Well, it depends.....I know in Hong Kong, the official language is Cantonese.  I have a friend who used to live there.  Originally, they were supposed to be in Beijing so she learned Mandarin.  They ended up in Hong Kong so she had difficulty being understood. :-\\


Mandarin and Cantonese are the most used, and each has dialects but Mandarin is considered the official language.  Hong Kong was until recently govenred by the English, and perhaps used Cantonese as a way of separating it from the spoken language of The Peoples Republic

...and here was me getting all confused... this thread don't have nuthin to do with the Spanish National Anthem (or "viva Espana" as the Brit ex-pats like to sing)

;)


Well, the subject got me confused too. Glad nobody replied to my initial post (that I have removed from this thread).

And for the record: the (true) Spanish national anthem is the "Marcha Real" and has no lyrics at all.



Now I'll just leave you folks to it.

^Marcha Real is nice, but I actually like Viva Espa

  I went to college in Texas and to hear some of the students with the "southern drawl" speak a foreign language was painful.  There was also a guy from Boston who couldn't "roll an 'r'" to save his life.  In most cases, you couldn't understand a word they were saying because their natural accents came through.  On the other hand, there were people who spoke the language beautifully, but couldn't write it worth a darn.  Most of these students had 4+ years of study in their language, but none would be considered "proficient".


To brag for a minute here(lol)- my Spanish is wonderful.  My pronunciation and tone is not foreign-sounding at all; it has a native sound.  Its not surprising because in English I am good at different accents and impersonations(I have a bit of a knack for acting) and I don't have much of a natural accent- I'm kinda monotone.

The whole multiculturalism that you Liberals spout on about just muddys the waters even further.

What you fail to realize is that PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT.

The national anthem is a historical song, recounting the battles that have been fought by Americans to protect the rights that we enjoy. Note the keyword there, Americans. Not flipping Mexicans.

I don't know if you skipped History class but in the past we've fought wars with them and now it's appropriate to allow them to adopt and bastardize our own national anthem? I think not.

Speaking of lingual bastardisation, I couldn't help but notice a couple of errors in that spot of French you have below your username. It's not "A tout les amie" it's " A tous les amies." It's plural.

Anyhoo, I don't see how singing the national anthem in Spanish is bastardisation at all. There are two official versions of "O Canada", one in English and one in French, and you might be interested to know that the French version was the original. The US has no official language in the first place, and Spanish has every right to be spoken here, as it is the native and/or ancestral (and many times primary) language of a significant portion of this country. And they're not all illegals. What the hell is so great about English anyway, that it should be kept as the ONLY language in the US? That's bullsh!t. If you don't want to learn or speak Spanish, then don't. I don't want to persoanlly either, and I don't plan on it, but that doesn't mean no one else can.

"Dangers of multiculturalism..," how can that guy NOT be a racist??? The country is multicultural whether we have more than one language or not, because we are multiracial. So if this guy has a problem with other cultures existing in this country, it's only indicative of his problem with other races... What a jerk, that guy.

Speaking of lingual bastardisation, I couldn't help but notice a couple of errors in that spot of French you have below your username. It's not "A tout les amie" it's " A tous les amies." It's plural.

Wow, I noticed that too.  I just didn't want to say anything.



Anyhoo, I don't see how singing the national anthem in Spanish is bastardisation at all. There are two official versions of "O Canada", one in English and one in French, and you might be interested to know that the French version was the original. The US has no official language in the first place, and Spanish has every right to be spoken here, as it is the native and/or ancestral (and many times primary) language of a significant portion of this country. And they're not all illegals. What the hell is so great about English anyway, that it should be kept as the ONLY language in the US? That's bullsh!t. If you don't want to learn or speak Spanish, then don't. I don't want to persoanlly either, and I don't plan on it, but that doesn't mean no one else can.

I think most people don't have a problem with learning another language, or with others learning another language, but rather that it seems to be FORCED upon them in some areas of this country.  I live in Central CA where there is very little incentive for non-English speakers to learn English, and they actually expect you to know Spanish and are surprised when you cannot speak it.  Even my wife, who is half Mexican, gets annoyed sometimes about this. 

I think an official language makes sense for the purposes of standardization and not segregation.  You ensure that everybody can communicate with each other in both business/professional and personal situations.  It is good to have linguists and translators for tourists and citizens/permanent residents who just got here from wherever they came from, but after you've been here for so long, don't you think it'd be wise to learn the language that is spoken most in this country? 

Back when I came to the USA, I didn't speak English fluently at all.  Hong Kong did have bilingual education to teach kids English as well as Chinese, being a former British colony, but there was little use for English since everybody spoke Chinese.  When I started school in America, I got an hour a day of ESL classes to hone my English skills and was otherwise put in a sink-or-swim environment where, through immersion and osmosis, I eventually learned how to speak California Standard English without an accent.  It took me maybe six months at the age of five to go from a faux Chinese-British accent to California Standard.  It's based on effort, really. 

It's funny that you question why English is so important.  When I was in college (UC Berkeley, liberal hippie paradise, represent!) I took an American Cultures course in linguistics about why English is so widespread in not just America, but the global economy.  Businessmen from Scandinavia, Asia, and South America use their native tongues when with their indigenous colleagues, but in the presence of foreign colleagues, they invariably choose English as the common language.  There are even businessmen who CHOOSE to speak to each other in English, even if both spoke French or Spanish, because it just makes communication so much easier. 

"Dangers of multiculturalism..," how can that guy NOT be a racist??? The country is multicultural whether we have more than one language or not, because we are multiracial. So if this guy has a problem with other cultures existing in this country, it's only indicative of his problem with other races... What a jerk, that guy.


Predictably, I will now state that I am married to a Mexican-American, my best friends are Polish and Jamaican, and I have studied under Latino, African-American, Jewish and white professors and graduate students whom I respect and respect me back.  We all speak English to each other.  It's not an issue of being racist or segregationist, it's a matter of making it as easy as possible for people of different backgrounds to communicate with each other.  In Salinas, the Mexican-American and immigrant population can go anywhere and see notices in Spanish.  They have no need to learn English as long as they stay in most parts of the Central Coast.  What happens when they want to advance and move outside the Central Coast to get a better job and better opportunities for their families?  They have to learn English.  But as long as they are given ZERO incentive to do so, they won't. 

I neglected to state that I have no issues with the national anthem being sung in Spanish, but I would have liked it more if the Spanish lyrics had tried to keep the historic meaning of Francis Scott Key's poem.  There was a reason he wrote it, and a reason it was written like it was, and a reason why America thinks of it as its anthem.  When I first came to the USA, in kindergarten and first grade, we had to memorize the Star Spangled Banner, the Pledge of Allegiance (under God, even), and the Preamble of the Constitution.  Important stuff for any American citizen to know, but it seems most people take it for granted these days.

Unless they move to China, I can't see that happening. 


you should come to Monterey Park or Alhambra, California, it's already been done.