Anyone who speaks multiple languages is used to rolling their eyes at bad and inadequate translations. There is probably a perfectly reasonable, non-bigoted explanation for the differing English and Spanish texts on this Red Robin receipt.
Chris happened to notice the variation on the receipts at a Red Robin in Arizona. He writes:
Turn your attention to the bottom of the receipt. In English, it says “Thanks for visiting RED ROBIN. Please Pay Your Server”. Underneath that, in Spanish, it says “Please Pay Your Server. Tip is not included.” I guess they’re insinuating that Mexicans don’t tip and have to be reminded to include a tip, whereas English speaking people are good tippers and are welcome at Red Robin any time. One might argue that perhaps tipping isn’t common in Mexico. However, tipping is just as prevalent and expected in Mexico as it is here, so that isn’t a valid argument.
Maybe the English message has been changed since the Spanish one was written, and the Spanish one just never changed. Or maybe I’m just grasping at reasonable, culturally-sensitive explanations for the disparity.
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I’m not gonna page through 49 discussiosn to see if this was said…but there are a whole lot of people who aren’t Mexican who speak spanish. Even as a primary language. That assumption isn’t exactly a great one.
I had a college job delivering pizzas, and I found that Mexicans were hands down the best tippers of any demographic. I can only imagine that this was because so many of them work for tips themselves. I never received less than $5 from one.
Maybe they have english only signage to that effect, and instead of spending money to replace all of the signs with translations, they just added that to the receipts…
Another case of americans being too damn sensitive to race. Who cares. Do you expect it to say exactly the same in every language? At least what it says in spanish makes sense, which is more than I can say for most corporate translations that are just plain wrong. If anything is wrong here, it should say “Tip Not Included” in english also.
They dont tip. I used to work at a Dennys in San Antonio, and on my server notebook, I had plastered on it “La propina no esta incluidad en la quenta!”. Just so I can remind myself everytime to let the visitors from Mexico know!
Or maybe since the itimized receipt is english they’re just letting spanish speakers know the receipt doesn’t include a tip amount *rolls eyes*
Personally, I’m sick of seeing more and more things showing up in Spanish. Learn English, just like I had to learn Japanese when I lived in Japan.
I think this is much ado about nothing. I live in Japan so I’m fully aware of information being offered in other languages that aren’t offered in the original Japanese. The reason some instructions only appear in the foreign language is that the locals almost certainly know such information already and don’t need to have it pointed out whereas people from other cultures need to be taught. This is because the people from other cultures are tourists in most cases, and not well-versed in local culture. That doesn’t mean some of us who have lived here awhile don’t know as well, but businesses aren’t targeting us. I can choose to be offended by this or I can choose to accept it at face value.
This has little to do with bigotry and everything to do with who may or may not need an education. If the conclusions about this receipt are correct, then Japan is chock full of culturally insensitive, bigoted signs and notes in English, Korean, and Chinese.
More than likely, someone updated the receipt and either forgot to take it off the Spanish version OR forgot to put the English one back in.
I used to change a coupon type thing every once and a while and at one change, I forgot to put our phone number back on the receipt. Oops. Took me about a week to notice that.
Why do people give tip every time. Tipping is done for exceptional service but now its a common thing to just give your money away. They are getting paid to serve you because that’s their job!. I know that some places, if you don’t tip the person, they will ask why because it looks bad on their part.
I only give about 10% for normal service but if it exceptional, maybe more. Last time I left a 25cent tip because i had to ask the lady at least 5 times to get something. Why does she do when she sees the 25cent tip. SHE STARTS YELLING – NOT EVEN ONE DOLLAR TIP infront of everyone. I just walked out. Shows how greedy people are with money and that they are always expecting a great tip no matter how well they perform
Mental note: Print same message in all languages to avoid long pointless discussions on Consumer blogs. Amount of life saved: 30 seconds
I think that maybe they might get asked that enough from their latino brethhren to justify placing it there?
They definitely need to add a line in German then. Something like “Due to the fact that your entire country doesn’t feel the need to tip when you come to the US, we have already added a 20% service fee.”
As someone who works as a server. Mexicans never ever freaking tip, No matter how high, or low the check is. $1 that’s it. But maybe that’s because in every other freaking country in the world, servers actually get paid a real salary, and tips are what the intended purpose of rewarding exceptional service, not a way to keep labor costs down for employers by making the customers pay my salary. That being said, when I see a large table of blacks, or mexicans 6 or more, I give them the crappiest service possible. The reason? I work at a resturant that does not add gratuity to the checks for large parties.
One person out of the party leaves a $5.00 tip, as the rest say “oh, I gotta get change” and they never tip after getting change. Plus I gotta split that tip with another server because the resturant makes us share those large tables. $2.50 for a large group who stays for 3 hours? screw them. call me racist if you like. But some people shouldn’t be allowed to dine out. if you don’t want to tip your server, eat somewhere with a plastic tray, and food wrapped in paper.
I hope most people are like me: If you give me good food with good service at a reasonable price, I will reward (tip) the server. I do not need to be shamed into rewarding bad food or bad service automatically.
Or it could be that we are really the only country that pays servers next to nothing and the customer has to directly pay the server’s pay.
Ugh. Not to mention that poor Spanish. It should’ve been either “paga tu mesero” or “pague su mesero.” Idiots.
Thr shld b n Spnsh n t t ll.
@I Love New Jersey: oh no, not this bullshit.
@katieoh: right, Arizona has a large hispanic population, always has. Don’t like it, don’t go there.
@katieoh: Red Robin is a private business and can put (almost) whatever it wants on its bills. Unless you’re a Native American, you weren’t the first one here and have no place to talk.
If you are a Native American from Jersey, I would like to meet you (especially if you have a heavy accent).
@ARP: I dont think katieoh was the one ranting
@katieoh: I don’t really think its bullshit. It’s insensitive, but efficient. Look at Switzerland, a 1st world country, superpower, with 4 national languages. People from different parts of the country sometimes can’t speak to each other because they know no languages in common.
I mastered english, and can get by in French, German, Japanese, and Korean. I don’t think its too much to ask that immigrants learn english. Or they can learn german, and we should still get along.
@ludwigk: It’s kind of insulting that people assume that immigrants aren’t trying to learn English. Please remember that learning another language is not easy. People always assume that, as soon as someone moves here, they should know the language perfectly. Most immigrants are learning the language (because it IS easier on them), but you can’t expect EVERY SINGLE person to be able to do it, especially the older folks.
@nakedscience: And English is an incredibly difficult language to learn.
@edwardso: Not incredibly difficult. It’s somewhere in the middle. Most romantic languages are easy to learn. Germanic languages, including English, tend to be in the middle. And then we’re all topped by traditional Chinese, which has enough letters in its alphabet to dwarf the rest combined, it seems.
@rwakelan: Are you kidding? English is insanely difficult because of the many arbitrary grammar rules. Just think of all the grammatical mistakes you come across when engaging native English speakers. I feel for anyone who has to pick up English a secondary language.
@Odiase:
I broke wind while trying to wind my watch.
I would like to read that book you told me you had read.
@rwakelan: Romance languages are lame for feminine and masculine, German is worse in that it adds neutral.
Chinese does not have an alphabet.
@ludwigk: So what about the Puerto Rico?
@ludwigk: Did I really just read Switzerland and “superpower” in the same sentence?
@ludwigk: Complete and utter rubbish. I’ve lived in France and Germany and worked frequently in Switzerland. Just about everybody, including the most blue-collar, high-school educated worker, is multilingual. They not only speak each others’ languages, many of them speak English too. And no, my experience isn’t biased by only meeting English speakers: I speak fluent french and a smattering of german, so don’t speak english when in Switzerland.
Only in America (and France) do some people seem to make a big deal out of imposing their own language on *other* people. Thank goodness that it’s only a minority of Americans.
@I Love New Jersey: Perhaps there should be no Mexico
/upped 1
@I Love New Jersey: So you clearly don’t love all of NJ then, do you?
@I Love New Jersey: You do realize that over half our country at one time was owned by non English speaking people Spain, Mexico, France, and Russia. It was unreasonable to believe that all those territories would have converted to English.
Also we don’t have an official language, and on top of that, this is free market where if a business wants to put another language on their menu they can because it’s free to do so.
@Skankingmike:
This was at a Red Robins in Arizona, I beg you to click this link:
[www.azleg.gov]
Article 28, Section 2 of the Arizona Constitution reads:
“The official language of the state of Arizona is English.”
@Lucky225: And? Private business, they can do what they want. They’re simple being courteous to spanish speakers in the area.
@oloranya:
Oh but according to this post they’re not being courteous, damn those mexicans not tipping because they think it’s included in the receipt, damn them!
@I Love New Jersey:
4 million Puerto Ricans speak Spanish as their native language and are US citizens just like you.
@I Love New Jersey: We don’t have an official language, you know. And isn’t this a free market? I love how everyone yells “FREE MARKET!” until crap like this comes up.
And exactly how does several languages on a receipt harm you? WHY does it bother you? It doesn’t affect you at all.
@nakedscience:
Even in those areas that have official languages, it is often considered polite, prudent, expedient, and/or profitable to include notices or instructions in the language of any dominant groups that frequent businesses and services.
You will find Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc. in Seattle, Vancouver, SF, etc. Just because there may be an official language doesn’t mean you can’t include others, only that you don’t have to by law.
In my home state, there were a couple of restaurants years ago that had menus in English and Norsk for the older Norwegians who didn’t speak English despite living in Wisconsin for (at the time) 60+ years.
@nakedscience:
Article 28, Section 2 Arizona Constitution. The official language of the state of Arizona is English.
@Lucky225: So call the fucking cops and have them arrest the manager. ONCE AGAIN, a question no one has yet answered, what’s wrong with a little courtesy, a little consideration for your customers?
@takes_so_little:
That’s precisely my point tho, why is everyone bishing that the spanish version says ‘tip not included’, that IS in it’s SELF a courtesy, as the entire recipt besides that portion is in ENGLISH. What if they think the word TAX means tip or some lameness. Nothing required this business to put information in Spanish in the first place, and because they did, but added the language ‘tips not included’, suddenly the courtesy became an ‘insult’, I think if anything the English version might have once said that and the Spanish version didn’t get updated, and/or it was intentionally added so that Spanish speakers would know it’s not included since the entire other portion of the reciept is in English.
@I Love New Jersey: Why not? (Here’s your chance to give a reason that’s not jingoistic, xenophobic, or otherwise ignorant.)
@I Love New Jersey: People that complain about this kind of shit generally haven’t traveled to another country and noticed that nearly EVERY sign, map, and menu is translated to English.
@youbastid: And that even if they don’t have it in English, people will still understand you if you talk to them as if they were stupid and deaf.
@I Love New Jersey: As an immigrant, I like it when a business goes above and beyond by providing me service in my native tongue. It’s a nice touch, and it makes me more likely to patronize their establishment in the future. Makes good business sense. Now, if in the process they also insult me by assuming I am less likely to leave a tip, it’s a whole different story.
Government services are another matter. There are situations in which it benefits society as a whole when certain information is provided in several languages, thus making sure that people with limited English proficiency (and there are many levels of this) thoroughly understand it. Driver’s manuals and emergency information are examples of this.
@Baires: I do too! But my native tongue is English.
@Galactica: You’re in luck, then. English is widely spoken ’round these parts, you should have no trouble spending your hard earned money.
@Baires: Still don’t understand why there are “VOTE AQUI” signs.
In order to vote, you must be a citizen. In order to be a citizen, you must display a proficiency in English.
It’s not even like we’re asking them to learn a lot – vote=vote, and “here” is one of the first words you’d learn.
And people wonder why we should require a photo ID for voting.
@cjones27: “In order to be a citizen, you must display a proficiency in English.”
Not necessarily. There are exemptions, e.g. for people above a certain age.
But I can understand how harmed you are by having signs in spanish. I can see what a burden it is to you have to tolerate those signs.
Wait, no I can’t. Explain to me again why this bothers you?
@cjones27: You’re right, that makes no sense. Another one: the instructions for emergency exit seating requirements in airplanes that say, in English only, that you need to understand English to sit there, and to let the flight attendant know if you don’t so they can reseat you.
@I Love New Jersey:
I COMPLETELY agree. Unlike the many comments here that automatically assume that you HATE spanish people, or you don’t think spanish people are willing to learn the language, or whatever biggoted assumptions were made, I am fundamentally opposed to multiple translations of a message in a single domain.
We don’t have an official language? We should. There is no benefit to having people speak different languages in a single jurisdiction, but there are countless detriments.
As a software engineer, I follow a fundamental rule, that you should NEVER have the same instruction written twice. Why? Because when you change the instruction, you then have to change it twice. Because a new person working on it will be less likely to change it in both places. Because it takes up twice the space. The SAME applies to this stupid receipt. The spanish words on the receipt take up extra paper and extra toner. They had to pay somebody to translate it. They have to pay somebody to maintain changes in translation.
Did you notice that there is an issue with the fact that something in spanish is not there in english? I wouldn’t be surprised if it used to say that in English but when they removed the English text, they didn’t remove the Spanish text because they couldn’t read it.
English is already a mess of German and French, etc… Why are we further confusing an already difficult-to-grasp language even more complexity?
The rule should be very easy for people to get, but they assume some form of prejudice and malice. One jurisdiction? One language.
There is no benefit to multiple languages in the world any way. A living language will gain the ideas and changes from all of its users as it grows. The only reason why you would need multiple languages is if the different languages enable you to say things in different ways in which they need to be said. But that is not the case.
Yes, language is a component of one’s culture, and losing your language means you lose your culture. So language homogenization is an enemy of the cultures whose languages it consumes. But you know what? It is nothing compared to the enemy that is time. In a few generations, your language and culture will barely resemble what you know so well today. Knowing that, there is no reason to cling to a language. Forget minority languages. And that includes English. If spanish speakers manage to overwhelm the globe with their language, then forget whatever today’s majority languages are in favor of the most ideal mechanism for communication. Anybody who says otherwise is fooling himself.
@greenunicorns: What the hell’s wrong with just being considerate to your clientele?
@greenunicorns: Can you write your software programs in English? Maybe we should ditch English altogether and speak in binary.
@greenunicorns: Resistance is futile, eh?
@greenunicorns: So the parts of the US where Spanish is the most common first language should make Spanish their official language and ignore the needs of their English speaking constituents?
@greenunicorns: A little wordy, but a well-formed, intelligent argument. Well said.
@greenunicorns:
exactly, time will cure all things. If people want to hold on to their culture, they should because its inevitable that things will change. It may take 500 years but it will change.
@greenunicorns: What a bunch of horseshit. People are different, get used to it. The human race isn’t software, Dr. Spock, we’re highly illogical. Most decent people try, at least a little, to make life liveable for those around them. That’s all this is, a little decency, common courtesy, that’s it. Join the human race you uptight twat.
@takes_so_little:
^ This.
Well said. I hate people who get all up in arms about foreign languages on signs/menu’s/etc. I had a guy come into where I work a couple weeks ago and corner me and the poor new cashier I was training at a register for a good ten minutes ranting about there being spanish on the directory signs in the aisles of the store. He kept going on about how “mexicans are terrorists trying to take over America!”
@greenunicorns: “Forget minority languages. And that includes English. If spanish speakers manage to overwhelm the globe with their language, then forget whatever today’s majority languages are in favor of the most ideal mechanism for communication. Anybody who says otherwise is fooling himself.”
So which dialect of Chinese are you fluent in?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a business deciding on their own to provide an extra service to their customers. If it means higher costs, well, that’s their call. (And you’re exaggerating those costs – when have you EVER seen a laser-printed receipt?)
@I Love New Jersey: I agree
@I Love New Jersey: I totally agree. And no I’m not racist. I’m shocked at how many people not only instantly assumed that, but are throwing insults wildly about this topic.
This is not about racism, people! It’s about efficiency.
One country, one language. Whatever language it ends up being.
Otherwise where do we draw the line? Maybe one day everything will be translated into 5 different languages?
@arl84: I just replied with this to I Love New Jersey, and I’ll explain the same to you. This is in Arizona. More than likely, this Red Robin is in a mall. Many people from the Mexican States of Sonora and Sinaloa come here to buy things from stores in the mall. Then they would like to have a meal.
So, I pose this. Should every American, before traveling to another country learn that language? Because I can tell you RIGHT NOW WITH 100% KNOWLEDGE that there many many Americans who visit Mexico who can’t pronounce “fajitas” properly, let alone ask for directions to the nearest bathroom or farmacia.
Shall we demonize them for not taking the time to learn the language?
@arl84: Oh, please.
If it were about efficiency you’d be advocating for Spanish as the official language — it’s what people were speaking before the Anglos arrived, especially in the Soutwest (like Arizona). Or perhaps the most widely spoken First Nations language.
If it were about efficiency you’d be advocating to let the free market decide. After all, isn’t the free market all about efficient allocation of resources?
When somebody gets so intensely worked up about things that other people do and that don’t affect them in the slightest — how are you harmed by a company accommodating Spanish speakers? — and there’s no rational reason for their objections… well, then its natural that observers will wonder what their *real* motivation is. The only ones I can think of are xenophobia, or compensating for the inadequate feelings you get from knowing that a humble manual laborer speaks two languages and you only speak one.
It’s not about efficiency. It’s about reinforcing and sustaining the social superiority you mistakenly think you’re entitled to.
@arl84: Hi there. I’m from Canada. We’re a country that has functioned perfectly well with two official languages, in addition to a Constitution which explicitly requires consideration for people of cultures where neither of them are spoken (up to and including a legal right to an interpreter in some cases), for the better part of two hundred years now.
Perhaps you’ve heard of us?
@I Love New Jersey: We will gladly change the menu for I <3 NJ – no more quesadillas – instead, they will be called “pancakey thingies with cheese.”
Salsa will be “illegal ketchup”.
@I Love New Jersey: Well, um, see, it’s Arizona. We are right next to the border. More than likely, this Red Robin is in a mall. There are many visitors from the states of Sonora and Sinaloa that come here to shop for a few things either because it’s cheaper, or hey, maybe they were just visiting family.
So, should they learn English because they are coming here to pick up a few items? Because, if that’s the case, then EVERY American tourist who visits another country should take the time to learn that country’s language. Right?
@I Love New Jersey: Let’s keep comments on topic, and not start a fight that doesn’t need to be started. Thanks.
Well, I won’t be eating at Red Robin any time soon. Any company that continues to provide SPANISH(and only spanish) as a crutch to people who will not learn English won’t get my money.
9 Dollars for a burger with blue cheese dressing and 4 dollars for a drink? Pffft, this is why i dont tip. Ask your management to give you a cut of the check and leave me alone
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@personnext: I have spent approximately 6 years of my life in Colombia, and tipping was expected. Since you are clearly here to be a troll however, i’ll leave it at that.