CSU: Immigrants should speak German at home, CDU says LOLwhat ?

[politicus]

There is no need to encourage immigrants to speak the national language at home. It's the norm for second and third generation immigrants to stop speaking their mother tongue (50-80%) without any encouragement or coercion from the state. Is this "full assimilation"? No, the descendants of immigrants will still retain many foreign customs and allegiances. A tiny portion of the second and third generation will still prefer to speak the mother tongue, especially with their parents and grandparents.

This is correct. When the parents are fluent in the dominant language they don't always even teach their kids more than a few words and phrases of their own mother tongue.

Sure, but the speed of this transformation depends on the size and status of the language of the host country. If it is a world language like English, what you describe will be the case. Language change happens slower and more reluctantly if the  switch is to a minor language which isn't useful (or of limited use) outside the host country.

The payoff from learning German is of course large, so its just a qualifier.

[politicus]

[politicus]

Sure, but the speed of this transformation depends on the size and status of the language of the host country. If it is a world language like English, what you describe will be the case. Language change happens slower and more reluctantly if the  switch is to a minor language which isn't useful (or of limited use) outside the host country.

True, I have been in the Netherlands for 4 years and I still speak almost no Dutch, because I can survive with my extremely basic level. On the other hand I lived in Italy for six months only and my Italian is better than my Dutch, because no one spoke English there.

Many people move to a new country thinking it will only be for a short-time, and then you happen to stay 10, 20 years or your whole life...

Have you made no attempt to learn the language? I never understood why people would not want to learn the language of the country they live in (unless they're only living there for a few months or so).

Its mostly a cost/benefit question.

An extreme example: Filipinos and Thais working in Greenland never learn Greenlandic, They can get by using basic English + gestures to begin with and then if they stay more than a couple of years they learn Danish, since most Greenlanders understand at least some basic Danish. Danes in Greenland do the same, even if they stay for decades.
Its a matter of how much time you need to invest and how useful the language is for you, both now and later on.

Greenlandic is one of the hardest languages to learn, it is only understood by 50.000 (+ partially understood by some Canadian Inuits). The investment is simply too big compared to the payoff.

In the case of Germanic languages and Anglophones, the investment in time and effort is much smaller, but the payoff is still relatively limited if everybody speaks English.