研究显示 超过1/5的美国居民在家不说英语
More than one in five American residents now speak a language other than English at home, according to new research based on 2016 US Census Bureau data. The research, conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies, shows that a record 65.5 million US residents five years of age and older don't speak English at home. Among them, 26.1 million (39.8%) told the US Census Bureau that they speak English less than very well. This figure is based entirely on the subjective opinion of the respondents. On an objective test of English literacy, prior CIS research showed that even among immigrants who have lived in the country for more than 15 years, 43 percent score at the "below basic" level, which is sometimes equated to functional illiteracy. Many Americans who speak a foreign language at home are not immigrants. The data show that overall, 44% (29 million) of those who speak a language other than English at home are US-born. Of languages with more than 400,000 speakers, the largest percentage increases since 2010 were among speakers of Arabic (up 42%), Hindi (up 33%), Urdu (up 22%) and Chinese (up 20%). |