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Conversation with a Liberal #2 - Debunking Liberal Urban Legends
http://redhotright.blogspot.com/ ^ | 2008-01-18 | Red-Hot Right

Posted on 01/18/2009 4:41:47 PM PST by redhotright

Thank you to all the Freepers who commented on my first Conversation with a Liberal at FreeRepublic. One of my favorite comments likened talking with Liberals to talking with houseplants. Thanks Popman.

Here's another true story for your amusement...

My wife was talking with some liberals recently who were discussing how Europeans are so wonderful and smart because they can speak multiple languages. The implication was that Americans are stupid because most Americans speak only English. My wife, being a naturalized American citizen who immigrated from Europe, was asked her opinion on the matter.

Without missing a beat, she replied, "I know lots of Europeans who can't even speak one language, much less two."

Dropped jaws and stunned silence. It's what I call 'The Liberal Look'. Or as Popman might say, they reverted to their natural houseplant state.


TOPICS: Government; Politics
KEYWORDS: europe; languages; liberals; urbanlegends
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To: APFel

Knowing more languages will give you more options in life, whether personally, socially or professionally.

A friend of mine from law school landed an amazing job with a law firm in Miami practicing international trade law because he is originally from Brazil and speaks Spanish and Portugese. We went to the same law school and had more or less the same qualifications, but that job was not open to me because I didn’t speak the required languages.


21 posted on 01/18/2009 5:44:51 PM PST by Citizen Blade ("A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy" -Benjamin Disraeli)
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To: Boiling Pots

We are marooned in DYUmmieland for 4 years


22 posted on 01/18/2009 5:49:50 PM PST by GeronL (A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood)
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To: redhotright

Will someone please explain to this idiot (me) what she meant by some Europeans don’t even speak one language? I don’t get it. I’d claim a blonde moment, but I am an auburn brunette.


23 posted on 01/18/2009 5:58:23 PM PST by Marie2 (Hunkered down until something better comes along)
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To: TypeZoNegative

(Just asking) How will knowledge of English and Romanian (a Romance language like Spanish, French, or Italian) assist in learning Slavic languages like Czech, Polish, or Serbo-Croatian?

BTW, I was deployed to Uzbekistan 2003-04 and found that recalling my high school Latin greatly assisted my learning Russian. Similar grammatical logic, so maybe you’re right.


24 posted on 01/18/2009 6:00:40 PM PST by elcid1970 ("O Muslim! My cartridges are lubricated with pig grease!")
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To: Melas

Apparently the discussion wasn’t about the benefits of multiligualism as much as it was about the smart multilingual Europeans vs. the dumb monolingual Americans; if so, the poster’s wife addressed the issue as she saw fit.

Personally, I don’t think people are stupid if they don’t learn more than the language that is required for general communication in their home country; I would wish everyone spoke and wrote their native language as well as they were able, and that their country’s sign language would be required, too. A universal sign language would cover even more people than would a spoken language.

Most Canadians only speak English; do Europeans think they’re as dumb as they think we are? So far, I’ve not heard any other country disparaged as we are for this lack of communication skills. I like knowing other languages but haven’t had much opportunity to use what little I know.


25 posted on 01/18/2009 6:15:09 PM PST by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: Marie2

She may be referring to slang, pidgin or code-switching. Some people may not bother to learn one language well but simply speak that which is required to conduct business in a multilanguage region.


26 posted on 01/18/2009 6:28:51 PM PST by skr (May God confound the enemy)
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To: Clintons Are White Trash

“That’s the truth! Spent a week at a resort in the Dominican Republic this past spring. It was inhabited by 95% Italian vacationers of which we found only a few who could speak any English.”

We visited Rome recently. Most folks in the tourist areas could speak English reasonably well. A gal we met who had been a little further afield (Tuscany) said almost no one spoke English.


27 posted on 01/18/2009 6:29:56 PM PST by Twotone
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To: elcid1970

From what I remember, Romanian has some pronunciations that are similar to their Slavic language neighbors and a few dialects of Romanian are Slavic influenced.


28 posted on 01/18/2009 6:32:27 PM PST by TypeZoNegative (Pro life & Vegan because I respect all life, Republican because our enemies don't respect ours.)
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To: redhotright
My wife was talking with some liberals recently who were discussing how Europeans are so wonderful and smart because they can speak multiple languages

Because? Did the liberal twits realize W speaks English and Spanish, and their messiahs (BO and algore) can only speak one?
Of course we all realize the liberal twits will quickly explain it away (after the initial awkward deer-in-the-headlights look) as "Well, it's more than just being able to speak another language!", or some such nonsense meant to be witty or enlightening, but liberals are still stupid and one-dimensional.

29 posted on 01/18/2009 6:57:02 PM PST by jeffc (They're coming to take me away! Ha-ha, he-he, ho-ho!)
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To: TypeZoNegative

What made Latin analogous to Russian for me is that both languages conjugate verbs using word endings which do not require subject/object pronouns, and that nouns are declined in several cases, again by word ending: five in Latin: nominative, genitive, dative, etc., and six or up to nine cases per noun in Russian. As a result, sentence meaning need not be determined by word order as is the case with English.


30 posted on 01/18/2009 6:57:27 PM PST by elcid1970 ("O Muslim! My cartridges are lubricated with pig grease!")
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To: Marie2

Marie2,

The basic idea was that an uneducated person would not not fully understand all aspects of their own language, much less be able to speak other languages. The point is that not all Europeans are as wonderfully intelligent as libtards would make them out to be.

Just like in America, there are intelligent people and unintelligent people in Europe. The fact of multiple languages is meaningless and doesn’t cause Europeans to be any more or less intelligent than Americans.


31 posted on 01/18/2009 7:02:46 PM PST by redhotright
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To: Citizen Blade
Portugese is easy for a Spaniard. All he has to do is get drunk.

BIG ≤}B^)

32 posted on 01/18/2009 7:17:11 PM PST by Erasmus (Yes, English is my first language. I'm hoping to do better on my second.)
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To: Melas

Then, by all means, go out and buy that “learn a language” software and smarten yourself up, if that’s how you define intelligence.


33 posted on 01/18/2009 7:24:27 PM PST by Cyber Liberty (Pretending the Admin Moderator doesn't exist will result in suspension.)
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To: redhotright
It has always amused me to see 'Internationalistas' equate multilingualism with superior intelligence or superior civilization. When you live in a place where you can drive 30 minutes and go through 3 different official language zones and still be in the same country (care to guess?), it is very likely that you will have the early childhood exposure that sets the brain physiology to make learning languages easier.

Personally, I find the lack of good English HERE to be of more concern to me. In spite of the tendency to admire 'British Accents' (GEICO Gekko, Product Pitchmen), our schools are doing a lousy job at correcting equally lousy family American cant and thus dooming these kids to either lower class or learning on their own!

34 posted on 01/19/2009 5:43:18 AM PST by SES1066 (Cycling to conserve, Conservative to save, Saving to Retire, will Retire to Cycle.)
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