Learn to speak English

Someone posted some inappropriate comments on my wife's blog yesterday. Feel free to read it for yourself before continuing on with my post. I've already posted a comment as a rebuttal of sorts to this woman's words, but I feel inclined to post on the subject in general. I'll probably end up offending a lot of people, but I probably do that a lot already.

To: Ariyanna Geigen
It seems you are implying that English speaking people are not very tolerant of people speaking other languages? Well, why should we be? It's one thing to be a tourist and spend a limited amount of time in our country. It's another thing to live in our country and still not learn the language. No one can be expected to learn English or any language within a few weeks or even a few months. But if you decide to live in our country, you should be expected to speak our language. If someone is working in our country, chances are they live in our country. And if you live here, you had better learn to speak English, bottom line. I don't know what world you live in, but where I come from, the world doesn't revolve around me. I don't expect the world to cater to my wants or needs. I spent two years in the Philippines and I learned to speak Filipino within six months. Was it easy? No way. Did I want to give up? Of course. Honestly, it was probably the most frustrating six months of my life. I couldn't communicate with anyone. Everyone made fun of my pathetic attempts to speak their language. I couldn't expect everyone to start speaking English as soon as I got there. I had to work hard until I got a handle on it. I didn't start crying because someone was rude to me. That's life. Suck it up and deal with it. If someone is honestly trying to learn our language, fantastic! The problem I have is with the people who have been here for years and don't even try. Everyone expects us to cater to them, because we do. And when we don't we're "rude Americans." Speaking of the woman in Heather's post, I don't know how she got a job in a customer service position. If the majority of people who came into my store were English speaking, I wouldn't hire someone who couldn't speak English. Whoever owns that A&F could have lost a sale because of the communication barrier. Would I expect someone to hire me for a Spanish speaking position? Hell no! Anyone would laugh at the thought. But because we're America, we're expected to conform to everyone else. Screw that. I'm sick and tired of having to wait through Spanish options whenever I call a business. You're in our country, speak our language. No other countries conform to everyone else, why should we? Call me insensitive or a jerk, but I didn't expect people to speak my language when I went to their country and neither should anyone else.

Lastly, in response to your comments about the "hard life," you need to lose the idea that all Americans have it easy and everything is given to them on a silver platter. I've worked my butt off since I was legally old enough to have a job. I stopped "working" for two years to be a missionary in a foreign country. That was probably the hardest work I've ever done and I didn't even get paid any money to do it, in fact I had to pay for it myself. I still work hard to provide for myself and my wife. We didn't get those flip-flops because we won't wear anything that's not an over-price piece of crap. We got them because they were the only option we had. You don't know me and you don't know my wife. Acting like you do makes you look ignorant.