Language Differences in America Essay -- Essays Papers

Language Differences in America America is a country of immigrants. Lots of people from other countries are coming here each year. Most of these people don’t know the language, so they face a lot of difficulties at first. Even after they’ve been in the country for quite a while they still have an accent and sometimes their grammar usage is not perfect. Often people, who were born and raised in the United States, cannot understand what people with different dialect or accent are saying, so that creates problems and uncomfortable situations for the immigrants. Sometimes people with an accent would be treated differently, as if they were not as intelligent or as smart as others. I am foreign myself and I can tell from my personal experience that it is really hard to start a new life in another country. Amy Tan in her â€Å"Mother Tongue† describes an example of the situation like this, when Amy Tan’s mother’s CAT scan results were lost and hospital would not apologize to her. All of this was because of Amy’s mother’s dialect, but when Amy, who speaks a perfect English, herself talked to the hospital â€Å" lo and behold – we had assurances the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake.† Sometimes it is necessary for the people to understand that person, who has a dialect or an accent, is not that much different from them and that person has to be treated equally, as well as someone without an accent. Different people come to America; they have different traditions, religion, lifestyles, and lots of other things, but all of them are trying to start a new life, because the one they had in the ... ...elf in the other persons place.† I think that she is right and we should have respect for each other and accent should not become a barrier for the communication. I agree with Thomas Bray that, â€Å"one becomes American by buying into a set of ideas honed by long — and often bitter — experience about what works and doesn’t work† but he also says that all of us need to assimilate to one culture and one standard, and personally I think it is not right and it can not happen, because if you are an immigrant, you cannot just ignore your whole past, but what would be better is to bring something special, bright and exciting from your past, and leave all the bad things behind. In this case both, the American society and you, would win. And our society has to help people do that, and it should not think of the people, who come here, as of unworthy their attention and respect.