The 800,000 people living in Britain with little or no English

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Originally Posted by Daltron

I do not agree with you and I feel like this thread is going to turn into that multicultural debate people had with you a while ago.
That is all.

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It's a good point really. If you go to another country, at least learn some of the language. It will make you employable and will actually save you from troubles. e.g. being taken advantage of. I think there was a case not so long ago of a taxi driver taking money off of a Chinese/Hong Kong student who didn't know how to use pound sterling or even communicate effectively to the driver (he gave a picture of the destination and nothing else). I think he took £50 or some excessive amount.

In short, it helps to know a bit of the language, even if going on holiday to Italy or France, so not to find yourself in a spot of trouble.

I think its fair enough to say that if someone doesn't have at least a basic grasp of english then they shouldn't be allowed in!

I don't think the problem is entirely the fact this is caused by immigration: if we had communities in England that were natively English but refused to speak it they should also have some kind of restriction/sanction.

Although immigration is like 99.999999% the cause of all problems related to not being able to speak English, there comes the issue of those who speak little English but have the need to live here such as asylum or political refuge seeking. Are they counted in these figures or the census at all (I don't understand much about asylum)?

I don't think we should say they must have an economic benefit to the country, just that there must be available employment for them. Not fair on anybody to put more people into a job market that is struggling to employ everyone

Better kick out all those Welsh-only speaking thieves then, shouldn't be here in the first place if they can't speak the native language

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Originally Posted by Ardemax

Better kick out all those Welsh-only speaking thieves then, shouldn't be here in the first place if they can't speak the native language

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Ah, you beat me :P I was going to ask if we should kick the Welsh out :P

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Originally Posted by Ardemax

Better kick out all those Welsh-only speaking thieves then, shouldn't be here in the first place if they can't speak the native language

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Because comparing a native language that's been here for hundreds/thousands of years is comparable to hundreds of thousands of people coming in from alien lands. Not to mention the fact that I doubt there are many (if any) Welsh who only speak Welsh. Besides, if Welsh is spoken in Wales then so what? English should be spoken in England.

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Originally Posted by -:Undertaker:-

Because comparing a native language that's been here for hundreds/thousands of years is comparable to hundreds of thousands of people coming in from alien lands. Not to mention the fact that I doubt there are many (if any) Welsh who only speak Welsh. Besides, if Welsh is spoken in Wales then so what? English should be spoken in England.

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There will be some people that speak only Welsh, but I imagine it would be a relatively small number. Even so, you say they shouldn't be allowed in England? (And good luck stopping them from getting into England :P)

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Just had a search around...

The number of people in England and Wales that speak no English at all is 137,511 and the number of people living in England that have Welsh as their main language is 8,248.

I know I'm not from Europe and all, but I know that we have immigrants all the time come to Canada, and they don't know how to speak English, nor French. In most cases they learn by getting help either with a language teacher/tutor, or they pay for a translator until they are able to speak it.
Also, I know that Canada has a larger land mass, so more people, better money coming in for government to waste it on stuff we don't need (sarcastically spoken). haha!
Could it be the fact that Britian can't support more immigrants coming in. Honestly 800,000 seems like a lot of immigrants who cannot speak English. Sounds like something that happened with Canada with the French... then Canada became Bilingual. :P

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Originally Posted by Kardan

There will be some people that speak only Welsh, but I imagine it would be a relatively small number. Even so, you say they shouldn't be allowed in England? (And good luck stopping them from getting into England :P)

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Just had a search around...

The number of people in England and Wales that speak no English at all is 137,511 and the number of people living in England that have Welsh as their main language is 8,248.

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England and Wales have a shared history and culture, but sure - if the people of Wales wanted to leave Britain, establish Welsh as their only language and bar people from settling there who couldn't speak Welsh then they'd be very much entitled to.

The comparison between England and Wales (which are one country together who speak English as one language) and Britain and say Pakistan (two different countries with differing languages and virtually no shared culture) is like comparing apples and oranges together when they're completely different. It's like when I hear the oh-so-typical moronic response of 'WELLZ WE HAD IRISH IMMIGRASHUN TOO' in an immigration argument I feel like reaching for a glass of whiskey and a hand gun. :P

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Originally Posted by Bikini

I know I'm not from Europe and all, but I know that we have immigrants all the time come to Canada, and they don't know how to speak English, nor French. In most cases they learn by getting help either with a language teacher/tutor, or they pay for a translator until they are able to speak it.
Also, I know that Canada has a larger land mass, so more people, better money coming in for government to waste it on stuff we don't need (sarcastically spoken). haha!
Could it be the fact that Britian can't support more immigrants coming in. Honestly 800,000 seems like a lot of immigrants who cannot speak English. Sounds like something that happened with Canada with the French... then Canada became Bilingual.

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Exactly, and even after hundreds of years together and both knowing two languages... Canada and Quebec are still at loggerheads with eachother and it so very nearly came to a split back in the 1990s. And in many ways you could argue that French and British cultures are broadly the same in the languages are closely related along with the cultures and religion. Certainly more so than Britain and some third world country. I don't understand that no matter how many times I argue about what makes a nation state on this forum, some people seemingly just don't want to understand it and appear to believe in the year 6 notion that countries are just random lines drawn on a map.

But you're exactly right, the amount coming into Britain is ridiculous and people want this madness stopped.

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Originally Posted by -:Undertaker:-

England and Wales have a shared history and culture, but sure - if the people of Wales wanted to leave Britain, establish Welsh as their only language and bar people from settling there who couldn't speak Welsh then they'd be very much entitled to.

The comparison between England and Wales (which are one country together who speak English as one language) and Britain and say Pakistan (two different countries with differing languages and virtually no shared culture) is like comparing apples and oranges together when they're completely different. It's like when I hear the oh-so-typical moronic response of 'WELLZ WE HAD IRISH IMMIGRASHUN TOO' in an immigration argument I feel like reaching for a glass of whiskey and a hand gun. :P



Exactly, and even after hundreds of years together and both knowing two languages... Canada and Quebec are still at loggerheads with eachother and it so very nearly came to a split back in the 1990s. And in many ways you could argue that French and British cultures are broadly the same in the languages are closely related along with the cultures and religion. Certainly more so than Britain and some third world country. I don't understand that no matter how many times I argue about what makes a nation state on this forum, some people seemingly just don't want to understand it and appear to believe in the year 6 notion that countries are just random lines drawn on a map.

But you're exactly right, the amount coming into Britain is ridiculous and people want this madness stopped.

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Quite clearly England/Wales and England/Pakistan are two different scenarios, and I'm talking about England/Wales :P You said you must speak English to live in England, so you would move any Welsh only speakers back to Wales if they lived in England? In my opinion, you can't make it a hard rule. There will be exceptions here and there.