Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again • Hacker News Board

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#521

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:24 AM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #431

aranelsurion wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would have daily obstacles doing basic life things. That heavily depends on the city and country. I don't know where OP is, but for example in Berlin it's kinda rare to meet people not speaking any English, basically mostly old people/retirees don't. There are gyms where people speak English, cinemas with English subtitles, all kinds of doctors speak English, even a lot of bureaucracy like driving exams etc. can…

Berlin is a completely different world than the rest of Germany. Never make the mistake of generalizing anything that you observed in Berlin to Germany outside of Berlin.

Great point! I would say the same about the "alpha" economic city in any rich country. Think about Paris, Milan, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Madrid, Lisbon, etc.: The same rule would apply.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#522

Post by throw-the-towel » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:26 AM UTC

push0ret wrote: post #365

gib444 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you visited London recently? Particularly east. It's got the unfriendliness but also complete total breakdown of the social contract and social decency Music and video calls without headphones on all transport all the time. Shoes and socks off on train seats. Zombies barging into you constantly. Nobody letting people off the train. Throwing rubbish on the ground. Leaving it on trains and buses. Vaping on the tub…

Of course it's people who don't even live in London who paint completely skewed pictures of the city. It's sad to see how much negative propaganda is being spread to induce fear, uncertainty and doubt. Why are you doing this? Yes, almost everything you mentioned happens. You're probably going to come across some of it if you spend a bit more time here, and in some areas more than others. But you are exaggerating it a…

Oh blimey, what a defensive post. Not everyone who dares to criticise your city is a paid outsider shill, chill down.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#523

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:27 AM UTC

overfeed wrote: post #375

rurp wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems weird to me that someone would even want to settle in a foreign country without a good understanding of the language and cultural basics. I've done some traveling in non-English speaking countries and it was a huge hurdle not being completely fluent in the local language. It just seems like common sense to me to dive in all the way if you are moving somewhere long term. I don't really see what a good salary…

> It seems weird to me that someone would even want to settle in a foreign country without a good understanding of the language and cultural basics These people typically call themselves "expatriates"

This is a perfect reply. When you are a (relatively) high-income migrant, you can safely call yourself an expatriate instead of an immigrant!

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#524

Post by throw-the-towel » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:29 AM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #500

hunterpayne wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Can confirm. Many a time my colleagues tried to write some comments in English, and the result was so broken I wished they hadn't even tried.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#525

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:32 AM UTC

marcus_holmes wrote: post #499

annzabelle wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

    > Cambodia is blatantly racist

In my experience, there is nothing special about Cambodia in this regard. You could substitute any poorly developed nation, and you would have similar results. If Cambodia had a GDP per capita similar to Japan/Korea/Taiwan, they would "suddenly" become less racist because they would be much more concerned with economics rather than ethnicity/religion.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#526

Post by throw-the-towel » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:32 AM UTC

hunterpayne wrote: post #513

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Dude, software itself is written in English, not just English but it is most often (but not always) encoded in a character set that is English specific (can't even do French). The docs for every single platform, API and language are in English. You can get translations for some stuff and auto-translate the rest. But you can't even file a bug without English. The people you know probably don't write software, they are…

Yes the keywords are in English, but that does not mean much. You can not understand them and just use them as magic incantations. The docs often exist in translated versions, and there are also books about the same platform/language so you're not stuck with only the official docs.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#527

Post by keiferski » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:34 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #521

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin is a completely different world than the rest of Germany. Never make the mistake of generalizing anything that you observed in Berlin to Germany outside of Berlin.

Great point! I would say the same about the "alpha" economic city in any rich country. Think about Paris, Milan, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Madrid, Lisbon, etc.: The same rule would apply.

Berlin isn’t the alpha economic city in Germany though. There isn’t really one, but it’s more like Frankfurt.

Berlin has a lot of English speakers because it’s been a cool place for young people to move to from across Europe for the last few decades.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#528

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:37 AM UTC

brewdad wrote: post #184

lispisok wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your complaint is you wanted permanent residence in Germany but did not want to learn to speak German?

Most countries will grant PR without requiring a language proficiency. Assuming your immigration status is regular and you are a contributing member of society. Citizenship? Absolutely, you must speak the language. Residency? Not nearly as common.

[deleted]

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#529

Post by throwaway2037 » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:37 AM UTC

mananaysiempre wrote: post #505

dgs_sgd wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your perspective, but I was curious what B1 proficiency actually entails and this is what I found [1]: - understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar topics such as work, school, or leisure - manage most situations that occur while traveling in German-speaking areas - produce simple, connected text on familiar subjects - describe experiences, events, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and b…

It is, in a sense. I maybe feel that, if one is unfamilliar with the CEFR levels, the description you gave might make things sound a bit more basic than they are: survival as a resident is more like A2, not B1. The B1 designation is like reading tabloid headlines and writing essays on middle-school-level subjects. But that’s really a bit nitpicky, and the actual point I wanted to make is as follows: B1 is something l…

I like this hot take. I'm onboard with most of it. It is interesting that you mentioned Israel's special handling of immigrants and their languages. I lived in New York City for a short while, and I was very surprised by the accomodation of foreign languages by civil servants. Almost any city office I went to had a section with a few people that could speak a bunch of languages to support residents. Plus, many written notices were available in a wide range of languages.

Re: Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

#530

Post by stnikolauswagne » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 3:37 AM UTC

14u2c wrote: post #396

dgs_sgd wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

There is some sort of weird phenomenon that I cant quite put to words, but the core is:

While there is a big chunk of the native german population speaking great english there is a subset of (often) service workers who... dont. Had multiple furniture movers come through my house the last few weeks, the only way to communicate with them was broken german, since they had no english skills and my (croatian? serbian?) skills were zero.

At one point I ended up in the weirdest situation of my live were i translated the german instructions from the phone rep into english to the shift lead of the moving company so he could then give them in the native language to the movers.