English as a 2nd language and since English became a language...
Either today or yesterday, there were some postings here about Spanish as a second language for this part of N. America. Its inevitable. There are very many people in the USA who have Spanish as their FIRST language as they learn English. *The Spanish-speaking population is growing rapidly here...
Go to any shopping mall near the border with Canada. You will often hear French spoken by Canadians who come here by the buses loads! Many Canadians speak at least two languages very well...
In S. America, English is also known and spoken even though Spanish is their native language...
With Canada to our north and S. America down south of us, here in the USA we are more and more surrounded by French and Spanish words...
In all developed countries, the people speak not only their native tongue but also speak and understand English...
It is very interesting that even in underdeveloped countries, some people living in poverty still can somewhat speak and understand English!
Yet here, as big as this country's population has grown with *people from another land who intend for their children to use their own country's language first, we in the USA still think we can get along with only one language...
Besides that learning Spanish has become a necessity here, English, after all, is a combination of MANY other languages including French and Spanish.
Much of the basics of Spanish are so similar to English, it is easy to READ Spanish and get the gist...
Although some people in the USA balk at accepting needing to learn a second language, whether it becomes a second nation language or not, that is not true in the schools. This county's young are learning Spanish and other languages as basic education on a much greater scale than older generations here ever thought they would need to. It seems that we in the USA need to accept Spanish as a possible second national language...
~~Because it is becoming necessary to have a discrepancy as the world gets smaller, I like to refer to those living in the USA as something other than Americans since "America" does not apply only to the USA. I think of us as USAers, USAens or USAions/ions as in a USA nation~~
How to get the gist of Spanish as it becomes common in this country"? I do it this way:
When I have a booklet of instructions for putting something together, those languages are basically word-for-word the same-meaning and sentence structures; those are basic wordings everyone uses. Remember that those languages are the top ones for purchasers of products we ALL use worldwide--I try learning the basics that way...
Another way. Many online sites now give a choice of languages. I could copy a page of information in the language I speak. Then copy one or two other languages that I hear around me. Then try to compare and learn them at least basically. French is harder to learn this way then Spanish...
When I am with or near people who are speaking a language I don't understand, I listen, ID and try to understand... No LOL here. It works, well, it works basically. (Don't you just hate it when a group people you are speaking WITH switch to a language you don't understand? In my experience, that has been Spanish. Rude that! Calls for going gist getting.)
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