English Proficiency Quotes

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

The President [George W. Bush] speaks Spanish almost as well as he speaks English.

Move beyond the educated elite, and the great majority in most countries outside Europe don't speak English.

Both my parents had heavy accents, and so did everybody they knew. It's a rhythm thing - people who speak English where they have to hesitate and think of the right word. And I think it rubbed off.

For one thing, my English isn't fantastic, and communicating in the dressing room is not always easy.

If you are going to vote in this country, you should be a citizen. To be a citizen in this country, you should know English.

On the day of the show, I sit down with someone that speaks very good English and someone who speaks the local language very well and work out what I'm going to say.

After I learn more English, I'll work hard and make more films.

I understand English; I read and write English perfectly, but the accent won't go away.

With Singaporeans, you speak English, you're well-educated, the doors open everywhere.

You don't have to be the most amazing writer, you don't have to get top marks in your English GCSE, you just have to be someone who can tell a good story, and tell it right, and tell it well.

I want to, when I say things on TV, to talk to the people in English.

Should people working in our country speak English? Yes, they should.

To become an American citizen, we require people to read, write and speak in English. That is to help them to assimilate in our melting pot, truly to become Americans. We mock that when the cherished right to vote does not involve English any more.

If somebody's going to earn citizenship, with whatever other hurdles are put in the way, at the end of the road they should be able to speak English, they should be able to read English, they should have some knowledge of American history.

I think I am less self-assured when I write English than I would be if I were writing in my first language. I have to test each sentence over and over to be sure that it's right, that I haven't introduced some element that isn't English.

When I was in high school, I started learning English as my second foreign language, but my level of English at that time was very average.

There is a subset of Democrats who tend to mis-fill out ballots. The way you mark the ballot is like an S.A.T. - you fill in the circle. And the subset of people who tend to, like, put a check there instead, or an X, or fill it out wrong, tend to be people who didn't take S.A.T.s, or first-time voters, or people with English as a second language.

It's good to have someone who speaks your language in everyday life, especially for me, who does not speak English so well.

I excelled in English while I was at school.

If you spend your time trying to learn English, you fall behind in your course content… I know because when I came here I could not speak English. So that was the idea of Congress when we passed bi-lingual education. But that was to only go on for a short time—one and one half years. But many of the bi-lingual education programs of today go on for year after year and they are destructive because the primary objective is to learn English.

When I moved to Bombay, it was very harsh. I was nothing like what I am today. I couldn't speak a word of English. In England, people might be very understanding about that, but in Bombay, they're not very forgiving. 'If you don't speak English, how do you expect to work in Hindi films?'

Speaking and writing English perfectly should not be a privilege. To those who try to politicize this matter, I tell them now, do not mess with the future of our children.

Blame the guy who doesn't speak Engish.

Over 90 percent of parents in Puerto Rico want their children to be totally fluent in English.