On Fri, 1 Jan 2010 09:11:25 -0800, "Bill Noble"
wrote:



"Robert Swinney" wrote in message
m...
What Bruce said . . . .

Don't patronize the French speakers or any others in the transaction of
international business.
Clarity of thought and technical description is pivotal in business
language. That is why English
is the world's official business language. But, OTOH, as Bruce suggested,
German can be used to a
limited extent. German words are pictographic expressions constructed
from English; such as
brassiere translates to "holdsemfromfloppin" and etc.

Bob Swinney


these attitudes are EXACTLY why we are losing market share world wide -
customer service means exactly that - if the customer wants to speak French,
so be it - or Thai, or urdu, or tamil, or whatever it is - the provider's
job includes making the customer relationship special as well as offering
the product or service desired.

and I assure you French is perfectly fine for business and technical work -
did you ever hear of Lavoisier?

You act as though we should ignore them, no we should not. They get
the same effort to satisfy their needs as anyone else, if not a bit
more. But they need to make the effort to work with us, too.

It's the same problem we have in several areas of Los Angeles -
there are a substantial number and variety of second and third
generation immigrant families (both Latin American and Asian and
Mideastern, it's not isolated to one community) who remain insular and
base their lives around their home countries and languages, and
isolate their activities to small communities. Will not be bothered
learning English themselves, will not teach their children English,
will not speak it in their home or allow it to be spoken in response,
won't speak it where they shop or worship.

About the only exposure the children get is at school, and frankly
that isn't enough.

There are immigrant and naturalized parents raising US Citizens with
sub-par or barely functional or even non-existent English skills, by
choice. And if they stay in their little insular community
exclusively, they can get away with it.

The "Melting Pot" model has been co-opted into the "Ethnic Ghetto"
model. They either just don't get it, or consciously choose not to.

The Melting Pot is how we built a strong country and a vibrant
economy for 200-plus years, because people are investing and building
for their future here, and are always considering the effects of their
decisions and actions on their children's and grandchildren's future.

The Ethnic Ghetto workers are not into building a nicer USA, because
many still consider their home country their true home. They are here
only to stash away and/or wire home every dime they can make, so they
can cash out and go back to their home country and live like a king on
what would be a pauper's retirement here. And they set their children
and grandchildren up to follow in their footsteps.

-- Bruce --