Should US citizens have to speak english?

[Wuhan_Clan]

I have a different perspective on this than you do. I think that providing driving tests in other languages than English is a good idea because this would ensure that people of different ethnicity, thus not fluent in English, will take the test and either pass it or fail it. I would much rather have a driver driving by me that have passed the test in either English or Spanish or whatever than not.

For something like getting a driver's license, it doesn't matter so much as long as they can drive safely. But remember that although the test may have been in lets say Spanish, all the road signs are in English other then speed limit signs (which are numbers).

You may think that forcing the people to learn English by providing documents only in English may be a good idea, but that is a disaster that is ready to happen.

No its not a practical solution but I don't like the idea of the US moving toward a bilingual entity like Canada or Hong Kong. I also don't like the idea of immigrants thinking its ok that they don't know English and won't ever need to know English.

Also, I don't know how old you are, but learning a new language at an older age is much more difficult to do than you would think. I have taken Japanese for 6 years, and I still have a problem reading Kanji. When you are at the age of 40 or above, it just is not that easy.

Yes I'm fully aware of the difficulties in learning a foreign language when you're no longer young. But don't you think that when these adults made the decision to move, they would account for such difficulties? Life's tough. Again, I go back to not liking the idea of immigrants thinking its ok that they can't learn English. Why would you want to become a citezen of the USA if you aren't going to bother to at least attempt to learn basic US customs such as its most frequently used language?[/quote]
Well then again, times are changing. These things are happening whether I like them or not. If these people can come here and find a way to survive without English, then more power to them and maybe they shouldn't be denied citenzenship.

 

[cleanupguy]

For something like getting a driver's license, it doesn't matter so much as long as they can drive safely. But remember that although the test may have been in lets say Spanish, all the road signs are in English other then speed limit signs (which are numbers).

People who get into accidents do not get into accidents because of not being able to read road signs or speed limits. They get into accidents because they are careless. You know immigrants can read numbers as numbers are universal. Also, road signs.. well it doesn't take an English speaker to figure out what they mean.

No its not a practical solution but I don't like the idea of the US moving toward a bilingual entity like Canada or Hong Kong. I also don't like the idea of immigrants thinking its ok that they don't know English and won't ever need to know English.

This, I agree with you.

Yes I'm fully aware of the difficulties in learning a foreign language when you're no longer young. But don't you think that when these adults made the decision to move, they would account for such difficulties? Life's tough. Again, I go back to not liking the idea of immigrants thinking its ok that they can't learn English. Why would you want to become a citezen of the USA if you aren't going to bother to at least attempt to learn basic US customs such as its most frequently used language?

Once again, my question stands. Who is your target group of immigrants? Which group of immigrants think like this? Can you elaborate?

Well then again, times are changing. These things are happening whether I like them or not. If these people can come here and find a way to survive without English, then more power to them and maybe they shouldn't be denied citenzenship.

Well, although citizenship does require you to learn English, there are some extraordinary circumstances where you don't have to know English as in if you are like 80 years old, etc.

 

[Wuhan_Clan]

Once again, my question stands. Who is your target group of immigrants? Which group of immigrants think like this? Can you elaborate?

I'm not targetting any group of immigrants. I'm just speaking in general what kind of an image we would be spreading if we increasingly accomodate for non-English speaking immigrants. I don't have any first hand experience with the current situation so it may or may not be as bad as I describe.

 

[cleanupguy]

I'm not targetting any group of immigrants. I'm just speaking in general what kind of an image we would be spreading if we increasingly accomodate for non-English speaking immigrants. I don't have any first hand experience with the current situation so it may or may not be as bad as I describe.

I really don't think it's as bad as you describe it to be. I've volunteered to teach English at a local adult school once a week for 4 months when I was a junior in college. The class was held at 8:10 PM to accomodate all the people working hard all day long. I've seen Mexicans, Chinese, Korean, Iranian, Singaporean, you name it. Some had to be turned away because the facility was not big enough. People's enthusiam to learn English is there, but the funding is not. Some of these immigrants do not even have elementary school education from their countries, so expecting them to learn English on their own is a bit harsh and unrealistic. But believe me when I say that the majority of immigrants are willing and able to learn English. What we are talking about is only a fraction of the entire immigrant population.

 

[IDupedInMyPants]

As far as driver's licenses, I believe the UN Convention on Road Traffic requires of all signatory nations that they accept as valid the licenses of all other signatory nations so long as the driver in question is over 18, with the age limit being at the discretion of each nation. You can get an international driver's permit that translates the information on your license to a few other languages, but it's not a requirement (although each nation can choose to make it one) or a legal license in and of itself.

So what I'm getting at here is you don't have to know a lick of English or have an American license to drive in the States just as legally as a native born American who has an American license.