English as a Second Language
Location - St. Paul, MN USA; drive through (I refuse to use -thru) at a Taco Bell “resteraunt”.
Order (exactly as I said it) - Number six with a softshell, Mountain Dew, empinada, and Fire sauce.
What I received - Number six with a hardshell, Mountain Dew, empinada, and mild sauce.
An important note is that I could not understand a word the guy said when he repeated back my order. This problem was a combination of the speaker in the drive through sign that sounded like it was buried six feet under the sand on a beach where the tide was coming in, and the fact that even once I heard him speak without the electronic transmission equipment adding it’s own accent to his, I still couldn’t understand him. It was almost the same in person, without the tide coming in, and the sand was gravel instead.
You might be speculating at this point where I am going to go with this. It’s this simple, if you are going to move to a country, and you plan on living there for some time, you should have the common sense to learn the native language.
Now that brings up something interesting, doesn’t it? The USA does not have an official native language.
Official flower of the United States: The Rose
Official website of the United States: www.usa.gov
I am not opposed to people coming to this country to live. That is totally understandable, who would not want to live in the greatest country in the world? And after all, people immigrating is part of what makes it great. My only simple point would be to learn English. This extends in usefulness way beyond getting an order right. What about calling for emergency help? I don’t know if all the operators at 911 can speak all the languages in the world well enough to understand what kind of help someone should need if they call in.
But, there are people who were born and raised here and have been speaking English since they were born and I still have trouble understanding them. Oh well, live and let live. If they are getting on just fine in life then who am I to question it?
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