CSU: Immigrants should speak German at home, CDU says LOLwhat ?

[Tender Branson]

All immigrants should speak German at home, say Merkel's allies

Chancellor Angela Merkel's Bavarian allies have caused outrage by suggesting immigrant families that want to remain in the country should be obliged to speak German at home.

The Christian Social Union (CSU), sister party to Merkel's conservatives and a partner in her coalition government in Berlin, made the proposal in a draft policy paper that is due to be approved by CSU leaders on Monday.

In the paper, the party says: "People who want to remain here on a permanent basis should be obliged to speak German in public and within the family."

The proposal comes amid a sharp rise in immigration levels to Germany, driven by arrivals from eastern European Union members such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria, as well as a surge in asylum seekers fleeing the war in Syria.

(...)

Some members of the CSU are worried the rise in immigrants will lead traditional supporters of the party to flee to the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a new party which preaches a tough line on immigration. The CSU was the driving force behind a new law earlier this year that clamps down on immigrants who abuse Germany's generous social welfare system.

The CSU proposal on speaking German in the home was swiftly denounced by the other parties in Merkel's government, including a senior official from the chancellor's Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

"It is not the business of politicians whether I speak Latin, Klingon or Hessian at home," Peter Tauber, general secretary of the CDU, said on Twitter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/11278764/All-immigrants-should-speak-German-at-home-say-Merkels-allies.html

[Tender Branson]

While I support the idea behind it, it's practically non-enforcable.

If I'd emigrate to the US, I'm not speaking German either anymore - only English.

So should immigrants who come to Germany: If they start going to German language courses and start talking German at home and in public, it will be much easier for them to integrate and get a good job.

[Franzl]

LOLwhat is right. After all, most CSU people can't speak German.

[Tender Branson]

LOLwhat is right. After all, most CSU people can't speak German.

CSU voters are not immigrants though and they won't have much trouble getting jobs - unlike people who just came here and mostly talk Arab or whatever at home and in public ...

[Diouf]

While I support the idea behind it, it's practically non-enforcable.

If I'd emigrate to the US, I'm not speaking German either anymore - only English.

So should immigrants who come to Germany: If they start going to German language courses and start talking German at home and in public, it will be much easier for them to integrate and get a good job.

Even if you brought a German-speaking girlfriend/wife and German-speaking children? Would you suddenly start doing all the intra-family talk in a foreign language where you would not be able to express yourself as precise and immediate as in your mother tongue?

I'm all for strong incentives and demands for immigrants to learn the language of the country they're residing it, but politicians should of course not decide on which language people should speak at home, neither in practice nor as a good idea/principle.

[Tender Branson]

While I support the idea behind it, it's practically non-enforcable.

If I'd emigrate to the US, I'm not speaking German either anymore - only English.

So should immigrants who come to Germany: If they start going to German language courses and start talking German at home and in public, it will be much easier for them to integrate and get a good job.

Even if you brought a German-speaking girlfriend/wife and German-speaking children? Would you suddenly start doing all the intra-family talk in a foreign language where you would not be able to express yourself as precise and immediate as in your mother tongue?

I'm all for strong incentives and demands for immigrants to learn the language of the country they're residing it, but politicians should of course not decide on which language people should speak at home, neither in practice nor as a good idea/principle.

Maybe not in the beginning, but certainly after a while. The children pretty easily will learn the new language in school, so it's easy to talk with them in the new language at home within a year. Of course there's a time to "phase it in", but at some point you should definitely start talking in the language of the local population and leave your own background behind.

Plus, you are also not mentioning that most immigrants (or asylum seekers) are young men, whereas they will only take their family into the country after some time. There has been a debate recently here, as to why so many asylum seekers are young men from Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan between the ages of 18 and 30. "Where are the women and children from the War Areas", the newspapers read. Why are only young men coming ? And then this is getting a problem, when the government decides to open an asylum centre with 50-100 young Arab men in a town of 2000 or 3000 people. Of course people are anxious then and a first good step would be to ask these people to study German hard and also talk in that new language on a daily basis and not Arab etc.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

The CSU really is an embarrassing anachronism.

Though it is slightly troubling the extent spent on ESL students and council translation services. I had a really awkward situation when I was internerning at a Field Centre. A teacher handed a bunch of kids to me ... without telling me none of them actually spoke English (they were all East Asian), so I spent an entire hour fruitlessly jabbering to a group of probably very confused children, wondering whether I had been given the shiest kids in the world...

But yeah, this is unenforceable dreck and is certainly not going to attract the bulk of AfD leaners.

[Tender Branson]

But yeah, this is unenforceable dreck and is certainly not going to attract the bulk of AfD leaners.

It could chip away 1-3% from the AfD though, and that's the main point of this thing. Publicity stunt, without much practical behind it.

[swl]

These people are dangerous.

"It is not the business of politicians whether I speak Latin, Klingon or Hessian at home," Peter Tauber, general secretary of the CDU, said on Twitter.

[Franzl]

Obviously this is a horrible proposal from any perspective. But you know, CSU...

[Tender Branson]

In the paper, the party says: "People who want to remain here on a permanent basis should be obliged to speak German in public and within the family."

There seems to be a confusion about the actual wording of this new party platform amendment. Some sources say that "the CSU wants a German-mandate at home", while other sources like the BBC below only say "encouraged":

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The CSU Facebook-page also just says "encourage" (well it actually says nothing like it, it just says: "People, who come to us, should talk in German as often as they can, also outside the school and the workplace"):



If it's in fact just "encourage" and not "mandated", I don't see what the big deal or outcry is here.

[Sol]

That's reprehensible. People should be able to have their languages protected.

[Hash]

These people are morons.

[palandio]

The problem with this proposal is that it is motivated only by right-wing resentment and not by scientific (or even anecdotal) facts.

I know quite a fair number of people who came to Germany at the age of 3-8 years and who speak better German than 90% of German native speakers. And guess what, their parents always spoke Russian with them. Always. So how comes they speak perfect German? Well, their parents usually are highly educated and the children went to good schools.

Serious educational policy deciders know this. Often children with a mother-tongue different from German are given extra-courses to learn their mother-tongue properly at elementary school.
Yes, proper Turkish (/Russian/Serbian/Croatian/Greek/Italian) is helpful for proper German. A degenerate 500-word version of German is not helpful.

Sadly many politicians that are criticizing the CSU only call the CSU proposal populist bogus, and of course they are right but they don't say why.

[ingemann]

The problem with this proposal is that it is motivated only by right-wing resentment and not by scientific (or even anecdotal) facts.

I know quite a fair number of people who came to Germany at the age of 3-8 years and who speak better German than 90% of German native speakers. And guess what, their parents always spoke Russian with them. Always. So how comes they speak perfect German? Well, their parents usually are highly educated and the children went to good schools.

Serious educational policy deciders know this. Often children with a mother-tongue different from German are given extra-courses to learn their mother-tongue properly at elementary school.
Yes, proper Turkish (/Russian/Serbian/Croatian/Greek/Italian) is helpful for proper German. A degenerate 500-word version of German is not helpful.

Sadly many politicians that are criticizing the CSU only call the CSU proposal populist bogus, and of course they are right but they don't say why.

Yes it's clearly well educated Russian Germans they think off when they say this, and not barely educated middle easterns. I personal think this is a stupid and unnecessary suggestion, as the parents of children, who don't end up speaking German very well, will not hear this and even if they did, they would ignore it. Why I think it's unnecessary, is because it doesn't really take much to make a child fluent in the dominant language in a areas, send them to school and let them see half a hour of children TV everyday (German TV in this case), and you have children who can speak the language in question fluently. 

[Ban my account ffs!]

Well... Sollten is the equivalent of should while sollen would be shall or must.  I think "strongly encouraged" would be the best english translation.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's not really in the interest of adult immigrants to learn the language of their new country. That's the case in the United States, at least. Employers here hire immigrants who don't speak English because they can make them work more and for less money. If they learned English, they would be on equal pegging with every native speaker.

If you don't speak the language, you're pretty much guaranteed to get a crap job (and some of those crap jobs, like janitor, aren't even really that crap) vs. if you know the language, you're competing with everyone else for the few remaining office jobs in existence. 

[ag]

While I support the idea behind it, it's practically non-enforcable.

If I'd emigrate to the US, I'm not speaking German either anymore - only English.

So should immigrants who come to Germany: If they start going to German language courses and start talking German at home and in public, it will be much easier for them to integrate and get a good job.

I spoke Russian at home when I lived in the US, and I speak English and Russian at home living in Mexico. My children speak Russian (and, at least in the case of the elder one, but, also, increasingly of the younger one, English) at home. I am more likely to use (very rudimentary) Yiddish with my kids than I am to speak Spanish to them, and I insist on them not addressing me in Spanish, unless people who do not understand any other language are present. Spanish is reserved for communication with the outside world: school, taxi drivers, nannies, salesmen and such.

BTW, I also speak almost exclusively English at work - I may speak Spanish to people inquiring about the program I direct and in some meetings, but I do not speak Spanish in class as a matter of principle (and only switch to Spanish in private with the students if they really do not understand me). I also insist that all important internal office mail has to be translated to English (not so much for my own sake, as for the sake of the colleagues who would find the Spanish-language environment intimidating) and insist on speaking English at lunch table with my colleagues.

And any fascist swine that does not like it may go the hell of their choice. Because I am not going to let anybody tell me which language I am supposed to be speaking at home. And, in any case, English is the language that educated people should be able to speak in a university (of course, I would never insist on an English-speaking workplace in an English-speaking country).

[ag]

While I support the idea behind it, it's practically non-enforcable.

If I'd emigrate to the US, I'm not speaking German either anymore - only English.

So should immigrants who come to Germany: If they start going to German language courses and start talking German at home and in public, it will be much easier for them to integrate and get a good job.

Even if you brought a German-speaking girlfriend/wife and German-speaking children? Would you suddenly start doing all the intra-family talk in a foreign language where you would not be able to express yourself as precise and immediate as in your mother tongue?

I'm all for strong incentives and demands for immigrants to learn the language of the country they're residing it, but politicians should of course not decide on which language people should speak at home, neither in practice nor as a good idea/principle.

Maybe not in the beginning, but certainly after a while. The children pretty easily will learn the new language in school, so it's easy to talk with them in the new language at home within a year. Of course there's a time to "phase it in", but at some point you should definitely start talking in the language of the local population and leave your own background behind.

Reminds me, why I would never talk to an Austrian. In any language.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

That's reprehensible. People should be able to have their languages protected.

To immigrate, it makes sense to require an ability to speak the language. But to require it home is statist, pure and simple. This is a very dumb idea.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The CSU pandering to the AfD base.

[MaxQue]

Perhaps it's time for the CDU to begin to run in elections in Bayern.

[Vosem]

I speak exclusively Russian at home with my parents and siblings. English is for "Schule und Arbeitsplatz".

[Ban my account ffs!]

Al put it best
"The language I speak at home is none of your f""king business"

I would add that if you have a problem with that, kindly eff off.

[Tender Branson]

While I support the idea behind it, it's practically non-enforcable.

If I'd emigrate to the US, I'm not speaking German either anymore - only English.

So should immigrants who come to Germany: If they start going to German language courses and start talking German at home and in public, it will be much easier for them to integrate and get a good job.

Even if you brought a German-speaking girlfriend/wife and German-speaking children? Would you suddenly start doing all the intra-family talk in a foreign language where you would not be able to express yourself as precise and immediate as in your mother tongue?

I'm all for strong incentives and demands for immigrants to learn the language of the country they're residing it, but politicians should of course not decide on which language people should speak at home, neither in practice nor as a good idea/principle.

Maybe not in the beginning, but certainly after a while. The children pretty easily will learn the new language in school, so it's easy to talk with them in the new language at home within a year. Of course there's a time to "phase it in", but at some point you should definitely start talking in the language of the local population and leave your own background behind.

Reminds me, why I would never talk to an Austrian. In any language.

Don't worry, I also do not talk to Russians because they are clearly all nuts.

Bavarians asking for people to talk German is same as the old tv-series in which Alabaman cop asked an immigrant whether he speaks English.

Tender are you FPÖ voter after all.

No, I was just highlighting the misinterpretation by the media with regards to the CSU proposal. The media spinned it as if the CSU wanted to mandate German-speaking at home, while they actually didn't (see Facebook image). If they encourage foreigners to speak German as often as they can, that's just common sense to me (as a leftist, no matter what the other leftists try to spin here). That's not making me a FPÖ-voter.