I don't mind discussion and even disagreement. There are some people, however, who so convinced of the righteousness of their position, and are so offended or threatened by a different opinion, that they feel that the only possible response is to write insults and vulgarity. Kind of sad.

My parents have lived in Australia for over 28 years & still doesn't know how to speak English.They, along with others, dont want to intergrate into western culture/society. They feel that its not necessary since there are PLENTY of fellow chinese immigrants to talk/befriend with in their own language. There are a lot of asian food stores & interpreters for any services. They never learnt to adapt, they just continue living as if they are still in China. Its sad

There may be the odd bit of racism against Chinese or between any groups here, but in my view it is not an important factor. Rather there are a host of other cultural and sociological factors that inhibit the Chinese from committing themselves to learning English, and integrating more.

North America has always relied on immigrants for technical expertise. Only a small percentage of Chinese immigrants are IT specialists, however, and many of them have trouble finding decent work here because of poor language cultural schools. You still have to communicate, even if you are in IT, believe we have had all kinds of programmers.

Furthermore, I wanted to add that the reason why I’m constantly motivated to learn English is because I want to learn new things and perspectives in English. Reading books in English is just so fun ( I am a person who enjoys reading btw), reading in English is a whole other different and enjoyable experience that I’m really proud of myself doing. The hardest part of English for a native mandarin speaker like me is the variations of verbs, the change in tenses, that’s why I still make mistakes here and there but by and large I think I can make English speakers understand me. So I think it’s very crucial that you find something that you really enjoy doing or you are really interested in doing, in English, because the resources out there in English is just tremendous and top notched. I’m still learning English everyday, building up my vocabulary each day, and I’m enjoying it. I find it brain-stimulating and just fun knowing perspectives from another language. Also I want to keep myself having competitive advantage in the world not just within China. Nowadays and in the foreseeable future, everybody will be interconnected in some way so having high English proficiency will only do you good.

Let's not confuse two issues. Yes much of what is taught in our universities is useless. As I said in the video, Quebec sociology students are protesting in the streets about a small increase in their tuition fees. East Asians willingly spend a fortune on education. We should learn from them in many ways. The discussion here, though, is about the requirements of citizenship, in any country.

I am from Mexico, and really a lot of the Chinese communities are also usually very close in their own communities, and most know little to no Spanish, even after years of living in Mexico. Most of them are in the major cities like Mexico City, Tijuana, and Mexicali.

There are two official languages in Canada and immigrants will need to learn one of them to acquire citizenship. There is no reason for the French speakers to abandon their language, it is at the core of their national identity. An immigrant, however, has decided to leave one national group to join another. Therefore it is for them to learn the language of the new country. This has nothing to do with the situation of French Canadians.

Residents, whether citizens or not pay taxes and are treated the same as anyone else, I believe. They just don't vote. Yes lots of Chinese media, newspapers TV and radio stations etc. I have often appeared on Chinese TV and radio.

We are not talking about accepting refugees. We are talking about citizenship and normal immigration. I don't think that the immigrant receiving community (and the are the ones who decide conditions for entry) want their country to become a collection of Chinatowns, Indiatowns, Philipinotown, etc. with no common language.

Resident tuition fees for University of Wisconsin are $10,380 for the 2012-13 academic year.

I lived in France and i learnt the language within 6 months, i now speak, write, read fluent french. I think its a beautiful and positive thing to learn another culture, which can only be done through the language. I dont understand why people would purposly want to turn down that opportunity

Every language has its quirks. At first they seem to present obstacles, but in time we just get used to them. I don't really analyze these differences very much. Cheers!

it is easy for a people to speak a foreign language, but it is really hard to think in a foreign language pattern.

You are right, professional immigrants with poor language skills are a low cost great labour pool for Chinese employers here.

As a Venezuelan immigrant livong in an English speaking country, I totally agree that learning the local language is not just a nice gesture to the locals, but it is kind of disrespectful to not do so. My native language, like most Venezuelans, is Spanish, and I am pretty confident with my English skills, but even though we've been here for two years already, my mother can barely speak English. And I do feel that she's isolated from all the other English speakers around her. In the other hand, I knew English before coming, (although I didn't speak it perfectly. I don't speak it perfectly even now, but I can definitely see an improvement.) I mostly learned it from the internet, And still I don't know how some people manage to not learn the language at all. Oddly, the only person in my family that I've seen studying English constantly is my grandmother, who is all the way back in Spanish-speaking Venezuela... :/ I try to encourage and help my family learn English by teaching them new words, but they end up forgetting... Again, it all boils down to "Are there any speakers of your language in that are?" If the answer is yes, people tend to not learn, which is horrible.

I know some native English speakers don’t mind at all hearing a non-English speaker’s broken English, and they appreciate us trying and making efforts. The harshest criticism is actually from our own Chinese community. I remembered some celebrity from China who appeared on some international stage with broken English, many Chinese in China laugh at her and feel ashamed of her speaking broken English. Those celebrities are super rich but that doesn’t stop people laughing at her, saying things like did she ever attend elementary school? I feel more comfortable speaking to a native English in English, but when another Chinese person is around, I feel more nervous because they are very judgemental and will pick every little mistakes that you make, then they will either look up to you or look down on you depending on your level. You are not Chinese so you don’t understand the mentality here. This mentality Is just terrible. I’m not sure if this is down to the East Asian culture or what? Chinese are just much less tolerant than the English counterparts. So people’s minds are ingrained with the idea that, will people look down on me if they find out that I lack English skill? You know what I mean? You are a privileged Canadian, I think it’s hard for you to understand.

I'm noticing as I work my way through all of Steve's videos that arguments seem to break out quite frequently in the comments. Who knew language learning could be such a tempestuous topic!

My Wife is Chinese. She came to the U.S. with just basic English 22 years ago. We've been married 9 years and although her English has improved a lot, she spends a lot of time talking to her friends in Chinese and she still prefers it whenever she's speaking to another Chinese speaker.

I agree. It boils down to the desire to learn a language to mingle in the community and the like, not JUST to get a job, which seems to be the norm for many people. I think people who learn a language for fun tend to do better with it. When I lived in Germany, I met some people who had been living there for so long without speaking German, only some English, yet I have a harder time going there with English as my native tongue and knowledge of German. More power to them I guess. Great video!

Of course, since that would save the Canadian taxpayer billions of dollars, which now go to ESL education for immigrants, without any apparent benefit to anyone but the teachers.

Same reason you'll find a "ChinaTown" in any big city in the world. They tend to gather with their own, they have preference for their own. Another factor is the sheer number of Chinese but as a white guy who has had a relationship with a Chinese gal for 15 years, I think there is something to what I say.

This is very informative,Sir.. I did not know this til now.. I have very little Chinese blood from Ancestry on the Father s side..Thank you.

It more or less matches my anecdotal experience. But I hope to explore this subject further in meeting with local Chinese groups.

I don't have anything against immigrants who don't want to learn the language of the nation to which they come looking for better living. They should be allowed to live in peace and prosperity. But becoming a citizen is something more than just a want of taking advatage of better standard of life. One must have some kind of connection with the culture of the nation and with its values. And this can only be achieved when one speaks the nation's language.

I am sorry. I don't take your views seriously.

Don't get me going on linguistic anthropology or sociolinguistics, both of which fields are of no interest to me, and should not be offered at university at the tax-payer's expense.

No, I am talking about Canada. Toronto has more Chinese immigrants than Vancouver.

But a lot of chinese do isolate themselves from Canadians !

On the first topic. Sadly my wife is a lot like the Chinese people you describe. To her credit she never really wanted to immigrate to Canada. . but it's the only way to be with me who does not want to live permanently in China. She thinks she can learn English just by talking to me. . but she never watches English shows or reads English literature.. and spends most of her time talking to Chinese friends. . so her progress is very slow.

btw, especially in Vancouver, u can just speak Chinese all the time cuz major businesses have chinese services. It's just the environment that favors Chinese

Please read again the direct quote above of what you said. Not much more I can say on that score. Canada's immigration today is overwhelmingly "non-white". The image of who is Canadian is evolving, in terms of race. However, second generation Canadians of all origins speak English or French (thankfully), much to the disappointment of many in the Chinese community who arrogantly think that Chinese should be an official language Canada. No thanks.

This is so true in Australia most Chinese immigrants isolate themselves from society, and form their own communities. My friend who is Chinese speaks flawless English because he grew up here, but his parents can only understand maybe 50% of what English speakers say. Their problem is that they only watch Chinese TV online and they shop and do their day to day activities only with Chinese people (Their are suburbs that are Chinese majority in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane)

This particular study followed immigrants to English Canada, which is where by far the largest group settle. I doubt if the results for French in Quebec would be very different.

Speaking of Americans learning spanish - why not ? But not becaue of trends, but because learning languages is good for everybody :)

Hello Steve! I love listening to your videos. I'm currently studying Chinese, and I'd love if you could explain how you went on about the fact that every word in Chinese has very many meanings. Shortly said how you got into the Chinese 'situation thinking'. Did you use some specific method or did it just come naturally? Greeting from Sweden

You are talking about Vancouver, don't you?

You're right, it is all about motivation, and definitely a large cash incentive would increase the numbers successfully learning. Whether it's desirable or should be a requirement in a society is another question, it probably should be, but there are arguments on both sides.

100% Agreed!

That was quite a while ago. Things have changed. BTW racism in East Asia was and still is stronger than in North America. The issue is why certain groups pf of immigrantes have trouble learning English today, despite massive public funding of their ESL learning. Furthermore, why spend the money if these immigrants don't learn. It just points out that the classroom is less important than the attitude of the learner.

The government is not tell people what to speak, but rather telling people that a minimum ability to communicate in one of the official languages, English or French is a condition for citizenship. That makes sense if the society is to have any cohesion. As to native languages, I am all in favour of learning them, but there are so many, it is not easy. But yes a revival of these languages would be a good thing.

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic and the affect it had on overseas Chinese communities shows the ridiculousness of their foolishness to not learn about the countries they live in for decades, nor do they care to learn about the language/languages spoken in their host country. Overseas closed-minded Chinese communities only have themselves to blame in this situation.

I live in America (near Seattle), and I've noticed too that Slavics tend to be more motivated to learning English well, and on many occasions, they spoke it like a native.

I will try to arrange to video the event, and we will see if we can add some sub-titles. I will see what I can do.

If people realized that they would save tax money, they may well accept it. It is the vested interests of the immigration services industry and ESL schools that would oppose it. Also the ethnic organizations who operate on the basis of extracting entitlements.

I have a different view of Canada. Foreign born Canadians are about 20% of the population. Canadian born Canadians tend to see themselves as Canadians first, and are very often of mixed ethnic origin, overwhelmingly speak English and French as their first language. This, not the views of the first generation immigrant, defines what Canadian identity is.

因为俄语英语都是印欧语系的

Park 1997, Tuan 1998, Ooka 2002, Bean & Stevens 2003, Fong & Ooka 2006, and so on.

It is not practical to talk in terms of speaking fluently nor without an accent. The question here is why some immigrants do not improve, despite attending lots of classes, usually paid for by the tax payer. The issue of race is also irrelevant, as you no doubt know, since a significant percentage of the population here in Vancouver is non-white, and many of them are native English speakers.

What research ? The current model of nations, nation states, national languages, evolved after the French Revolution and during the 19th century. But ethnic identity has always existed. People have also always moved in small groups or as conquerors. Sometime they were welcome and sometimes resisted, or killed. Some kept their language and some assimilated. As conquerors they either imposed their language or absorbed the language of the conquered.

I think asian people are very strict about their culture, preventing them to learn about another culture and consequently another language.

They live in isolated spheres of chinese speakers. Here in the US, there are many Mexican immigrants who've lived here for years and speak almost no english. They exist in communities that are almost entirely Spanish speaking with stores, advertisements, etc in Spanish. Even at many jobs their coworkers will be predominantly Mexican. So they have no motivation to learn English. When I lived in France, my French didn't improve much at first because i was hanging out with a bunch of Irish people!

Good idea.

Je suis en complet désaccord avec vous quand vous comparez l'université et l'apprentissage des langues. On n'apprend pas l'histoire ou la sociologie comme on apprend une langue étrangère (même en lisant des livres, cela ne suffit pas). Mais surtout vous vous méprenez sur le rôle de l'université : ce n'est pas juste de donner un diplôme, mais des connaissances, un esprit critique, capable de raisonner, afin de former des citoyens éclairés. Vous proposez le néolibéralisme poussé à l'extrême !

My mistake, they followed 3, 000 immigrants and a group of 30 reviewed their progress.

Yes. You think that that can be paraphrased by "insisting on immigrants learning the national language discourages non-white immigration"? It seems we can both copy and paste, but perhaps we are not both equally good at reading comprehension. The underlying bias that Canada is a white country is a major obstacle facing non-white minorities in Canada, and that permeates into policy that affects immigration, but nowhere did I say /anything/ about discouraging immigration. Give your head a shake.

haaha, I totally get why. All my relatives from Hong Kong moved to British Columbia in the 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s and continue to do so today. Being Chinese, I know that Chinese people typically group together (bc of their family-oriented/family-like society ex: China towns), and as a result, they seclude themselves from the English speaking world or rather expand their Chinese community around them. So basically if you go to the right neighborhoods,youcan just speak Cantonese and survive.

I don't really understand the concern. These testing/diploma granting institutes would hire or contract with just enough people to get the job done. The idea is not to support all the people who are at present employed in universities.

Chinese are very close in their own community.. I live in Italy and most of them don't speak italian at all even after years living here.. I've met chinese that have been living here for 10 years and can only understand very basic phrases.

It is an old archaic culture thing with the Chinese, basically being ethnocentric/sinocentrism.

of course they must learn to speak english, it is not only beneficial to the hosting country, BUT also EXTREMELY beneficial for the immigrant. Also, tell the french in Canada to get rid of their attitude and learn to speak english.

I would be happy to get together some time. I am interested in what is at the core of the problem. Certainly the money spent on immigrant ESL is largely wasted. I do not think the dictionary or the different language structures are the main problems. They may make things more difficult for Chinese compared to Slavs, but would not account for no improvement at all. There are other factors at work. I am speaking in front of a group of Chinese on June 24 I (in Chinese). I hope to find out more.

You have confirmed to me that many people at university can't debate without throwing a tantrum. You tell me that the basic premise of my video "was completely false", spout a few more bits of what I consider nonsense. Then when I disagree with you, you have nothing left to say and choose to end the discussion and as a parting shot tell me that won't promote my site. What has that do with our discussion. Have you no arguments?

Humans live in societies, large and small, which share cultural assets; language, religion, rules. This was so before modern nation states. These societies have evolved governments, i.e. chiefs, priests etc. to prevent the insecurity of anarchy. This was so for aboriginal Canadian tribes whose communities imposed order internally but warred with each other. English and French speaking Canada are new tribes who now impose their order. Your "libertarian" view is parasitic and not serious.

Totally agree with you Steve on both counts. I'd love to be able to just go take a test to get my degree. I'm confident that I have enough experience and knowledge in my area of expertise that I could ace the test. However our current system is set up like a business. .and you can only get the degree if you pay for years of in classroom teaching.

I think one of the reasons is chinese communities are relatively larger in scale compared to russian, japanese etc. Those chinese immigrants can live well and enjoy all the services without using english

I don't quite follow your humour. The point is that I was not only talking about Vancouver, but all of Canada.

What are the arguments against requiring the citizens of a country to have a minimum knowledge of the common language?

That is not true. Many if not most of the second generation immigrants assimilate. It is the difficulty or unwillingness of certain first generation immigrants to learn English that is the issue here.

Most us make mistakes when speaking foreign language, and usually these mistakes are unintentional, just like you. I suggest you just keep working on it. You may find it useful to work on your English at LingQ saving phrases and words that you have trouble remembering, or often use in the wrong tense.

I still suck at speaking cantonese even though my parents speak cantonese non stop. Language skills have to be taught and used everyday to be somewhat proficient.

Same thing happens with Spanish speakers. And they don’t even speak Spanish well either.

I truly believe that if you are going to another country, you should make an effort to learn the language. When i came to Puerto rico the people couldn't understand me because i would speak spanglish, for instance, roof i would say roofo. So i learn to speak the spanish that is spoken her and when i'm with my Brooklyn friends i'll speak spanglish.

What a genius idea! And how true, it all boils down to motivation. But why are Chinese less motivated? As a Chinese, I bet it has something to do with the collective characters of Chinese, once the survival security line is met, they pretty don't care what's going on in the world.

As a new Chinese immigrant, I agreed with most of points here. In fact, there is no one want to be isolated

to be more clear about my situations: words that I couldn't recall are those I recognized and understood. It seems like they didn't storage in my brain well and I have difficulty in applying them in real conversations.

Immigration of very different Peoples is typacally a bad Idea, as what tends to happen is they just form their own Communities which end up being really more like Collonies, since all Races have a Right to form a Country around their Nation(People of the same Heritage, Race, Language, Customs and Religion, everybody having their own Country would make things better as you'd run in to less Problems in General, But they also have no Reason to learn when everything is printed in their Language.

I thing setting requirement on level 4 was quite smart move, if learning English is a problem and like you said for most chinese emigrants is and they are not motivated so potential candidate for citizenship don't need to worry about studding all those grammar rules and thousand of vocabulary which can be unmotivated. But when they achieve just basics the government has sort of guarantee that the emigrants will learn english by absorbing from the air.

I presume these are academics, with an ideological axe to grind, who write papers for their peers and students, which are of no interest to most people, at the tax-payers' expense. You say that insisting on immigrants learning the national language discourages non-white immigration. It discourages all immigration. It is easier to emigrate to a country that speaks your language, not just for non-whites. But what is Canada to do? Have no common language? Think.

Studying linguistics without learning languages is like going to cooking school and only eating hamburgers. I agree that foreigners in a country should try to learn the local language, but it is their choice. Setting language requirements for citizens, is a different story.

Ah but it is true, look in Europe with many of the Peoples, Immagrants to there tend to form their own Communities. In the US even, People form their own Communitites, even the Second Generation that "assimilates" does not fully do so, many still hold themselves to be Part of their Communities. It's Part of Human, really all Nature, to seek out those that our like ourselves. Communities often Times end up maybe Partialy Bilingual, but the People rarely ever fully assimilte, Exceptions.

I thought about his language videos.

seem*

Here is what you said on Facebook. Your words. "What I found interesting about this video was the implication that Canada is an English country that is ever so graciously accepting non-English immigrants, but under your guidance would only accept non-English immigrants who speak functional English. I imagine you would agree that this is completely false, and that you may also agree that exactly this underlying bias is one of the major obstacles facing non-white ethnic minorities in Canada."

Well, Toronto is a lot bigger but with regard to the percentage, Vancouver has 10% more Chinese than Toronto Toronto has about 10% Chinese, Vancouver about 20% And besides Vancouver has the second biggest China town in North America I lived there and man, there are a lot of Chinese people In some parts of the city there are ONLY Chinese, no one there is white They are not really integrated, let alone able to speak English well That's why I am currently learning Chinese, so I can talk to them

Yes, the present system just serves to fund the immigrant settlement industry.

Speaking of language proficiency scales, this is entirely off topic but does is anyone here familiar with EU standard format CV's? They are designed and used by the EU institutions. What enrages me is they use a 1-5 scale in the CV form with zero explanation except to say 5 is "basic." Yet, the EU institutions surely devised the 6 level proficiency scale (A1,A2 etc). Why the hell make a 6 level scale and then, confusingly, not use their own scale on their CVs grrrr. Or perhaps I missed something

Out of interest, why don't Canadians have an Inuit language as their national language?

I don't believe in official languages. Who chooses these languages? Why were these languages chosen? Artificially grouped societies corralled into arbitrarily placed borders cannot have any genuine cohesion (look up Dunbar's number). I don't really believe in governments at all, but if one is in place its purpose should not be to control societal cohesion. The natural cohesion of aboriginal Canadians was fine for millennia until it was destroyed by colonial powers and their "official languages".

He said he didn't take my views seriously BEFORE I mentioned tribal communities. Before you read Chomsky, learn to follow a conversation.

I am a Chinese immigrant living in Vancouver for 6 years. I agreed with one of your points that Chinese immigrants don't have enough motivation to work on their English. Although I studied English in my Chinese university, I don't find some difficulties in speaking native English here. A critical problem in my process of improving English is that I can't recall words from my brain instantly through conversations, and I'll speak using wrong verb tenses unintentionally. Any suggestions?

I think that idea of citizenship without speaking any language which is used in the country is ridiculous.

LingQ's facebook page where this video was posted.

En réalité ce n'est pas tellement le cas, et tout cas ce brassage d'idées etc. peut ce faire a un prix beaucoup beaucoup moindre.

I don't disagree with anything Steve says in this video. However, I would be remiss if I did not point out about the history of colonisation in Canada and North America. When Europeans first migrated to Canada, they expected native first nations people to assimilate to their culture under the barrel of a gun.

7 yrs is a bit specific lol. I kinda agree after a number of yrs my English level has become stagnant, looking for ways to change this...

I brought Shakespeare with me from China seven years ago !

Sorry, I just essentially repeated what you said. It's nearly 3am here. I apparently listened to all the words, but only computed a fraction :)

Perhaps this is the Libertarian part of me speaking, but I really don't think any governments should tell you what to speak and how well you should speak it. What about learning impaired individuals? Isn't French also an official language? Governments should not be regulators of "society". If any language learning should be enforced by means of such crypto-authoritarian measures in Canada, it should be Cree or Inuktitut by all non-indigenous peoples of Canada.

All the more reasonable to test and require from them upon application. : )