[Zipperfish]

sandorski sandorski:

I don't know what "Edmonton" means, yet I don't fret about it.

"Shithole"

[Public_Domain]

[Public_Domain]

[bootlegga]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Bootlegga, not to detract from your point or anything, but I guarantee you'd have a hard as fuck time trying to look up some Chinese written on a sign. I mean, unless you stand in front of that sign, write out the glyphs, then spend merciless hours trying to find your scribbles online....

There's an app for that;

http://translateabroad.com/

I also have a Chinese/English Dictionary that goes by character, so you can translate things - though it is far more time-consuming and difficult.

[Public_Domain]

[andyt]

Cafe Trattoria should give you a clue what the establishment is about. And I doubt if when you enter they can't speak a word of English. The Chinese restaurant may have been authentic, but a wait staff willing to tell me what's what would have been very helpful. I'm not just going to point at an item on the menu and wind up with who knows what. Unlike the Chinese, I don't eat everything that moves. Just some words on the sign that give you a clue is helpful, so is staff that actually speaks the language of the country. What are these people doing here if they don't speak it - Brenda continually assures me that all immigrants have some proficiency in an oficial language, my experiences to the contrary.

[andyt]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Bootlegga, not to detract from your point or anything, but I guarantee you'd have a hard as fuck time trying to look up some Chinese written on a sign. I mean, unless you stand in front of that sign, write out the glyphs, then spend merciless hours trying to find your scribbles online....

There's an app for that;

http://translateabroad.com/

I also have a Chinese/English Dictionary that goes by character, so you can translate things - though it is far more time-consuming and difficult.

Yeah, that's the answer. If you travel to China!

[raydan]

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Oh yeah, I forgot about technology.... Waiting for a proper universal translated still.

[Jonny_C]

It makes little sense to me for parents to expect that their children should be immersively taught an ancestral language in a school setting when they don't even speak it in the home.

Parents who are new or recent immigrants teach their children to become fluent in the language before they even go to school. I know that from first-hand experience.

I learned to speak, read and write German (Austrian dialect AND High German) entirely from my own parents. I can even read Gothic script German. My Finn friends spoke with their parents in Finn, the Dutch kids in Dutch, the Italian in Italian. One of my best friends in high school was a Finn lad from a farm. Whenever I visited, he would translate back and forth for his mother and me. His mother, as a backwoods farm wife, hardly learned any English at all, right to the day she passed away. My childhood and teen years abound with examples of fluently bilingual kids, with nary a single school lesson required.

People who expect their children to be taught to speak a heritage language when they can hardly speak it themselves should concentrate instead on having them immersively taught the official language - either English or French - that they don't know.

I'm aware that my attitude may be left behind by what seems to be current practice in some places. But it's still my attitude. We don't always get our druthers, but that doesn't mean we can't make them known.

I should add that high school language courses are an entirely different thing. Those can concentrate on providing a working knowledge of what is frequently a third language. For me that was 3 yrs of Italian, which I can still get by in.

[bootlegga]

andyt andyt:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Public_Domain Public_Domain:

Bootlegga, not to detract from your point or anything, but I guarantee you'd have a hard as fuck time trying to look up some Chinese written on a sign. I mean, unless you stand in front of that sign, write out the glyphs, then spend merciless hours trying to find your scribbles online....

There's an app for that;

http://translateabroad.com/

I also have a Chinese/English Dictionary that goes by character, so you can translate things - though it is far more time-consuming and difficult.

Yeah, that's the answer. If you travel to China!

That's just one of several apps that can translate.

[bootlegga]

andyt andyt:

Cafe Trattoria should give you a clue what the establishment is about. And I doubt if when you enter they can't speak a word of English.

All it tells me is that it might be a coffee shop (Cafe). It wasn't until I looked up Trattoria that I found out it is;

$1:

A trattoria (Italian pronunciation: [trattoˈria]) is an Italian-style eating establishment, less formal than a ristorante, but more formal than an osteria.

So it's less formal than a restaurant - but what kind of restaurant?

So then I had to look up osteria...

The point is, if you're going to do this, it has to be across the board, not just targeting (yes I said it) those who don't use the roman alphabet, which is basically 80% of the world.

andyt andyt:

The Chinese restaurant may have been authentic, but a wait staff willing to tell me what's what would have been very helpful. I'm not just going to point at an item on the menu and wind up with who knows what. Unlike the Chinese, I don't eat everything that moves. Just some words on the sign that give you a clue is helpful, so is staff that actually speaks the language of the country. What are these people doing here if they don't speak it - Brenda continually assures me that all immigrants have some proficiency in an oficial language, my experiences to the contrary.

Well, if you can't communicate with them, then don't go there.

There are lots of places who will be happy to serve you and all the other guilos!

[bootlegga]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

sandorski sandorski:

I don't know what "Edmonton" means, yet I don't fret about it.

"Shithole"

Might be - I know Vancouver means rainy shithole.

[herbie]

You'll only wince at the bill in a Trattoria.
You'll shit yourself in a Restorante

[bootlegga]

herbie herbie:

You'll only wince at the bill in a Trattoria.
You'll shit yourself in a Restorante