511–520 of 891 posts
This used to the case with the USA as well but it took them the last 40-50 years to reform. Maybe there's hope for Germany as well.
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Well, why is „learn the language“ not a rational and pragmatic requirement? Seems rational to me. Want to live in country X permanently? Learn language X.
I mean, when you have already proven that you are net positive for the state, and continue doing so, requiring you to pass some exams is not rational. PR != citizenship. Will I have a bit difficulty buying some groceries in a local market? Maybe, but that shouldn't bother the state. Also, you can live permanently without PR. PR unlocks some additional perks, which again, have nothing to do with linguistics.
I'd wager the sum of these things is something one may expect from a permanent resident (i.e.: cultural knowledge, some amount of integration, ability to function without specialized support structures). And it turns out, that language proficiency is a pretty good proxy for measuring that. Just because you don't accept the rationale behind the requirement it does not mean that there is none.
The requirements are not there to verify that you can live somewhere permanently, but if you _may_ live there permanently. Money is not the only dimension your so called "net positive" may be measured in.
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"So, calling English the global lingua franca is in my opinion rather based on a selection bias on specific countries." In software, if you don't speak English, you don't really exist. Same for pilots and some other industries. Spanish programmers will need to learn English even for jobs in Spain. I have no idea what you are talking about.
> In software, if you don't speak English, you don't really exist. Same for pilots and some other industries. Spanish programmers will need to learn English even for jobs in Spain. I have no idea what you are talking about. I know from programmers from Russia that in this country, you can pretty much do software development without knowing any English, Russian suffices (to the surprise of programmers from other count…
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Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. It actually can be a problem because most people switch to English as soon as they realize your are not a native speaker, which can make learning harder.
This was my experience. I lived for almost four years in Berlin, and was trying to learn German (I got to A2, which isn't much). But actually getting experience/immersion in German is difficult in Berlin - everyone under the age of 50 speaks good English and switched to that as soon as my first badly-conjugated sentence left my mouth. I worked for two German companies while I was there, and the entire tech team in bo…
Another tip: Always start the conversation in German. If the person switches to English, ask them politely to speak German, and explain that you are studying German. My parents did similar when they moved to the Netherlands 50 years ago. The local shopkeepers were eager to practice English with my parents, but my parents were also eager to practice their Dutch.
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sad to see this downvoted because it is very much true. European society loves to pretend that they are these progressive, enlightened people. In reality, what they are is just better at hiding their racism and xenophobia. Your last point is largely wrong. The primary difference between immigrants to the US and to Europe is in qualifications. The majority of US immigrants are skilled. The majority of immigrants to Eu…
> European society loves to The idea that there is a single European society is laughable to anyone who has visited more than one European country.
Hi everyone I don’t usually comment on topics like this because there are so many biases and different perspectives involved. In the end, I believe only the person who has actually gone through the experience can truly understand it; otherwise, it often becomes just another judgment. We are an ASEAN family earning more than €200k gross annually (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it—please keep re…
Your situation makes me think of Japan. Starting about 10 years ago, they introduced a special "fast path" to permanent residence for high income people. I am surprised that it has not triggered more debate in Japanese society. I think the numbers are so small that most people (and politicians) don't really care. The goal was to attract high income people to work and live in Japan... and pay taxes! Germany could consider a similar programme. However, for normies, I am still strongly in favour of language requirements in any nation when applying for permanent residence.
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> If you ask me for one piece of advice for immigrants and emigrants in Germany, I’d say: life is short—play naked!
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There's also supposed to be a distinction about intent to leave in a relatively short predetermined time period. I consider myself an expat in New Zealand, because I'm on a ~2 year visa that cannot be extended, and I have no particular intent to try to transfer to a different visa. If I'd been here the same amount of time, in the same job, but on a straight to residency visa I intended to convert to PR/Citizenship, I…
I agree with you, but some don't; I lived in Cambodia for a while, and there were/are "ex-pats" living there with Khmer wives and children, who speak perfect Khmer, work in Cambodian companies, have been there for 20+ years, and still refer to themselves as "ex-pats". But I think this is might be cultural about the host country. Cambodia is blatantly racist, "Cambodia is for the Khmer people" is a thing there. Any no…
[1] Non-immigrant is the administrative word used by the United States to designate people that are supposed to leave the country rather than settle in the US, usually on training/work/investor visas.
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B1 is a completely fair minimum standard. It's normal for many countries to expect residents to have basic conversational adequacy. It's also the kind of requirement that's made explicit on government information about residency. So it shouldn't have been a surprise.
Like, I imagine if I moved to a country and couldn’t do the B1 things in their language, I would have daily obstacles doing basic life things.
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Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. It actually can be a problem because most people switch to English as soon as they realize your are not a native speaker, which can make learning harder.
> Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. For sure not in France and Spain (outside of tourist areas).
This reminds me that I got fired from a German company (operating in DK) because I asked too many questions and would not stop complaining about the software architecture which was terrible. The company culture was clashing with the Danish culture that I was used to and also I didn't give a fuck.
Is Danish culture more flat in its organization?
Small companies are usually flat, but my experience is that larger companies turn into departments/teams until someone realizes that more leadership on paper doesn't add any value.