English is a difficult language to learn, most immigrants are not refusing to learn it, they are just struggling. When people complain about them, maybe they should be helping instead. - - Donna Poisl
by BILL HALL
I’ve been wondering how much hostility my immigrant great-grandparents from Denmark had to put up with years ago because they were slow to learn a tough language like English.
They didn’t come here ready to roll with a head full of English. So maybe I’m smarter than they were because I’ve been speaking English since my first birthday, if Daddy, Mommy and Kitty constitute an English vocabulary.
On the other hand, it took me several years to develop a full ration of usable English. I didn’t really get my little brain and big mouth into speaking gear until I was about 4 or 5. And immigrants, legal or illegal, who come to this country also take considerable time to learn our language.
But I have been receiving e-mails lately from easily agitated friends who send me their disapproval of people who arrive from Mexico “and don’t have the decency to learn English.”
Be sure to read the rest of this story! This is only a small part of it.
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