammar, and usage in our schools.

It does not take thirteen years to learn English. It's just that a lot of school systems don't teach well enough that a graduate of the 12th grade can be said to know his or her English well.

A lot of learning is boring, plain and simple. The idea that it must always be made FUN, even at the expense of its quality, is what has downgraded American education. Learning is important if youngsters are to develop critical thinking skills.

There is no point in adopting a different language than English. Americans already have a reputation for being single-language-oriented; unlike many Europeans, most Americans can speak English and only English. It would be horrendously expensive and time-consuming to switch languages.

I took French in 1979, when I was a high school freshman. It was difficult to learn because unlike English, there are masculine and feminine tenses to memorize, formal and informal tenses, etc. These exist in Spanish as well, and would be a major stumbling block for many people who are no longer spunky 14-year-olds. LOL

On top of this, there is the not insignificant matter of everyone in this country who is more conservative than I am who would be highly offended at the idea of changing the national language. LOL

If we want to throw money at illiteracy, let's throw some in the direction of hiring English teachers who will give us our money's worth. Teach some of the little darlings to speak good English in the first place, and teach them that if they can't speak clearly and intelligently, they will be locked out of the American dream.

I think the "problem" can be lumped into two areas:
1) Immigrants/Aliens, and
2) Those failed by their parents and American public schools (in the person of the NEA)

Both are hindered in any hope for advancement by not learning English. America is an immigrant nation. Irish, Italians, Koreans, Polish, et al, have all come here and realized to succeed they will have to adapt. (Darwin would be proud!)
If one is satisfied in their current station, they can speak whatever language they chose. If they want to live the dream that is America, is it asking too much for them to make the same effort that those who came before them have made? I am sorry but I, nor America, "owe" them anything. As was already brought up, the economic costs are great for transcribing everything in multiple languages. But what about the intangibles? How much productivity is lost in industry because of people not being able to follow instructions properly?

For the youth who has been failed, we have to look deeper into society. We have to a.) figure out how to make some parents put real effort into making the children succeed, and b.) figure out how to make public schools more accountable. The schools now spend too much time trying to be P.C., and not enough time on the three "Rs". I know, because I have two children who have survived it I like to think they learned "in spite" of it. (Don't get me wrong, they have had some great teachers along the way, and some real morons...)

As for the parents, you can't force a child to learn, but you can encourage the desire. If you wait until they are in 1st grade you have already squandered the best five years...
I am sorry Hillary, but it doesn't take a village, it takes a parent.

1. Should people be expected to master the English language?
Yes. Even in countries where it isn't the primary mother tongue, everyone in the world who wants to succeed in commerce internationally is learning, or has learned, English. Including in China and India.

At the moment, that's because their primary consumer market - America - speaks English. But once they've learned English, it's much easier for an Indian businessman to talk to a Chinese business woman in English - a language they both already know, than for the Indian guy to learn Mandarin.

And inside India, there is no equivalent to Mandarin - a common language used for adminstration across many other languages and dialects - anyway, except English.

2. Should English the Official Language of America?

That's up to you. If you're going to make the decision to use something other than English, you'd better do it while the USA is still the global economic powerhouse. Wait 20 or 30 years until you have some really serious competiton (from mabye a revamped EU, AND China AND India, and maybe Indonesia too), and they're all speaking English to one another, and anyone in America who wants to compete internationally would have to learn it anyway.

Thanks to the British Empire ( ) you have a colossal inbuilt advantage - you already speak (a somewhat inferior version of ) English. Why throw that away because the US education system hasn't worked out how to teach it properly?

3. Should the leaders consider getting America to gradually abandon the
English language and use an easier language?

Define easy.

Native speakers find whatever language, including the most difficult (and English is a walk in the park compared to Finnish or Basque), a walk in the park to learn.

Languages only become difficult to leanr when you're doing it as a second language, usually only when you're doing it after the age of about 8.

American may need to get better at teaching English as a foreign language, but that's a different debate.

America may need to get better at teaching. Full stop (or period, if you prefer). Especially at school levels - as we've explored elsewhere, top flight US univerisites are about the best there are, with only the UK's Oxbridge and other senior uni's for competition - but that, too, it another debate.

Sarge had a good point suggesting that Korean should be considered. Korea has the highest literacy rate in the world, and I don't think its because Korea has better students or better teachers.

I think the one of the keys for defining an easy language should be the consistency of the rules, that is consistency on the spelling, grammar, and pronounciation. For example, English has many irregular verbs and exceptions to the normal rules.

For example, we are taught in grade school that words with "ea" are pronounced with a long e. But the word "read" can be pronounced "reed" or "red." In the easier languages, there's usually only one way to spell and pronounce words.

As far as gradually shifting America to another language, it would take a very long time if it were to happen. Given that America works in a global environment, I don't think it would hurt for American schoolkids to learn an Asian language. If Americans became fluent in an Asian language, America might actually be able to sell its products to other countries and keep its manufacturing jobs.

I question whether the study was accurate about 11 million adults being illiterate. That's probably because I've never met an illiterate adult in America.

Asian languages are considered some of the hardest to learn. I think the reason they have such a high literacy level is because of the importance asian cultures place on education. They have some of the highest young adult suicide rates due to students not being accepted. I've heard from language majors here that there's a 4 or 5 level hierarchy of language difficulty with asian languages being at the top (a 4 or 5), english as a 3, romance languages as 2's, and I forget what the 1 is (I've been looking for this online, but haven't been able to find a link about it).

Another point I'd like to make is that it doesn't matter what language you speak natively because all babies start off with the capacity to understand the different phonemes in all languages and with time it narrows down to almost soley the native language. The point is, if we all start out the same (assuming no birth defects) in our capacity to understand language the difference must come in the nurturing or upbringing in society.

1. Should people be expected to master the English language?

In places where the majority of people speak english, yes. Being able to speak another language is just a plus.

2. Should English the Official Language of America?

Yes.

3. Should the leaders consider getting America to gradually abandon the
English language and use an easier language?

I don't think this makes sense, but if we did we wouldn't change for a long time. We can't even go metric, how are we supposed to change languages? What would we change to? I think Julian nailed it: we need better teaching of the language. In another thread I pointed out how low the US is one education in general; which is just sad since we're one of the most developed.

Personally, I think the cultural importance on education is what stops us from achieving. It seems like the most important thing in the US is success, the bottom line, and it doesn't necessarily matter how you get there just as long as you do. If the idea were that education were more important than being wealthy, or that education lead to success, then I think we would see a lot less educational problems, and reducing illiteracy would be just one.

No and lets be honest. If you cannot understand English you are either an illegal alien or someone who received a very poor education. In either case these are problems we can fix.

Have educational standards and deport illegal aliens.

1. Should people be expected to master the English language?

Why not? Students in other countries around the world are learning English. Are our people too stupid to do so?

While it is perfectly acceptable for alien residents to speak the "mother tongue" at home, it is in the best interests of the family for members to learn English as well as they can.

2. Should English [be] the Official Language of America?

<Sigh> Must this be legislated, too? Why can't we just acknowledge that English is the language that is spoken by the vast majority of Americans?

If we want better use of the language, then learning proper American English must be emphasized in the schools. And the mostly unfunded "No Child Left Behind" program must provide for things other than tests--things like textbooks and other badly-needed equipment in our school systems. It would also be nice to lower college tuition costs and make it possible for aspiring teachers to complete their education so that more teachers can enter the workforce.

3. Should the leaders consider getting America to gradually abandon the
English language and use an easier language?

It's like the Staples commercial on television. We think that there should be an "Easy" button to eliminate all the problems we encounter.

A person can buy frozen burritos, cook them in a microwave oven, and call the result a meal. A person can also use obtain several different ingredients, read a recipe, and use other available kitchen equipment to produce a tastier, more nutritious meal. It requires more time and effort, but the results are worth it.

It requires time and effort to learn English. But the result is that the learner is enriched by a language influenced by virtually every culture in the world and full of surprises.

Why would we want to switch to something "easier"?