Do you speak Spanish?

[fox_sejant]

  That is the question I have become accustomed to hearing immediately after I tell a person I teach English as a Second Language.  It is a question that strikes me as quasi-racist.  Quasi because I suspect the questioner does not understand the implications of what he or she has just asked.  I found it somewhat ironic to be asked that exact

Comments

[eliskimo]

Did I ever tell you about what Max's mom told me about growing up in a New York Italian community? She said that she thought she spoke English until she graduated and moved into her first apartment. She went shopping for some household goods and discovered she didn't know how to ask for what she needed. One example she gave was that she didn't know the words "colander", "sieve", or "strainer" and the (English-speaking) lady at the department store had no idea what an "asciugamacaron" (literally "macaroni dryer") was. Of course, the problem was compounded in that example because "ascuigamacron" is not even Standard Italian, it's dialect (the standard Italian for colander would be "colino" or "scolapiatti").

[fox_sejant]

You have told me this before. I had forgotten it in the moment.
I do not know if my students have had similar experiences but I suspect they have or will.

[eliskimo]

Sorry, I mis-wrote above. A "scolapiatti" is a draining rack. A "scolapasta" is a colander.
(Not really here or there in the main discussion, but I wanted to correct my factual error.)