this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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[–] artic@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 year ago

Why speak human languages when you can be cat meow nyaaaa meow meow

[–] CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

U aint tellin me nutin!

[–] 6buck6satan6@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I am a bilingual illiterate. I cannot read or write in 2 different languages.

[–] Bianca_0089@lemmy.today 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pretending not to know is the preferable choice for me.

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

where i grew up in burger land, back in the 80s, the public schools were teaching us all spanish in from age 5 to 10. not like true bilingual education, but we had a spanish class once a week. it last about 2 years before the white nationalists--who panic at the idea of working class people easily communicating with each other--got it shut down. between that and some years working with seasonal agricultural workers practicing their english, i am at the comprehension level of an inebriated toddler. i wish i had more opportunities to practice. honestly, the US should have all its signs in english and spanish anyway, but you know the reactionaries would go info a full blown pogrom over even a whiff of that being proposed.

i remember some small business tyrant in florida in the 2000s called up my work one time and wanted me to pass along his complaint to my boss that our phone system had an option to "press ocho for espanol". he said that our company even offering the option to "those people" was wrong... in FLORIDA... the state with the name that means "land of flowers" in spanish.

[–] TheCaconym@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

Are foreign languages classes in general not mandatory in US schools ?

Here in france-cool every kid will have classes for at least two languages (one for four years, one for two IIRC), sometimes three. Depending on where they go to school the kids will sometimes have a lot of choices (Chinese, Polish, regional languages, etc.) or sometimes only either English, Italian, German, or Spanish.

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[–] SeedyOne@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

Go easy on us, our 1% needs to keep us stupid for myriad reasons, mostly to stay in power. Don't worry though, they'll come for you next, wherever you are. Likely selling you on some other enemy or distraction.

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago (6 children)

21% illiteracy is shockingly bad tbh.

[–] jaschen@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This can't be true..... 21% of Americans can't read?

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Gives some perspective on american culture and problems compared to the rest of the world doesn't it?

Four in five U.S. adults (79 percent) have English literacy skills sufficient to complete tasks that require comparing and contrasting information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences—literacy skills at level 2 or above in PIAAC (OECD 2013). In contrast, one in five U.S. adults (21 percent) has difficulty completing these tasks (figure 1). This translates into 43.0 million U.S. adults who possess low literacy skills

Source: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019179/index.asp

[–] SamboT@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (33 children)

I'm all for american self-depreciation but:

"34% of adults who lack proficiency in literacy were born outside the US."

https://www.thinkimpact.com/literacy-statistics/

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[–] RandomVideos@programming.dev 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I know romanian, moldovan, british english and american english

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