In California, which languages are talked?

[shokin]

Hi, everybody, I just wanted to know :

In California,

which languages are talked ?
which percentage is talked each of them in California ?

In hispanian California,

how many people can speak english ? (95% ? no ?)
how many people can speak spanish ?
how many people can speak another language than english or spanish ?

thanks for you prompt answers !

and what about California ? I've never been ? how is this region ? tell me if you've been there !

Shokin

[idalia]

Hi Shokin I've never been to California but some relatives and friends who have ever been there, said that there are lots of latin people (specially mexican) that it's not weird Spanish is spoken there.

Exact numbers?? I really don't know

[shokin]

Hi Idalia !

thanks for your answer.

How much percentage, do you think, people who speak spanish speak english ?

Es para disputar (discutar ? ) con una otra persona del Quebec.

Shokin

[idalia]

Hi Shokin,

People whose mother tongue is Spanish, well just a minimum percentage speak English as well, maybe 10-15%, I'm referring about Mexico.

Once I read that currently in USA there are 8 million latin people; I don't know in which part of the States the majority lives in, though. Perhaps California is the one with the biggest Spanish speaker population.

By the way the correct word you were trying to say is "discutir". Keep on trying, your spanish is really good!!!

[manrat]

I didn't find seperate numbers for California, but a few interesting ones about the U.S. as a whole. Here is a quote:

According to the 2002 National Survey of Latinos, 46%
of Hispanic adults speak both English and Spanish (see
Figure 1), meaning that they report an ability to carry
on a conversation in either English or Spanish at least
“pretty well.”
About 40% are largely Spanish speakers,
and 14% are largely English speakers. Given that there
were approximately 25 million Hispanic adults in the
spring of 2002 (U.S. Census Bureau 2003), this suggests
that there are roughly 11 million adult English/Spanish
speaking bilingual Latinos.
The remainder of the adult
Hispanic population either possesses strong English or
Spanish speaking skills, but not both.

The source is the following report:

http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/15.9.pdf

It's a very interesting read.

[MissLT]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#Languages
Check this site and click on languages or here's the fact,
"Languages--As of 2000, 60.5% of California residents age 5 and older speak English at home and 25.8% speak Spanish. Chinese is the third most spoken language at 2.6%, followed by Tagalog at 2.0% and Vietnamese at 1.3%."
It's been five years since that fact was stated, but I don't think there is much change with it. Although California is a diverse state with many races of people who are bilinguals, trilinguals and so on, English is still the main official spoken language. A lot of places you go in California, such as government offices, public transportation stations, etc you can see things are written in several languages. And it's not hard to find a person who could speak Spanish or sometimes Chinese in San Francisco or where I live.

[shokin]

Thank you all for all your informations !

I can now really argument that enlish HAS NOT to become the ONLY language in al AMERICA !

Shokin

[MissLT]

Thank you all for all your informations !

I can now really argument that enlish HAS NOT to become the ONLY language in al AMERICA !

Shokin

About 90% of the population speak English in all the states in the middle of America. California is known for its diversity. When I went to Ohio, I saw mostly Caucasians. And to be truthful, they were staring at me like I was some kinda alien (I was in a citizenship kinda way.)
We have a saying that in the mid-west states, you only see chocolate and vanilla, but in the coast states, you could also see everything in in between.

[shokin]

Es une buena cosa que la diversidad de las idiomas !

I thank you all, especially for the sure sources, that I could show to opponents (who affirm that english has to be the only one language in north America, even in the Quebec).

By luck, el Mexico, el Quebec y la California (y creo que hay otros estados) don't accept the globalisation of the english language.

Shokin

[MissLT]

This is another old source I've found for you, Shokin
http://www.seacrc.org/PDFS/02oct152g.pdf