Newt Gingrich Quotes

If you do not learn English in this country, you cannot get anywhere. We are in America. We are not in Mexico, we are not in China, we are not in Saudi Arabia - we speak English in this country! And what bilingual education does, is keep them from learning English, so they are doomed to be second-class citizens.

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.

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

I went to an English school and was brought up in English. So I don't feel Czech.

I believe we are being dishonest with language minority groups if we tell them they can take full part in American life without learning the English language.

Well, my first languages are German and Spanish because I was brought up by a Spanish mother and a German father, so I always spoke both languages at home. I'm very thankful that I was brought up in a bilingual house.

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.

We should favor young immigrants with many years of work ahead of them. We should favor immigrants who have demonstrated an ability to learn and work using English, which makes their future success more likely.

When you become an American, they give you an injection so your accent changes.

Although an increasing proportion of the Hispanic population is foreign-born - about half of adults in this group - English proficiency is and should remain a requirement for citizenship.

I couldn't speak English. I'm in kindergarten, and the only reason I got through to first grade is because I cheated.

I grew up in a community that was bilingual. I've done it for a while, singing in both languages.

[Referring to immigrants:] They're all over the place, and they don't speak English. Do we want more of this?

Bilingual education doesn’t work, and it has never worked.

The idea of Homo monolinguis - one-languaged man - the idea of children having to grow into one system before we confuse them with another mental system, is an idea with which, unfortunately, many people are brought up now.

Most of my family doesn't speak English. It's so important for the baby. He's going to know all his American roots, but he also needs to know about his Brazilian side.

Mum and Dad sent us to a bilingual school, so we had half the lessons in English and half in French. But I remember being hugely lost.

You can't be an American if you don't speak English. Our public schools should be mandated to teach all children in English.

I'm not exactly an example of how to learn English; I just can't get it into my head. I'm learning hardly anything, truth be told.

The fact that I didn't speak English I think was the most difficult thing for me.

I worry these days that Latinos in California speak neither Spanish nor English very well. They are in a kind of linguistic limbo between the two. They don't really have a language, and are, in some deep sense, homeless.

The full meaning of a language is never translatable into another. We may speak several languages but one of them always remains the one in which we live. In order completely to assimilate a language it would be necessary to make the world which it expresses one's own and one never does belong to two worlds at once.

The English Language Amendment says above all, 'Let's see to it that our children, our young people, learn English. Let us not deny them the opportunity to participate in American life, so that they can go as far as their dreams and talents can take them.

One limits oneself in this country if you come as a legal immigrant to this country and you choose to only speak your language whether it be Polish or Russian like many of my own relatives who came here if you speak only Russian and Polish you're limiting your opportunities in the United States.

We should be able to see Islam for what it is, make a distinction between the people and the ideology, and stop with being politically correct, and address the problems, as many people see it when it comes to the Islamisation of their country.