Immigrants in america please learn english! (uscis, money, security, residents)
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This is just alarmist nonsense. Today's immigrants learn the language and assimilate at the same rate or faster than previous generations of immigrants. And generally speaking, maybe those who come here as adults may learn English with more difficulty and varying levels of fluency, but their kids will get it pretty quickly.
And just because they speak their home tongues in private or in public doesn't mean they can't speak English. I've always wondered at the strange attitude of some monolingual Americans who think that folks who are speaking Spanish in public refuse to learn English.
This is absolutely correct. Historic studies done at more than one U.S. university show that today's immigrants learn English as fast, or faster (thanks to TV and computers), than immigrants from other periods in our history. It doesn't matter what country they are from.
The slowest people to convert to English were German-speakers who came here in the first part of the 20th century. They remained in German communities, speaking German, with their own newspapers and magazines, far longer than most other language speakers do. But even they are now completely assimilated.
The pattern is always the same, with few exceptions. The immigrant who comes here as an adult speaking no English learns some English, spoken with an accent. That person's children usually speak their parents' native tongue at home but learn English completely and speak without an accent, or only a slight one. Their children rarely learn the language of their grandparents. They speak unaccented English, usually exclusively. The pattern follows if the immigrant is Korean, Italian, Syrian, or Mexican.
As someone here already mentioned, anyone who thinks it's easy to learn a foreign language as an adult is mistaken. The brain cells that govern language tend to develop early and the brain becomes organized in a specific way. If a child is raised in a bi- or multi-lingual setting, they develop "language aptitude," giving them the ability to learn multiple languages more easily than those of us who lacked this exposure. Not to say it can't be done, but it is difficult. People with language aptitude have more active right-brains and are also sometimes better at math.
That would, for example, explain why my great-grandfather was able to be fluent in seven languages, to the point that he was a professional translator, yet I was unable to become fluent in Spanish even though I studied it for four years in high school and two years in college. Unlike me, who grew up in an English-only home, my great-grandfather grew up in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was the child of French immigrants to that area of Europe. In school and in the military he interacted with people from the countries we now know as the Czech Republic, Poland, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Romania, Switzerland, and Austria, even though he lived in a suburb of Budapest. It probably wasn't even difficult for him to learn seven languages.
Desire has very little to do with it. So to assume people who have difficulty with English are just stubborn, or don't care about their adopted country, is usually inaccurate.
As it is, they are being actively reinforced to avoid learning English. Why is that a worthy goal?
Never have their been more efforts politically to discourage assimilation as there are today. This is as true in the EU and the UK, as here in the US. Language is just one way in which assimilation is discouraged. Government assistance programs are another (e.g. by supporting the immigrants, they do not have to assimilate in order to find work).
Lack of assimilation is one way to fragment a society, and to undermine the sovereignty of a country. The EU is dealing with difficulty in erasing national borders, to federalize the entire continent, due to language and cultural differences among European countries. Perhaps this is why the migrant issue is such an explosive one there. The European people are proving extremely resistant to these efforts. The results will show in the 2017 elections, just as they did with Brexit.
It is difficult to ignore the globalist's hands behind all this. It will backfire on them. It is not a 'new age' when it comes to innate human traits that cannot be changed by politics.
What about American Sign Language (ASL). That should be the second language. It is "spoken" by Americans. If English is made an official language, then ASL should be too. Deaf people do learn English, but too many just can't grasp a spoken language that they can't hear. There's a long history of trying to force them to learn English, and it is a horrible failure. Let's not forget our own people.
I'm all for immigrants coming to our country and having a better life but BOTH immigrants legal or illegal should be REQUIRED to take english classes(their plenty of people who can volunteer). This is getting out of hand, i can't even communicate with them and they expect me to what speak spanish?or what ever language?
This is america it's a majority english speaking country if i went to japan i would learn japanese.
This post makes sense but needs more information. Not all can be classified as immigrants. Some may be seasonal workers, some visitors, some refugees, some asylum seekers, some real immigrants who cannot speak english.
You can paint everyone with the same brush.
But its quite heartening to see that everyone helps them - be it in airports or public transport or TSA or DHS/customs .
NOTE: You are at least sensible enough to realize that you will learn Japanese when in Japan. From where I come from, people expect Japanese to know their language when they visit Japan . And that group is found in large numbers here in USA too
I have also seen them speak their language in office among them, having no courtesy to English speakers
I'm all for immigrants coming to our country and having a better life but BOTH immigrants legal or illegal should be REQUIRED to take english classes(their plenty of people who can volunteer). This is getting out of hand, i can't even communicate with them and they expect me to what speak spanish?or what ever language?
This is america it's a majority english speaking country if i went to japan i would learn japanese.
And Americans should learn English too:
-Learn the difference between "take" and "bring."
-You can't write someone. A person is not a letter. You write to someone.
-Football is a game played where a ball is kicked by a foot throughout the game. Hence the name foot ball.
- There is a T in the middle of the word water. Its pronounced water, not wa'er.
- Building on that, T is not D. They are different letters. Its party not pardy. And utter and udder are different words, not pronounced the same.
That's for starters. Lets all get on the same page and learn proper English. And since this is America everyone should also learn Navajo or another native language. After all, if you're in a country where the natives speak Japanese - you'd learn Japanese right. So when the natives speak Navajo...
I agree and I am Latina myself...the Hispanics seem to be catered to in which I am not in favor of..i was born here I don't relate to them so in my opinion I wish they would stop so many from coming here attempting to take over ...disagree if you want but that is exactly what they are doing
Absolutely. I work for a doctor's office with a large Hispanic patient base. I dislike the way many of them expect us to speak Spanish to them rather than they speak English to us. This attitude does not seem to be present among other language speakers, presumably because Spanish is the most common second language. Granted, the US bizarrely does not have an official language, but the majority of residents speak English and all official government business and documents is in that language. I have a lot of admiration for anyone taking on the monumental challenge of learning English as a second language. English is a very difficult language to learn when it is not your native tongue.
Many of our patients will speak to me in broken English and I appreciate their efforts and do everything I can to understand what they are trying to say to me. I think that people who live here should at least try to do that. The language they speak at home is entirely their choice. My father doesn't speak English at home (he speaks Bengali) but, per his expectations, everyone in the household speaks English fluently.
-Learn the difference between "take" and "bring."
-You can't write someone. A person is not a letter. You write to someone.
-Football is a game played where a ball is kicked by a foot throughout the game. Hence the name foot ball.
- There is a T in the middle of the word water. Its pronounced water, not wa'er.
- Building on that, T is not D. They are different letters. Its party not pardy. And utter and udder are different words, not pronounced the same.
That's for starters. Lets all get on the same page and learn proper English. And since this is America everyone should also learn Navajo or another native language. After all, if you're in a country where the natives speak Japanese - you'd learn Japanese right. So when the natives speak Navajo...
Am I right or what?
are you an immigrant? if so, you should be the one to adjust to the host citizens and not the other way around. typically, educated immigrants write english better than the native speakers, and may even speak more grammatically correct english than the native speakers, but who are you to think you're such on high horse to demand host citizens to adjust to immigrants? like i said earlier, the host citizens' grasp of the american english may be imperfect, but we're in their home land. let's adjust to them for safety's sake
Absolutely. I work for a doctor's office with a large Hispanic patient base. I dislike the way many of them expect us to speak Spanish to them rather than they speak English to us. This attitude does not seem to be present among other language speakers, presumably because Spanish is the most common second language. Granted, the US bizarrely does not have an official language, but the majority of residents speak English and all official government business and documents is in that language. I have a lot of admiration for anyone taking on the monumental challenge of learning English as a second language. English is a very difficult language to learn when it is not your native tongue.
Many of our patients will speak to me in broken English and I appreciate their efforts and do everything I can to understand what they are trying to say to me. I think that people who live here should at least try to do that. The language they speak at home is entirely their choice. My father doesn't speak English at home (he speaks Bengali) but, per his expectations, everyone in the household speaks English fluently.
exactly! and they even expect you to bend further to them by having translators instead of them actually trying to proactively engage themselves in the business at hand. for sure, they can understand some english as english is based on latin. at least they can try to learn basic english words, go outside of their ethnic communities and assimilate--absorb the language and culture instead of resisting such by comfortably staying in their little communities.
the US has gotten to a point where political correctness has begun to coddle people, especially the less educated immigrants, even welcoming them with open arms and essentially bending the rules for them without necessarily encouraging them to assimilate and be more productive at a faster rate
Even if you designate "English" as official language, how will you force people to communicate in English and English only? We will not put a cop behind every immigrant who will enforce that every word he or she utters will be English and English only. Two Turkish immigrants in Germany will speak with each other in Turkish language even though official language of Germany is German. Two Goa immigrants living in Portugal will speak with each other in Konkani even though official language of Portugal is Portuguese. Two Americans living in Paris will speak in English to each other even though official language of France is French.
Last edited by munna21977; 11-02-2016 at 08:34 AM..
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. And that group is found in large numbers here in USA too 
