Languages (was Re: Don in DC for Prez)

Denis,

In a message dated 98-11-17 09:00:56 EST, you write:

> Just to give a different light on this sensitive subject, may i remind you 
> of the fact that most of the non american people that do biseniss in or with
> the US at least try to do it in the language spoken there, that is english. 
> Very, very, very few americans worker/company/citizen can make the same
claim.
>  To give you an example, I am a french canadian and i am contacted almost 
> every day by company, both canadian and US. And among the litarally hundreds
> of US company that contacted me over the years, i have never heard more than
> an hello in french and, maybe, a half dozen apologies for not being able to 
> speak french. The united states is the most powerfull contry in the world, 
> but it is not the only one...

While this is completely off-topic, I cannot help but respond.  I would be the
first to admit that many US Citizens take the "ugly American" route of not
bothering to learn a foreign language prior to attempting to do businesss in
countries speaking another language; however, your admonishment is a bit hard
to take coming from a region that constantly seeks to distance itself from the
majority of its country's people over pure language differences.  Despite
close votes, French Canada has been unable to split itself from the rest of
the country primarily because it has been proven time and time again that the
region could not possibly support itself without the resources of the
remaining provinces.  While "mon Francais est plus pauvre", I would not expect
to use it in a country whose majority speaks English.

Frankly, had people had more of a crystal ball when I was in school, I'd
prefer to know more Spanish than "yo quiero Taco Bell" and "Que pasa, Pablo",
as opposed to the amount of French I accumulated under the auspices of a
marine biology career.  Yes, Americans need to learn more foreign languages.
And yes, French speaking peoples need to accept the fact that _ENGLISH_ is now
the language of diplomacy...

JMHO,

Dean Asmussen
Enterprise Systems Consulting, Inc.
Fuquay-Varina, NC  USA
E-Mail:  DAsmussen@aol.com

"A man can fail many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame
somebody else." -- John Burroughs
+---
| This is the Midrange System Mailing List!
| To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com.
| To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com.
| To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com.
| Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com
+---