Rodriguez Blog

The world is becoming a smaller place. This is something that I had pulled from the article we had to read. As time moves on it seems like boarders disappear, different cultures of people have to live together and be in unfamiliar terrioty. Most cultures have their own uniqe customs, language is apart of this. We all learn a language at a very young age, mostly what is spoken around us it is just the natural way of life. It is often frustrating to try and learn another language if we are unfamilar to it. The United States to me is a HUGE melting pot of the world's cultures and customs. There are people with heritages from all over the world living together everyday and the amount of diversity is increasing everyday. Some people have a problem with this though because when immigrants come here they may or may not be fluent in English, the dominate, but not offical language of the United States.

The problem doesn't lie within the language barrier itself but more with how the language is spoken. Even if we all spoke the same language, different people speak it in different ways. The easiest example to point out is the language of men and women. Generally men only speak about 7,000 words a day, while woman use around 20,000 in a day. Often times men and women are confused with each other and this is a clear reason why. Each side doesn't understand why the other talks in the way they do and it frustrates them. Now apply this to different cultures; tones of voice can mean different things among cultures. Some people may find sarcasm as natural, funny or disrespectful. You could be offending another person but think nothing of it cause it doesn't seem offensive to you.

Now lets revisit the immigrant language issue. Even if someone learns English it will still be very tough for them to fully understand the ways English is spoken here in America. It must be extremely frustrating for someone to work so hard and still not be right there in the mix, and often times people are insenitive to this. Some people tend to look down on those that speak a different language or make fun of those that may not understand fully. Put yourself in their shoes and just think of not being able to communicate with the people around you, then working hard to be able to and still not being thought of as an equal. My best friend lives in a Portuguese speaking house and when I was younger it was extremely hard to try and talk to his family. Over the years we have worked out a way to try and understand each other without speaking the same language and it works out pretty well. It is something I enjoied doing because I have gotten to know and respect them and I even understand a little Portuguese now. It is really a great feeling when you take the time to work with someone and try and get over each others language barriers.

I know this isn't exactly how the blog is supposed it work but it was just what was on my mind while reading and I figured I would share that. Perhaps this blog itself is an example of the different ways of language between all people.