Should People Who Immigrate to a New Country, Learn Its Language?

[Saiyan Lusitano]

Simple question.

I've been seeing the sentiment that people who move to another country shouldn't have to. But then, how would they communicate themselves with the natives/residents of said country? Google Translate? A dictionary?

I recently visited Cyprus (where they speak Greek) and it was really frustrating that I was unable to socialize with them as I'd have loved. So in my opinion, obviously the person needs to learn so that they assimilate, communicate and know their way around.

 

[JiveTheTurkey]

Yes. It is a natural element of man's growth and intuition.

 

[CallmeBerto]

It would depend on how much the native population speaks your language. If 80% do then you could get away with no but in most cases, you at min should know the basics.

 

[Mythical]

To be honest some people won't accept you as accepting their culture properly without learning their language. It may not necessarily be the case, but they may think and treat you accordingly. Most people can learn the basics of a language in 2-3 months no problem (it would be extremely frustrating though)

 

[wicksand420]

I wouldn't go to France and tell them they need to learn my language, like Spanish.

 

[x65943]

Absolutely, it's a tad silly not to

You're really at a disadvantage if you can't speak to your neighbors, the police, shopkeepers

 

[Mythical]

Absolutely, it's a tad silly not to

You're really at a disadvantage if you can't speak to your neighbors, the police, shopkeepers

oui, oui, baguette

 

[Cyan]

I think the immigrants should learn the language for two reasons. First, communicating is very important (you need to fill forms, read/writes lot of things to get your legal papers), and second if you want a country to welcome you it's the least to do to adopt its culture.
I don't say you need to forget your own culture and language, but share and be integrated to the place who accepted you.

But, that's not always the case.
I work with lot of people and immigrant too, and I can tell that it's often the people from the same countries that either make effort or don't. (I won't name the bad ones for ethical reason)
that's, to me, a big reason people feel racism against each others. hearing other people living in France for more than 50 years and still not speaking french... even their kids born in France don't as if it they didn't like the country they live in.
I can, on the other side, tell the one I find very good at making efforts : Portuguese and east-European people (Poland, Romania) are very good and fast at learning french.

I can't criticize too much, because French people are VERY bad at learning a new language, even less at speaking it in other countries... I'm sure french tourists just speak french as if others should understand them
I guess french fears to look ridiculous to even try. I feel sorry for other countries to see French people acting like that.

I really like people making the effort to talk french, even if it's grammatically bad and hesitant, it's always pleasant to see people trying ! and it's not that hard to understand and communicate even with few words.

edit:
one thing I noticed about english/american : if I do the effort to speak english, but don't use the proper accent or intonation, they look at me like "what are you saying? I don't understand that word even if you repeat it in many possible ways, and even if they all have the exact same syllables than a word I know!", and ends saying "ahhhhh, this ?" and saying it the exact same way I did....
why are you making us feel as if we are worse than we already are ? we know we have a bad english accent.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Have to? Nah... I don't think so.
As long as you are socially functional and you can obtain enough income to live in peace you are good to go I guess.

There are many places and circumstances that make this easy, e.g. if you move from one branch office of a corporation to another branch in some other country for example, usually your work environment ends up being all or mostly English no matter the country and the company helps you do your paperwork.

That said not learning the language isolates you, it will probably result in a very boring daily life and lead to depression. I would say the healthy thing would be to learn the local language.

 

[HRudyPlayZ]

I think they should... Even if they can live without... It's always a nice thing to learn new cultures.

It can be a required tool for communication. If you couldn't speak to anyone, life would be extremely difficult. Plus, immigrants could show the adoption of the culture of that country.

As a french guy speaking also english, i can tell you French people are VERY BAD in english or other languages (people may laugh at some french people speaking English but remember it's one of the languages best spoken by us). However, a lot of us are trying (I can speak English just fine but i talk about the majority...). I really think people would consider the effort of even TRYING to speak a language...

 

[Alexander1970]

YES,defenite.

 

[FAST6191]

Force of law? No.

Generally a good plan? Absolutely. Foolish to argue otherwise. It absolutely counts as a negative against you as well (I have seen some try to say it is bad to look down upon people that don't make the effort despite nominally living there).

Should the country providing services be compelled to pay for translation services if the person does not speak one of the standard set (some countries have more than one official language, others might have to play to supranational groups which say all their services/works/documents must be available in these languages)? I might be willing to listen to conditions and timeframe (refugee, serious disability as applies to learning... serious stuff, not "can't be arsed"). As a general concept though. Nope. If charities want to be set up then so be it, functionally I don't see it as that much different.
At the same time should the host country try to provide some kind of tuition on the matter? In an absolute international law/we will count it against you in a trade discussion sense then no, in a more pragmatic sense then yes -- incentivise your universities or whatever to provide a bit or something.

As part of a citizenship test? Yes. Big boy visa, or equivalent, for a big boy job? I can see it. Basic working visa? Probably want to avoid that one. Lesser resident status where you have to apply (think American green card or UK's indefinite leave to remain)? Could see a split here as far as family ones probably not, student ones not at government level but if the uni asks for it for entry then deny away, lottery (maybe not, though a potential boosting factor), skills type setup (first stage yes, if they can't find a speaker for their niche then start loosening requirements).
I don't know what I would do about tests offhand -- say I was going to move to Australia then having to do their tests when I grew up in the UK (and have high level education from said same) would feel a bit redundant. This may vary with levels of mutual intelligibility (English has not diverged as much as some other former empire languages).
Similarly the levels of proficiency is also something to be considered. Could you phone up and organise a service to be installed probably being a good baseline here, if not that then some more practical version of whatever your average school leaver could be expected to have (from what I can remember then for GCSE English I had The Guardians by John Christopher, Animal Farm, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream and a lot of turgid poetry... none of which would be that useful compared to generally understanding sentence formation, general grammar and testing well on a vocab list).

As a general rule I am very far from prescriptive linguistics as well -- I find a lot of what Quebec (be it their laws or their political agitators) does with regards to language to be generally distasteful and the language as culture thing they often argue to be a pitiful notion. This does also come the other way -- see parts of South America where things get swamped out by a mass of people moving.

Similarly while I find enclaves a fascinating concept (south America yielding several of intense interest for me) it is no bad thing to try to discourage their formation.

 

[IncredulousP]

It would make sense to learn enough of the languages most used in the area one is immigrating to, but I don't think it should be required by law. The limited communication and work opportunities of not learning the language would suffice as consequences, and if a person can live a steady life doing no harm then I see no reason they need to learn more languages. I know that Canada established their official languages as French and English, and require new citizens to learn one of them. US, however, has no officially established language nor language requirement that I know of, though learning English would obviously help. Many areas in California that I live near are majorly Spanish speaking, with signs in a myriad of languages that include Spanish, English, Farsi, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and Arabic. I don't see the requirement of learning any of those languages as a good idea, and I believe it should be on the person to take it upon themself to learn what would most benefit them.

 

[Xzi]

If you're moving somewhere with a different language, then yeah. If you're just going on vacation or you're living on a military base elsewhere, then it's probably not a necessity.

 

[SSG Vegeta]

Yes

 

[Noctosphere]

That's a question we've been talking about for decades here in Province of Quebec in Canada
In short, New Brunswick is bilingual (both english and french)
Quebec is french province, and all other provinces of canada are english
The thing here in Quebec is that for the past 50 years, we had two political party which alternated each other
The first one, the Liberal Party, gave a lot of priviledges to immigrant
They didn't really cared about them learning french
The other party, Quebecois Party, was elected many time around the fact that they'd protect french in Province of Quebec
However, not that much was done when they were elected
We got a couple of commission about immigration such as Bouchard-Taylor, but their recommendation weren't all applied
We still talk about that comission today

However, during the latest provincial election here in Quebec, a new founded party in 2011 was elected, Quebec's Future Coalition
They've been elected for many of their promises, but the one related to this thread is very interesting
For exemple, what they want is to force immigrant to learn french and quebecois values within 3 years after immigration and make them pass an test of values
It's relatively easy if you want to stay, my cousin in law is from Australia, and he passed the test after about 18months
So yea, I totally agree with them
Also, that new governement want to change the immigration system here in Quebec
First, they'll reduce the amount of immigrants welcomed in the province from 50k to 40k
They'll also choose them from their skills
For exemple, if the immigrant can do tiny soldering and there's high demand to hire solderer in Quebec, that person will have higher chance to get accepted earlier than a guy who works in a place where there's low demands in Quebec
For exemple, we need lot of nursering staff for hospitals and elders residences

So yea, that new governement will do lot of good thing on that side for us

 

[jefffisher]

some of my friends have parents who moved here from cuba and mexico lived here for 40+ years and never learned a word of english somehow.

 

[orangy57]

sure, but they shouldn't have to. There was a book called something like "house on orange street" or something that shows how disconnected you can be if you don't try to integrate into society and learn to communicate

 

[sarkwalvein]

Tiny soldering... the meme that will never die.

 

[kuwanger]

As part of a citizenship test? Yes.

This I'm a bit more hesitant about. In principle it's sort of a basic idea that you have to communicate to even pass a test, but at least in the US I don't think it wise to long-term demand one language as the language of the country. I say this mostly because one of the greatest weaknesses in the US is precisely its mono-language. Instead of taking advantage of the fact that so many cultures came with so many languages, we strived very hard to basically remove all but English. Those that learn multiple languages at a young age pick up more languages much easier. That is the basis of good flexibility in the global economy.

second if you want a country to welcome you it's the least to do to adopt its culture.

Practically, yes. Realistically, I think it better to quasi-adopt the culture. Some of the better things in America are the byproduct of the melding of multiple cultures. It's not like there's any one "right" culture. Yes, you learn the culture of the place you move to so you can get along with others in that culture. There's nothing wrong, though, with thoughtful criticism or doing things a little bit your own way. It's obviously something of a balancing act to being accepted and being needlessly subservient to another's culture.

if I do the effort to speak english, but don't use the proper accent or intonation, they look at me like "what are you saying?

While they might just being needless jerks, it's quite possible they honestly don't understand you. The truth is, the best way to at least get critical levels of knowing how well you speak a language is to be confronted by people who are sufficiently critical. I'm not saying it's fun, especially because it's a lot of work trying to say things "correctly". It's also not fun because you never know if people are being needlessly critical or just fabricating things. :/ At least one partial test is to, of course, record yourself as you speak and listen later.