Throwing sand just not for kids anymore

I doubt that you can just be dropped somewhere and learn the language enough to be comfortable giving an interview about someone throwing sand in your face during a race.

Being asked directions about where to go is fine, but I would guess that there will be words you don't understand. Now, imagine a reporter sticking a tape recorder in front of your face and asking you a question in a language you aren't completely comfortable with. Maybe prior interviews this kid gave were taken out of context. Maybe the kid's prior interviews made him look like a fool because he used the wrong words or spoke in broken sentances.

You have this assumption that you can just be dropped into Baghdad and within a year feel comfortable giving interviews to Arabic press.

 

Well, I used to be fluent in both French & German and there's no way you could become "nearly fluent" in either in two weeks.

Ordering from a menu, buying coffee and saying hello and goodbye is not anywhere "nearly fluent".

When you can discuss world events, carry on a three hour conversation with 6 other people and read the local newspaper then maybe you'll be nearly fluent.

 

One...once again...get over yourself. I'm not stalking you. Please quit trying to change the subject.

Your post definitely sounds like you are attacking the victim. I asked you repeatedly if you meant to say that the assault was justified. By dodging the question, you absolutely gave people reason to believe that you do believe it was justified. Given the content of your posts, I don't even buy your sarcastic denial.

 

Thanks, I just needed to hear someone say that.

 

Junkie, do you think you would know how to speak a foreign language after one year in another land, complete with the assimilation that he would need to make with the people, the culture, etc.? He's been in Maine for basically 12 months, no way would I expect him to speak perfect English. He's going to struggle with it, he needs some time.

The kid's an assault victim and you're complaining that he's part of the reason for the downfall of American society because you need to press "1" for English. Put that aside here for a moment and consider what sort of transformation this kid has attempted to make during the past 12-14 months. It can't be easy, especially in the whitest state in the union.

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a liberal. Moderate is the better way to put it.

That being said, immigrants from a different culture. For them, just being here, not in a country where they're worried about being shot every day, probably is heavenly.

I interviewed a family of Liberian refugees several years ago. For them, working at an $8-per-hour job was the American dream. Do I strive for higher goals in life? Yes. But for them, people who had nothing in the past, the fact that they could control their own destiny, they enjoyed that.

 

She's now 44 and was forced to learn language after language nonstop; this kid might not even be 18, probably moved out of Somalia for the first time in his life and now lives in the whitest state in America. Yeah, they're the same thing.

 

I'm sure Lewiston High School has an ESL program. As such, any immigrant who enters the high school would be automatically entered. It may not be the perfect answer, but it enables the kid to get an education while he is struggling to learn English.

If the kid's only been here 14 months, it's a bit much to expect he'll be fluent in English.

 

Junkie, how many languages do you speak?

 

Never saw it? Sorry...bullshit. As usual.

But thanks for finally answering. Even if I did believe you, it is still ridiculous to go after the kid like that on a thread about him being assaulted.

 

Who says that he can't speak English?

There was an issue several years ago with the MetroStars. Their star player Amado Guevarra would only give interviews in Spanish. However, he was at several Meet-the-Team days. At those events, if you asked him a question in English, he would answer in English. His problem was that he wasn't completely comfortable talking in English with a reporter because it isn't his native language.

When he spoke English, it was broken. He dropped words from his sentances that would normally be required. The meaning was there, but you couldn't tell if the word he was using was really the word he wanted to use or if he just didn't have the vernacular to select a word that would be less harsh.

This is what you fail to see or recognize. The kid could be an English wiz, but he just doesn't want to get burned in an interview.

Oh, and I know plenty of people who speak English as their secondary language and I have known them over the several years that they have lived here. They can hold a small conversation but I would never call them fluent.

 

Who said anything about needing a translator to conduct a newspaper interview with this guy?

Officer Peter Volk said Saturday night that police were working to arrange for a translator to assist them in speaking with Noor, who Putnam said had achieved local hero status in his Somali community.

That makes perfect sense.

As Pastor says, no one said the guy couldn't speak English.

Junkie thinks that if you can say "I want to fondle your buttocks" in Hungarian, that makes you fluent.