How common is it to encounter a non-tourist person that doesn’t speak English?

27 comments

1. Its pretty rare. Usually its going to be a first generation immigrant who has family they can rely on.

2. Not super common, more common in LA or Miami, if they don’t usually their kids translate for them.

3. Pretty common. I live in a heavily Hispanic area. There are lots of residents at my nursing home that don’t speak English. I’ve encountered some family that are very limited too.

   Mostly Spanish, definitely. A couple Portuguese. And over the years I’ve had one Russian and one Greek.

   We have to use translation services for some of these. But I’d say about half the staff can speak Spanish, so that helps.

4. In Miami I often meet people who speak no English other than saying “no English.” These are taxi drivers and hotel staff

5. In Indianapolis? Almost unheard of.

6. It’s regional. Pretty common along the Mexican border. There are entire communities of Hispanic Americans — and we’re talking about US-born citizens here, not necessarily immigrants — who speak primarily or exclusively Spanish.

   And there are Spanish-speaking Hispanic American enclaves outside of the border region, too, but it’s less common.

7. Denver here. It’s VERY common to meet non-English-speakers in construction and landscaping. Generally the electricians, plumbers, and foremen will speak English, but the non-licensed trades, not so much.

8. You can find neighborhoods with high concentrations of immigrants where a noticeable number of older people don’t know English. Not a lot, but enough to be apparent. The US has immigration rules that let people who have become citizens bring their parents over relatively easily, so a lot of time these are people who immigrated later in life.

   But young people pretty much always speak English very well, and just about anyone raised in the US speaks like a native even if they use another language with their parents.

9. Common, but almost always 1st generation, usually among older people, and much more common among asian diasporas than latin american ones. Native spanish speakers generally at least gather a basic grasp (uncomfortable but can communicate using simple sentences) of english, but it’s a much higher hill to climb if you’re a native vietnamese speaker for example.

10. I’m in Kentucky and it’s fairly common.

11. Rarely

12. I live in Florida so we get a lot of interaction with tourists here. It is very uncommon to meet a tourist that doesn’t speak English.

13. It all depends on the part of the country you are in. NYC metropolitan area not uncommon at all. Especially if you are in the ethic neighborhood.

    For example walk in to any Polish store in Wallington, East Rutherford, Garfield area and maybe one or two employees will speak English.

14. It happens in the area I live pretty regularly. I also own a construction company and it’s common in that line of work this close to the border. I also have a Vietnamese neighbor who speaks almost no English and he’s been here almost 30 years.

15. Depends where you are. Near me is a city that has a huge Brazilian population and I’ve encountered it there. I work in a school and I’ve had multiple situations where a parent comes in and their kid has to translate for them because they speak very little or no English. Usually broken Spanish and hand gestures get the point across but I’ve never had to explain anything complicated.

    When I was a kid there was a grandmother in the neighborhood that only spoke German. A family had moved away and left their cats outside to fend for themselves. I had taken in one and I knew there were 2 others and what their colors were so I was going around trying to find them. I found a white one and I picked it up. The German woman came out yelling that it was her cat. I had been taking German classes so I was able to say “I’m sorry, I thought it was my cat” but I wasn’t able to explain the whole situation. She must have thought I was insane lol.

16. atleast once or twice a week

17. Any location that has concentrations of unskilled labor will have plenty of people who don’t speak English. Think farm and meat industry workers, large-scale landscaping, competitive restraunt scene, cnstruction.

18. Pretty common as a Floridian. Even in Orlando.

19. In southern Ohio, it’s never happened to me out in public like stores and restaurants (that I know of). I have run into a number of Mexicans on construction jobsites who didn’t speak English. One time one of them lent me his drywall stilts, we were communicating mostly through sign language as he showed me how to put them on.

    I was once in a large warehouse elsewhere in the Midwest where almost everyone was from a small Asian country (I don’t remember which) and except for a couple who’d been promoted to supervisors none of them spoke English.

20. My next door neighbors are from Poland and I’ve never had a conversation with the parents (and not from lack of trying).. the two kids speak English ok but you can tell they learned it from textbooks prior to immigrating.. I can’t use slang or idioms with them as I’ll get a blank stare.. (the kids were in their 20s when they came over so didn’t get to be around a bunch of Americans in school to pick up the flow of how we talk)

    It’s not entirely rare to come across people like the parents but it’s not a daily occurrence either.

    (Another anecdote is I need a translator to talk to my landlord (she’s Chinese and came here with her husband from China.. he spoke English and she didn’t bother.. he died though)

    There are a lot of people who speak bad English but not so bad as to not be able to communicate the basics

21. Pretty much every day, for me. There are enclaves of Polish-speakers, Hindi-speakers, and of course Spanish-speakers in Chicago. You can vote in any of those languages.

    I work with a few Spanish-speakers who have no no English.

22. Every single day. Hmong, Mandarin, Hindi, Spanish, Portuguese (BR), et al. The entire world lives here, it’s great.

    Edit: I only have one question for people who downvote a comment that praises the diversity in our country: how many teeth do you have left? 😂

23. There are some older people in San Jose who only speak Vietnamese, but they are dwindling and usually are with younger Anglophone family members.

    I have also met people whose knowledge of any language other than Tagalog was pretty poor, but they still knew enough English to get by.

    Monolingual Spanish speakers are, of course, not rare.

24. Quite common in Rhode Island.

    Lots of Portuguese clubs and restaurants that have tons of old people who only speak Portuguese sitting at the bar playing cards all day.

    Providence has a pretty big Hispanic community too, so if you go to those parts of town there will be Spanish only speakers of all ages.

25. Depends on your job and location

    I almost never do.

    My wife is an ICU nurse and a lot of her patients don’t speak English

26. I live in Idaho. I’m non-Hispanic but learned Spanish to (technical) fluency by the time I finished college, but I knew in my experience talking with hispanohablantes that I wasn’t actually conversationally fluent. That said, some of my friends here don’t speak much, or any, English. I’m well beyond college years and have a tough time remembering what little conversational Spanish I ever did know, but it’s so common to encounter Latinos here that I’m just trying my best to get better at that language I once knew because it’s clear that I will need to use it to engage with some of the people that cross my path.

    There are quickly growing refugee communities in my neighborhood, and other neighborhoods across town that are very densely populated with recent first generation immigrants and their families. Many of them are Eastern European and Middle Eastern, but there are lots of global regions that seem to draw people to move their lives to our city for whatever reasons. Not a lot of English speakers in those communities.

27. Depends on your job too. I work in the restaurant industry and it’s super common to have people who don’t speak any English to work in the back. Two of the dishwashers where I work speak very little English.