Dear Arnold: Immigrants Do Want to Learn English

“You’ve got to turn off the Spanish television set,” Arnold Schwarzenegger stated recently at the National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention, many of whose attendees write for Spanish-language media. According to California’s governor, that’s the key to learning English.

Schwarzenegger’s advice suggests that Spanish-speaking immigrants are not learning English, or at least not fast enough. The reality is quite different. Research has shown that Hispanic immigrants learn English as fast as immigrants from other countries, and in a generation or two the mother language is nothing but a faint memory.

Learning English is not easy and inevitably some people learn fast while others face many obstacles. While immigrant kids learn English like natives, those who come as adults will learn enough to get by. Some may never learn English because of low educational background in their own language. It is very difficult to learn a new language if you do not know your native language very well.