Bilingual in Europe versus USA

B Vaughan wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:03:57 +0200, Giovanni Drogo
wrote:


Outside of such context bilingual may mean "any two parental tongues"
(for instance my god-daughter is bilingual in German by father and
Italian by mother ... she used to speak also some Swedish when she lived
there, but maybe she forgot growing up), or generally "any two
languages".


An American friend has a 2-year-old grandson whose father is Spanish.
They're trying to raise this little boy to be bilingual. He generally
speaks English to his mother and Spanish to his father. My friend once
heard him ask his mother for "agua" and then correct it to "water".

Former neighbors of mine taught their kids to be trilingual.
Their father is Puerto Rican (although born in the US),
their maternal grandparents are German, and of course the
mother of course was born and attended school here. So the
three kids speak all three languages, fluently.

I don't think my forebears did me any favors by discouraging
me from learning German, when both maternal and paternal
grandparents spoke it. (We lived with my mom's parents for
a while, but they only used German in my presence when they
didn't want me to understand what they were saying!)

spamfree wrote:
]
Name one area in the USA where bilingual means anything other than
English & Spanish. The various Chinatowns might be the only
exception, but I don't remember that being considered officially bilingual.



In San Jose, it could mean English and Vietnamese. In LA, I've heard of
Korean shopkeepers who speak Spanish better than English.

I'm sure you have seen the word "bilingual" used to mean English and
Spanish without qualification, but that doesn't justify your sweeping
generalization.

Hatunen writes:

The procss is that someone making a claim should support it if
challenged, not that he should tell teh challenger to go and
"come across it eventually".

I'm not going to support it. If you're interested in knowing more,
you can look it all up. If you're not, don't.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Dave Smith wrote:

Hatunen wrote:


In Canada, if a job posting calls for applicants to be bilingual, it means
French and English.

You mean Quebecoise and English.



True., but the Quebecois think it is French.
It's funny, but I took French in high school, had s few immersion experiences,
have spent time in Quebec and France, and had work dealt with some Quebecois and
some real French people. I can understand French in France. I can actually
communicate with people there and understand what they are telling me. When
French Canadians speak their French to me it sounds like a different language.

This thread reminds me of the joke about the businessman who
put a placard in his window advertising for a bilingual
secretary. A cat walked in and pointed to the sign, meowing
to indicate she wanted to apply for the job. The employer
figured he'd play along, so gave her a letter to type, which
to his surprise she did, flawlessly. When he pointed out
that the job also required she be bilingual, the cat looked
at him and replied "Woof". ;-)

Martin Bienwald wrote:
They have a funny way of making bilingual signs, however; they often
write the language-independent part of the name a bit bigger and use
it for both languages (for example: "rue JENATZY straat").

I've seen that in Canada.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

"spamfree" wrote in message
...
This is somewhat of a USA rant, but Europeans will understand. In
the USA, if a sign/ad includes the word bilingual, it always refers to
an ability to speak English & Spanish (and not European Spanish, but
Mexican / Central American Spanish). But in Europe, bilingual would
simply refer to an ability to speak two languages; German & Italian,
Dutch & French, etc. A European employment ad requiring bilingual
employees would always attract the query "Which two languages?"
This USA policy completely annoys some of us because if we ask that
question, "Which two languages?", we are immediately termed racists,
but in reality we are merely literalists. In any major city's Chinatown,
bilingual would more honestly refer to English & Chinese, and there are
neighborhoods in New York and Chicago where bilingual could easily
refer to English & Polish or English & Russian.


People who speak 4 or more languages are multi-lingual; people who speak 3
languages are tri-lingual; people who speak two languages are bi-lingual;
people who speak one language are American. KM
--
(-:alohacyberian:-) At my website there are 3600 live cameras or
visit NASA, the Vatican, the Smithsonian, the Louvre, CIA, FBI or
CNN, NBA, the White House, Academy Awards & 150 foreign languages
Visit Hawaii, Israel and mo http://keith.martin.home.att.net/

Martin Bienwald schrieb:
Iceman wrote:
Martin Bienwald wrote:
I think that would be the case in most places with more than one
official
or "default" language. I guess in Brussels "bilingual" would
mostly refer
to Dutch/French, for example.

Brussels has an annoying way of doing it where the sign for a
street is
in one language or the other, not both. So you are looking for
"Rue de
Ghent" and when you get to it the sign says "Klixpacqtynstraat."

Oops? Street signs in Brussels are (almost) completely bilingual.

They have a funny way of making bilingual signs, however; they often
write the language-independent part of the name a bit bigger and use
it for both languages (for example: "rue JENATZY straat").

Copied from Ontario: "rue WHATEVER street" ? :-)

Tanner schrieb:
["Followup-To:" header set to rec.travel.usa-canada.]
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Hatunen wrote:
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006 13:24:53 -0400, Dave Smith
wrote:

spamfree wrote:


In Canada, if a job posting calls for applicants to be bilingual, it means
French and English.
You mean Quebecoise and English.

Likely meant French and English. We don't generally distinguish
among English dialects in Canada, we call them English.
Same with French.


Ask a Frenchman what he thinks of Quebecois French.

T.


--
In memorium Layal Najib
www.cpj.org

On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 07:11:08 +0200, Mxsmanic
wrote:

Hatunen writes:

The procss is that someone making a claim should support it if
challenged, not that he should tell teh challenger to go and
"come across it eventually".

I'm not going to support it. If you're interested in knowing more,
you can look it all up. If you're not, don't.

You seem to enjoy writing things that you can't support. As you claim
you want to educate people on usenet, how does not supporting
something help?
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

Joseph Coulter schrieb:

Giovanni Drogo wrote in
oengr.vans.vg:

Switzerland it might mean any two of the four official languages.

And as any good Swiss could tell you that would be a learning
imparied
person.

Who is looking in Switzerland for bilingual staff ? :-)

Receptionists in our company are fluent in German, French,
Italian and English (sorry, no Romansch yet) ... or at least
used to be

In fact, depends where in the country: for Geneva now its
usually E/F, Berne, Fribourg, Biel area F/G