I guess Mandarin may be more useful to some immigrants. Guess it depends what country one has immigrated from.

Not sure what point you are trying to make with your question. America is a Nation of many cultures & languages.

Just retaining what you had already learned would be a goal that might not be easily achieved. After all, how much reading and writing would you be able to do after studying it for only a year? What options for independent study would you have at the end of the one year of study?

...or where you plan to hide out as an illegal in this country..A year of any language gets you basic knowledge.
Good luck with no education, as you state in your post.
Best to locate an area that at least speaks your native language for starters. If you are illegal, uneducated, and not of basic English understanding, and you are on your own, then you are kinda effed. You will need to communicate.
Seek out a group that you can communicate with.
Is this a test?

As of 2000, there were about 28 million speakers of Spanish in the US and only about 2 million speakers of Chinese, most of whom are actually Cantonese speakers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States

Don't know who he heard it from, he wouldn't say

If we're living in Dearborn, it wouldn't hurt to know Arabic. If we're living in Northern Maine, French comes in very handy in some hamlets.

English is probably the best language to know, at the end of the day. You want to know what the police are saying, and the odds are good they'll be saying it in English.

Minnesota may be a place where Norwegian culture & language would be useful. Anything goes in Cali but English is still the most common & used by law enforcement, as you say, as well as highway signage.
I'd suggest basic English

That way you could understand that you broke the law and why you are an illegal immigrant.

I think that there are plenty of lawyers and politicians who don't know why the law is precisely what it is, especially for laws that have changed not at all or very little in the past fifty years.

something like

www.findmeanamericanIcanmarry.com or something

First, some background. When my engineer dad accepted an overseas position at its Italian subsidiary in rural NC - that is, when we moved to the U.S. - it was August 15. I was 15 years old. The only language I had studied in Italy was French. I had no knowledge of English except for what I had learned via Duran Duran and Beatles songs. High school in that part of NC began at the end of August. My younger sister and I were both placed (via math and other placement tests) a year ahead of our peers. Thus, I began U.S. high school as a junior (when by age I should have been a sophomore).

At the time, ESL classes were non-existent at my rural high school. Therefore, I was thrust into an environment where, in order to survive and at a bare minimum function in society, I was forced (for lack of a better term) to learn the local version of English (with a deep southern twang). My first few months are a blur to me - I can barely recall a few details.

But soon thereafter, between the classes and eventually the friendships I made, it became very easy for me to function and even succeed. I ended up graduating at 17, taking AP English in my senior year and becoming an accomplished writer. I also ended up majoring in technical writing in college and my writing skills are considered to be well above average by my employers and peers, considering I am in the legal and HR fields. I speak English as fluently as a native, although you can still detect an accent. Most people think I am German or Dutch, probably because my native Italian has a distinctive northern Italian pronunciation and inflection. I still have a hint of southerness as well.

Now, going back to Boojatta's question, no matter how well or poorly one speaks English, deportation will not be avoided simply because of one's language abilities.

I think at a minimum some basic English is necessary for daily life - even in communities where English is not the primary language. In my opinion, insulating yourself within a community that shares your culture and language is not necessarily a prescription for success. In other words, I am glad I didn't end up in an Italian-speaking community. I didn't lose my Italian identity or language. Far from it, infact.

I agree with this, but I don't see its relevance to this thread. After all, I could have proposed spending three months on each of four different languages, for a total of a year, but I think that there is a lesson in the blur experience that you mentioned. As for learning a culture or acquiring a presence in some community that allows for maintaining active socializing within it, I doubt that it's feasible to either find formal instruction or to create a viable business (analogous to Rosettastone or Berlitz) that offers such instruction.

It's still the dominant language in the US.

because is you didn't read/write English you would miss out on enjoying DU!!!!!