Blond Adult Girl wrote:Amnesia wrote:Dont people have to pass an English test in order to get US citizenship? Or am I mistaken?
I'm pretty sure they don't have to, but I can't confirm that.
Hey Elliot, what do you know about this? I always though that immigrants weren't required to learn English, but i could be wrong.
well, I'm going to assume that we're talking about an immigrant with no US citizen parents, which naturally narrows it down to naturalization.
this means becoming a legal resident in the US for at least 5 years, with no continuous visit to foreign nations exceeding 6 months. they need to be able to demonstrate they are of "person of good moral character" (whatever that means) and have to be able to pass a test on US history and government, which ostensibly requires working knowledge of the English language.
Of course, it's not like they're going to sit there and administer an English grammar test. (really though, if they did, half of the US citizens would probably fail anyway.) But some of the questions are phrased to be easy to understand.
The only exception to the language requirement is when the citizen is of extremely old age or they have some sort of mental disability that might prevent them from taking the test.
So, from a naturalization stand point, becoming a citizen DOES require you learn English.
Now, as for just being here in the US? not really.
This does not, however, prevent a US citizen born to foreign nationals within the US from being illiterate with the English language. I have met a number of Chinese kids in Chinatown in NYC that have a minimal working knowledge of English. It's kind of sad when you consider the fact that they actually GREW UP HERE.