Maybe it's time for you to learn another language...

This is the United States of America! Who cares about a Spanish language spelling bee?

Oh, and MXB1, maybe it's time they learn another language... English!

Actually, if you knew how to speak another language, you'd understand that it helps you to better understand your primary language and its grammar structure. Just based on your post, it's clear that you don't actually know any other languages aside from your poorly written English. I learned to speak Spanish well over a decade ago by living in a Spanish speak country for quite some time, and it's ridiculous seeing how poorly Americans write and speak their own language. It's like this country just continues to breed idiots that don't care. You people against those that speak Spanish, can't even properly speak/write English.

A few tips:
1. Learn how apostrophes are used.
2. Learn how ellipses should be used.
3. Learn how to properly capitalize words.
4. Bilingual is a word used without hyphenation.
5. Learn how commas work.

If your post were longer, I could probably come up with another dozen mistakes you made in the language you've spoken YOUR ENTIRE LIFE. Stop being so ignorant.

These kids probably speak and write English better than you are capable of, because they actually speak a second language. Once you have the ability to compare the way you say something in one language, to the way you say say the same thing in another, you gain a better understanding of each language. Sorry if I mistook your age, and you're just a 5 year old bashing at your keyboard.

Personally, I'm wondering why we have wrestling, fishing, and golf. Just sayin.'

A Spanish spelling contest in the US and it ends in a tie? The bar is lowered every day.

Ah I love the ignorance, racism, and fear some of you show towards anything that's non-white. Should we remove French, German, and Spanish classes from the High School curriculum as well? Rhetorical question simple because odds are you'd say yes. You'd rather we did nothing but create nice little white American citizens.

It has been shown that knowing multiple languages from an early age has an immense benefit on the future intelligence, comprehension skills, etc. - among many, many other benifits - of an individual. Moreover, learning a language at a later age can help keep your brain plastic by challenging it thus slowing down the degradation of the brain in later years. I see nothing wrong with learning a second language (or third or fourth for that matter). :)

Why is there a Spanish spelling bee in the United States? Whatever happened to English? Are we too good to focus on one unifying language in this country?

denver bill 2,

"I'm waiting for the Chinese spelling bee."

That's a good one since there is no such thing as spelling in Chinese! But I can't imagine that a Spanish spelling bee would be much of a challenge, either, since Spanish spelling is about as phonetic as you can get other than by using the International Phonetic Alphabet. For the most part, Spanish words are spelled as they are pronounced. It's not like the nightmarish spelling system we have in English which, I believe, was invented by the Devil.

Mickey has nailed it. The very idea of a "spelling bee" in most languages other than English makes no sense at all. If someone gives you a word in German, for example, it would be almost impossible to misspell it, as long as it was pronounced correctly for you.

Only in English can you be faced with a sentence like, "I recently went through a rough patch, though."

Oh man... Mickey knows his stuff. He is 100% on point. Spanish spelling is quite easy, aside from the differences between b&v, as well as s&z, since they are pronounced much the same way. I often see people misspelling the word voz (voice) as bos or boz.

EarlyOut,

"Only in English can you be faced with a sentence like, "I recently went through a rough patch, though."

That's almost correct. Most European languages have spelling that is pretty phonetic. There are some languages, though, such as French (o, au, aux, eau, eaux, all pronounced "oh", etc.), Portuguese, Romanian, and Danish in which that is not so much the case. The Celtic languages are particularly bad when it comes to spelling not matching pronunciation, especially Irish and Scots Gaelic. For example, the Irish words "deatach" (pronounced "di-toch" and meaning "smoke" or "ceoltoir" pronounced "kyol-hor" and meaning "musician or "iompaim" meaning "I turn" and pronounced "oom-peem" or "dearmhad" meaning "mistake" and pronounced "dah-rood", etc. And Scots Gaelic is just as bad. In those languages a spelling bee would make sense, but not in Spanish.

C'mon Bill, we're going fishing - my boat your bait.

Teach them American languge? Ok. They should learn Navajo, Cherokee, Sioux, etc.

how do you expect us to conduct business and trade with other countries if no one here speaks the language? you like ferraris and nice cars, right? well how do we negotiate if nobody speaks Italian?

It just shows how closed-minded you are, Sue. There's a reason other countries teach English, and that's because it's the 2nd most widely spoken language in the world, and that's because so many people speak it, and it's a language of $$MONEY$$. People must speak the language to be able to trade with the US, which has the largest economy in the world.

Spanish is the 4th most widely spoken language in the world. It's also the second highest economically spoken language in the world. It's not just Mexicans that speak Spanish. And as I told someone else. Those who speak more than one language, better understand their native language, and speak their languages more properly. Personally, I've spoken Spanish for over 15 years. Because of it, I have a far better grasp on English grammar and spelling.

"American Language"? What the hell is that? America is comprised of two continents (North and South AMERICA, in case you didn't know) in which dozens of different languages and dialects are spoken. We might call ourselves Americans, but technically Mexicans are Americans, and so are Canadians, and so are Venezuelans, Brazilians, and anyone else who lives in an American continent.

You are only interested in English spelling bees because you're an ignorant, closed-minded person from the United States of America, that likely doesn't speak another language because, like most people from the USA, you are too lazy to learn, or think that somehow you are so superior to everyone else in the world.

Why are you assuming they don't speak and study English? They attend school in the US, I'm sure they DO have English class.

they learn english in China, Korea and South America all the time. Why do you think the US is so extraordinary that it shouldn't be willing to learn other languages as well?

This message officially endorsed by the Grand Cyclops of stormy-766389's Den.

stormy,

"Why is there a Spanish spelling bee in the United States where English is the universal language? If you are a legal citizen of the United States, speak English. If you don't know it, learn it."

We teach, and have always taught, foreign languages in our schools, and it is common practice for schools to hold spelling bees in the languages that are being taught. I was in a French spelling bee myself when I was taking French in high school. How about not being so parochial?

Can you spell the English equivalents of the 3 words listed in the article? Spanish words are written as they sound but the Spanish language also uses accent marks and so forth that must be placed over the proper letter. And regardless, these are basically children spelling very complex words.

blum,

The accent does not change the pronunciation. The challenges in English include many different sounds for single or combined vowels, spellings such as "ph" for the f sound, soft and hard c's, etc. Many English words originated in other languages (including Latin, Greek, and German) and have retained some aspects of their original spelling. Consider "ballet" and cigarette, for example. If you know the relatively very few pronunciation rules in Spanish (or Turkish, for that matter), you can read out loud without having any idea what your are saying, but Spanish speakers (or Turkish speakers) will understand every word you say. That is not only complicated but truly impossible for a non-English speaker or even one who has a limited vocabulary.

As The Invasion of The United States of America via The Wide Open Mexican Border marches on ...

dude, the lingua franca has changed from time to time over the years; it used to be French, now it's English, in the future it may be Mandarin or Spanish. American Exceptionalism may make you think that it is sensible to only learn one languange when the rest of the world speaks several, but this isn't a political issue, it's just facts...unlike the idea that the border is porous; net immigration across the border has been balanced by those returning and those coming. Being uneducated and ignorant may make you secure in your wrong beliefs, but it doesn't make you any less wrong.

Dude, riiight -- with Obamas' promise of amnesty to those under 30 yrs old, who don't have to prove how long they've been here. Tell a Border Agent that things are going well. By the way, those "deported" come right back across our WIDE OPEN Mexican Border. As The INVASION rolls on ... comprende ?

¡Joo bedduh beeleef it, gringo!

No weird spellings? I suggest you take a second look at the Spanish language. Native speakers often confuse the difference between b and v, as well as z and s. And while it doesn't happen often, the double "c".

Then the word is not being pronounced clearly, or is being said by someone with a nonstandard Spanish accent. The sounds ARE distinct. The point is, this is reported as amazing news as if the contestants were extraordinarily bright, but the contest cannot be compared to an English spelling bee, which requires knowledge of hundreds of phonetic rules and knowledge of individual words.

Wrong. I know English (very, very well), Spanish, Chinese, and some Turkish as well as bits of other languages. Please note that the article says that the bee "tests children whose native language is Spanish or who are learning the language." That alone is not a level playing field! The article does not even report whether or not these two children know English. As for the diacritical marks, the sound changes indicated by an accent mark or a tilde are also clearly reflected in pronunciation.

I am a journalist who also taught English to foreign students who were speakers of over two dozen different first languages. I also have extensive background and education in linguistics. It's not an argument; it's a matter of skeletal reporting and a meaningless implied comparison.