Okay. You sent your census form back (or maybe you didn't) and you may not have answered the questions in the Approved Government Manner™, and if they cannot get you on the phone, they may send a live, warm census worker to your door.
And I got to thinking... the census sends out forms in English, and sometimes English and Spanish and sometimes a multitude of different languages. But, I doubt that the Census workers, for the most part, are widely multilingual, and I thought that this might be a good opportunity to put that language we studied back in high school to good use.
To my knowledge, there is no law that compels anyone to speak solely in English. So, I've been thinking how I might greet any Census worker who came to my door auf Deutsch!
I imagine that the conversation might go like this:
Doorbell rings.
Me: Ja? (Yes?)
Census worker: Hi. I'm with the Census Bureau and I'm here to ask you a few questions.
Me: Können Sie Deutsch sprechen? (Can you speak German?)
Census worker: Excuse me, but do you speak English?
Me: Warum sind Sie hier? (Why are you here?)
Census worker: Is there anyone here who speaks English?
Me: Ich spreche ein bisschen English. (I speak a bit of English.) More than some, less than others! If I said, "Ich spreche nur ein bisschen English", that is, I only speak a little English, that would be a lie. I'd never lie to a Census worker!
I figure he or she will get tired of the game before I do! I'm sure some of you studied French or German, Russian, Italian or Japanese. Or if you've taken a Berlitz course or Rosetta Stone or maybe you just grew up in a bilingual community.
What's the worst that could happen? They send an interpreter over to your house? You run out of high school French before the census worker runs out of questions?
I'm not advocating that everyone do this. I'm just saying, you could...
Cross posted at Say Anything
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