On Feb 14, 10:57 am, Mxsmanic wrote:
mad8 writes:
the citizenship test doesn't require being able to speak english. you
can take it in your own language if you pay/provide a translator.

In the United States, perhaps. In many countries, a test of competency in the
national language is _part_ of the citizenship test. If you don't speak the
language, you don't get citizenship, period.

in this thread we were discussing the US last time I checked (AFAICS
the thread is about weather in spanish and the opinions of posters
about it)...


(all this i know from being surrounded by Russians who just recently
came here and don't speak enough english to be useful)

They don't speak enough English to be useful, but they want to be citizens?
Hmm. If they are too lazy or stupid to learn English, how do they plan to
support themselves? Or do they expect the state to do that?

The ability to learn a language isn't indicative of a person's
industriousness or intelligence. My father for example has a phd in
laser optics (which IS indicative of at least hard work) and is very
well employed here. It took him about 10 years to become (more or
less) fluent in english, and he still has quite a bit of an accent
(everyone understands him, but he sounds distinctly foreign). He took
the test in English, but if it had been a few years earlier he
wouldn't have been able to. He wasn't out to make russian an official
language of the US, he was just trying to get by with the abilities he
had. You wouldn't deny a deaf person assistance taking the citizenship
test, so why would you deny a non-native-speaker?
Learning english isn't an instant process (even for babies). pretty
much all who are able to, eventually learn english. Those who don't,
usually don't get much further than the construction business.
also, none of them are elligible for any government assistance until
they become citizens. Therefore, they have to make something of
themselves in the 5-10 years it takes to naturalize in the US.

on that note, go download a INS simulator and play it. It's much
easier than actually going through the immigration process.