#78 Multilingual Children
February 28, 2008 by clander
All white people want their children to speak another language. There are no exceptions. They dream about the children drifting in between French and English sentences as they bustle about the kitchen while they read the New York Times and listen to Jazz.
As white people age, they start to feel more and more angry with their parents for raising them in a monolingual home. At some point in their lives, most white people attempt to learn a second language and are generally unable to get past ordering in a restaurant or over-pronouncing a few key words. This failure is not attributed to their lack of effort, but rather their parents who didn’t teach them a new language during their formative years.
White people believe that if they had been given French language instruction when they were younger, their lives would have turned out very differently. Instead of living in the US, they would be living and working abroad for the United Nations or some other organization with a headquarters in Switzerland or The Hague.
Generally, white people prefer their children to speak French. Advanced white people will actually spend outrageous amounts of money to send their children to a Lycee or Ecole Francaise. But the vast majority will abandon their dreams when they realize that need a second mortgage so their child can have a better study abroad experience in France.
Languages such as German, Spanish, Swedish, or Italian are also acceptable, but are considered to be poor substitutes (especially Spanish). At the time of writing, it is still considered expert-level white person behavior to have white children speaking Asian and African languages.
There is only one way to use this information to your advantage: speaking another language means that white people are more likely to want to have children with you. It is seen as a cheaper alternative to language schools.
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I am happy with my kids speaking one language.
This way when the decide to back talk they cant hid it in a language I dont know.
Forward thinking, thats what I’m about.
God, I hate when white people start mocking me by speaking slowly and CLEARLY. It makes me feel dumb.
“I can speak English, you idiots!”
I look white but I’m an immigrant so I get the advantage of swearing behind their back in another language. Hehe.
I’m also a teenager so they are just SO AMAZED I don’t have an accent.
“Wow, how have you been here?”
“One year’
“That’s amazing!”
Oh dear. Our kid takes Chinese because, you know, it’s important and everything.
I’m so white.
thats so true…20% of the world live in china and not all chinese live in china
its beter not to be racial
The more I read these blogs, the more I worry if I’m really black or not… I guess I have to blame it on being a second gen immigrant from a country whose ideal future includes everything U.S. while at the same time excluding everything U.S. and being only halfway bilingual (can understand but can’t speak) because, in the exact words of my childhood self, “no one from school speaks that language”
Coming soon entry #128: Teach Ebonics in public schools to help Africans get ahead. :-/ Why not allow the Indian tribal school students on the reservations learn and freely speak indigenous languages? Or Jewish schools must use Hebrew (one of two official langauges in Israel with Arabic) or even Yiddish, a nearly-extinct Judeo-European language once known for its’ artistic literature, music and oral tales? +
Haha! I don’t speak French (I hate the prissy sound of it), but I speak English, Japanese, Chinese, and German, with a bit of Spanish thrown in so I can live in California or have gardening done. It looks like I’ve got most of my bases covered.
Wow, thank you so much for this very interesting comment.
Now really this is soooooo american. Y’all here mix up “white people” and “american white people”…
I live in Switzerland where the country is divided in three major zones, in the bigger one people speak german, in the second, people speak french (like me) and in the smallest people speak Italian. We learn at least two of those languages at school and english on top of it for everyone, plus latin for me because I made old school type of studies… So really… I dunno what y’all talking about here.
Ce site est finalement assez idiot, plus je le consulte, et plus je me dis que j’espère qu’il n’est pas représentatif des Blancs, même américains… Comprend qui peut !
Bon jour/soir l’amie neuve du le blog internet. Comme ca va? J’aime les blogs non-intellectuales avec mon humour declassifique. Mon abilitie du comunicate le lingue Francaise c’est avec limite, aussi tres bien en sommes interestes en les comedies satires politiques. Je require les estudies continuee en les langues otres son difficulties. +
you got it, bub. that white=white ‘mericans is IMPLIED.
Tout a fait d’accord… tres americain. La realite canadienne et quebecoise, d’ailleur, est aussi totalement differente. Chez moi, le francais est percu comme etant la langue populaire de ‘ces vieux colons catholiques qui proliferent au Quebec et refusent d’abandonner leur maudit francais.’ La plupart des anglais chez moi ne daignent pas apprendre la langue des ‘ouvriers quebecois’… Imaginez le choc quand j’ai demenage en Europe (ou je vis maintenant) et que je me suis appercu qu’ici (comme au Etats Unis, semble-t-il) la langue francaise est encore une marque de distinction.
Pour ce qui est de ce site, il est en effet plutot pourri.
Franchement, t’as manqué le point. Le site est une critique du style de vie des personnes égocentriques ultra-libérales des classes moyennes aisées américaines pas nécessairement toutes les blancs.
L’auteur, lui-même, est canadien et je suis certain qu’il connaît bien les milieux bilingues (nous au Canada, avons le français et l’anglais comme langues officielles, un peu comme en Suisse).
—-
Honestly, I think you’ve missed the point. The site is not a critique of all white people, but instead more specifically about self-absorbed upper-class left-wing people (which lets face it, is more often than not, white people).
The author of this site is canadian and I’m sure he understands bilingual situations. In Canada we have both french and english as official languages and are generally taught both in school, a bit like in Switzerland.
Tout à fais raison Pat. On sait bien qu’il parle des américains (et pas les blancs d’Europe): il mention que les blancs veulent déménager au Canada ou voyager en Europe avant de commencer l’école poste-secondaire ou de travailler.
Il y a des aspects qu’on trouve parmi les Canadians “égocentriques ultra-libérales des classes moyennes aisées” comme l’obsession de la recyclage, les gens qui te dit de sortir avec eux parce qu’il fait beau dehors, etc.
This article is completely about me! I want to marry someone from a different country so that my children can be bilingual. Too predictable, it seems.
My parents totally fall under this catagory.
Languages my parents taught me at a young age:
English
German
French
Italian
Shoot, I think this is the first one I’ve disagreed with… only partially however.
this blog seriously irks me, its promoting stereotypes completly! i have only been browsing the pages to see if one thing isnot promoting them. its like you want the two races to be seperated
and are you trying to say a black person has never wanted or liked any of the things you talk about? are you saying every white person is like that? where do hispanics or asians stand in your mind? are they grouped into the whites? you make it out that every white person is a racist who wants to be seen as non racist! why does everything need to be about race? why cant it be things people like?
in your blog about white people like to have black friends just becuase they’re black is just as bad? why cant you like people for people? if a person is nice and funny and smart and they are black, they would be the same funny smart and nice white person. if you are a stupid mean and rude black person, they would still be that same person if they were white and so would any other races as well
and just because maybe people grow up diffrent does not mean anything becuase people can always decide and choose who they wish to be
What to do if the white people never learned a second language? We’ll be put in a room, get yelled at, hit by rulers and have a “scientist” claim our brains are inferior, therefore we must learn this other language or in the words of the Doctor who robot “exterminate them”. But let’s use a kinder, gentler word from Dr. Picard of Star Trek after being assimilated into the Borg: “Resistance is futile.”
wow! you’re underthinking it and overthinking it at the same time! nice job. YES, it is about stereotypes. that is the basis for the satire. without it- no funny. please see my website, http://www.subtextforbeginners.com
yes, Michele, it is completely about stereotypes, ones about the group the author belongs to- mid to upper class liberal whites , generally urban and mostly secular.
Many whites will not fit the stereotype and any other group that wants to do so is welcome to. But there is a grain of truth to it,
And it IS funny.
The same kind of people moan, gripe and b*tch about the corporate rich got “everything” like money, privilege and prestige, and they act morally proper all the friggin time like an ultra-strict “clean” or “educated” speech code or uber-moralistic perfectionist conformity. They are urban, more like gentrified urban cores with second homes in exurban resort towns and one more home in the “urban-blight free” small towns the elite preachs about is great: i.e. Stowe, Vermont. +
ummmm I think its supposed to be a joke. Maybe you should try getting a sense of humour, regardless of what ethnicity you are. Reading too much into jokes is the real problem here, not mocking some common stereotypes we have all encountered.
LIGHTEN UP!
>its like you want the two races to be seperated
Which two races would that be?
Good one RS!
Perhaps you should read this:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offended/
I’m gonna have to agree with you on the language one. I’m black and I’m learning several languages…and I do plan to study abroad b/c it’s related to my other major which is related to my film major
Lighten up. This is hilarious. Maybe you should read #50. Irony.
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