How good is your English?

Anyone coming here to work or live should be able to converse and communicate in English and have a general understanding of our laws and customs. No speaky the lingo, no passport or work visa.

Conversely the same should be said for any Brits immigrating or working abroad. This includes the expat enclaves where Brits huddle together in little communities and speak little or no local language. I've no doubt this winds up locals in the host nation in exactly the same way it winds us up in the UK.

I agree, learning English should be a condition of gaining benefits here.  It's difficult to tell whether the ones who won't learn are genuine immigrants who want to work or "scroungers".  Unfortunately, there are cases where the UK has made it easy by providing interpreters for everything from claiming benefits to driving lessons.  Brits can be lazy when learning languages as they're not taught early enough in school; English is taught from age four in some countries.

Experience on holidays has mostly been locals very eager to practice their English skills.   Greeks are very pleased when a non-Greek attempts a few words of their language, especially as it's difficult to learn.  I think the number of English people abroad who try to make themselves understood by shouting is diminishing, with many keen to integrate into the community.   Indeed, some communities in Spain provide free language lessons to welcome new residents.  

Is it not hypocritical to comment on immigrants' standard of English usage when so many natives cannot use their own language correctly? The opening submission in this conversation would have received about half a dozen corrections if checked carefully by a teacher of English.

This cannot help immigrants with a genuine wish to acquire fluency in both spoken and written English, nor is it setting a worthy example for the next generation of native youngsters to follow. A prospective employer, faced with a large volume of applications, can simplify selection by eliminating first those whose use of language is disconcertingly deficient, citing unsuitability to represent the organisation or inability to communicate as the reason, if asked.

This might seem like the whingeing of an old pedant, but I have found that the concise, precise and fluent use of English to be a great asset in both instruction and persuasion.

It's a fair and interesting point.

I agree that the correct use of language in both written and spoken form are extremely important, particularly when used in business and dealing with customers.

But we also live in a fast moving communication age, from text speak to social media. Although you could argue deteriorating standards, you can counter argue that proof reading all content isn't commercially viable on social media and discussion forums?

Curious what our resident proof reader thinks (or should I say, I'm curious )

Hmmmmmm. Well I suppose I had better contribute to this thread as my ears are burning 

Obviously I love spelling and grammar to be perfect, or as close as you can get. However, you have to be realistic and in this day and age social media and instant messaging means the immediate nature of communication leads to typos or certainly less time to check wording before it is live! I find Twitter one of the most dangerous places as there is no edit function. 

I think the bottom line is that typos are forgivable in conversations, forums and social media and on certain mediums I would even let bad grammar go if it is informal but if your Twitter feed, mailshots, blogs etc are constantly peppered with errors it would make me think twice about using your business.

I do think it is hard if you're a one man band trying to be the jack of all trades as you have to have an online presence these days, whatever sector you are in, and spelling may be fairly irrelevant to your business, but it can look really unprofessional and I am cursed/blessed with the ability to see all the obvious mistakes. I you can't get that right will you get my invoice right?

Back to the original post, immigrants should be trying to learn the language if they want to work here, that's just common sense, but I am not sure about trying to enforce it on everyone, it'll end up being a costly idea to placate daily fail readers!

P.S. I bet my post has some errors in it......