A dramatic increase in fluency in the English language from one generation of Hispanics to the next emerges from a new analysis of a Pew Hispanic Center survey.

In a report issued November 29, the center said surveys conducted this decade among  more than 14,000 Latino adults. show that fewer than one-in-four (23 percent) Latino immigrants reports being able to speak English very well. However, a notable 88 percent of their U.S.-born adult children report that they speak English very well.

Among later generations of Hispanic adults, the figure rises to 94 percent. Reading ability in English shows a similar trend.

“As fluency in English increases across generations, so, too, does the regular use of English by Hispanics, both at home and at work,” the Pew Center said. “For most immigrants, English is not the primary language they use in either setting. But for their grown children, it is.”

The center said nearly all adult children of Latino immigrants, but only a small minority of the immigrants, describe themselves as fluent in English.

It also found:

·    English is spoken more commonly at work than at home by all generations.

·            Hispanic immigrants report greater fluency in English if they are highly educated, arrived in the United States as children or have spent many years here.

·    Those born in Puerto Rico and South America are the most likely to say they are proficient in English.

·            Mexican-born immigrants are the least likely to be proficient in English.

The switch to English occurs at a slower pace at home than it does at work, the Pew Center said.

According to the study, just 7 percent of foreign-born Hispanics speak mainly or only English at home; about half of their adult children do. Four times as many foreign-born Latinos speak mainly or only English at work (29 per cent) and fewer than half (43 percent ) of foreign-born Latinos speak mainly or only Spanish on the job, versus the three-quarters who do so at home.