Why do some people come to the USA and just refuse to learn English ?

Question

BTW everybody :The person who told me "I won't learn English" was not Mexican. I just looked at him in disbelief when he said that.

I was translating some legal documents for another friend who refuses to learn English,and this friend of his sat there and said he didn't need to learn English.Five minutes later,he looked at the papers I translated and said "Wow,it must be nice to know English like you do." Is this guy ok ?

Daniel.I know what you mean with Thai.One word can mean ,"I","Buffalo,"and something else I can't mention here.

Answer 1

I am convinced that those are wrong ideas the immigrants gets from their leaders, and they have allowed this ideas to become popular and accepted, wich is completely inconvenient and even causes more damage to their image between american citizens.
But remember that many of the leaders, the people who speak aloud, tend to exagerate their positions. I guess there are lots of young people who are convinced of the need to learn english, and they are actually doing it.
My hope is that all the leaders get more concious of the real problem here, and how complicated it is, that they don't need more confrontation on that kind of issues.
I wish they would encourage people to learn english, and give it even more advantage of they staying there by giving that kind of extra effort.
I hope we all get this problem over a more concious, realistic, and cold point of view, and work really hard to solve it, wich is what we all need, both countries needs to get to a good solution.

Answer 2

It's not that they refuse to learn. The problem is that a lot of people come here and they get so used to being around people who speak their native language that they don't make an effort to learn English. I know first hand because me and my mom came here in 1980 and she still only knows a few words in English. I was 3 and she was 31.

Answer 3

It is just an America myth that immigrants do not want to learn how to speak English they do. What annoys people is that they also hold on to their language, which is their choice to speak among them selves. If I am not talking to you it does not concern you what I am saying, Mind your own business.

I live a third of each year in Thailand In a a jungle village, where no one is fluent in English, and I can not learn Thai because it is a tonal language, one word may have 5 different meaning depending on the tone it is pronounced in and I am hearing disabled and cannot hear the tones. I have had no trouble getting along with the Thais, With my Thai and Thai English ,I can make myself understood, I wish they had press 1 for English or Spanish.

Answer 4

Sad to say, some people are like that. But, remember, old people would have a difficult time in learning English: it IS the most difficult and complicated language ever developed. And, remember: most Americans read/write at about the 5th grade level!

Answer 5

well i think it's due to either theire age wich is kinda hard to learn a new lang. at old age or illeteracy...which is the worst when u don't even know how to write what u say...but commin here and not learning for the heck of it is stupidity and i think it's a myth and doesn't exist...unless what u mean by english is the english u speak properly b/c ur a native speaker then it's kinda impossible for an imigrant to do so

Answer 6

What makes you think they refuse to learn English. I am an american living overseas and I am having a hard time learning the local languages.....

Answer 7

most of the ones of which you speak are illegals not here legally so there is not reason to learn english long as they have the friendly natives to put everything in two languages and make translators available then where do you need to learn, they should travel to Quebec and see how they get along not knowing French and not making attempt to speak it see how it feels to be in a country that does not cater to you

Answer 8

Because it's a free country and freedom implies that the government can't control what language you speak. The great majority of people who don't learn english are pretty darn old.

Answer 9

You're mostly correct about those that come and don't speak English (and I'm talking primarily of those who came illegally and trampled our flag. Here. On our soil. Most drunk.)

But I've come to find that actually they DO learn TWO very interesting things:

1) how to speak just enough to get all they can and
2) how to act like they can't speak a word, to keep from getting what they really deserve.



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Answer 10

They don't. Where did you hear that?

Just like every other immigrant group in history, people coming to the United States from other countries speak American English within a generation, and within two generations, virtually no one speaks the original language, or even dialect or accent.

This idea that people come to the U.S. and refuse to speak English is a myth. It is really difficult, pretty miserable in fact, to live in a country in which you cannot understand what people are saying. Some people live here and take a long time to speak English well. So they speak their comfortable language with their children, who are bilingual. This is the natural course of immigrant lingual integration.

Any idea who the biggest group of immigrants refusing to speak the native language are? Answer: U.S. citizens living in Mexico (retirees).