Yesterday, he who is the Democrat presumed nominated, Barack Obama, said this:
You know, I don't understand when people are going around worrying about, "We need to have English-only." They want to pass a law, "We want English-only."
Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English--they'll learn English--you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.
You know, it's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], "Merci beaucoup." Right?
I wonder if??his assertion that "they'll learn English" is necessarily true, especially if they refers to kids whose parents may speak no English at home and who are??enrolled in lousy schools (or bilingual education classes). The word??learn is certainly vague--when Obama says "they'll learn English," does he mean that students will be able to communicate verbally, or that they'll be able to write decently, or that they'll both speak and write English with panache? That??all non-immigrant students will "learn English" (with learn referring here to??the least-demanding of??degrees of learned-ness)??is??far from certain.
Which brings us to this, from Obama: "you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish." When so many pupils in our schools can barely communicate in English, it seems odd to focus on creating a bilingual society. Right?