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

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

#561

Post by neonstatic » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:00 AM UTC

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #440

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this people opining “just learn the language” have learned a second language while working as adults, let alone learned German. You can get to A2 level pretty easy (in most indoeuropean languages at least), but jumping to B1 can seriously be a year or more of studying. You have to be able to handle basic daily situations in the given language and understand what is said in a TV or Radio show. With practice yo…

> None of this people opining “just learn the language” have learned a second language while working as adults, let alone learned German. I am very certain this is not true. The "just learn the language" people are typically rather people who are very talented in learning new languages (and often indeed to this as adults as a personal hobby - often even with languages from very different families), and thus are often…

Quite often they will also learn languages that are very similar (French, Spanish, and Italian), count that as 3 and believe it's always this easy.

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

#562

Post by DStiego » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:00 AM UTC

InfinityByTen wrote: post #556

It's interesting how quickly any discussion about immigrant/expat life in Germany becomes about language. That has to account for something. After my tenure of 11 years in the country, my impression is that there is a deeper sense of "us" v/s "them"; the language is the most PC way to express it. If you're in the category of "us" you don't complain about the taxes or things being closed on Sundays, because you're sup…

There's two things at play here:

1. Defensiveness; one could describe it as "Stockholm syndrome"

2. What outsiders don't understand about the language thing is that it's not about how much German you need to get along in daily life. That's a similar challenge everywhere in the world.

The crux is that in Germany, correct use of the language is a social status thing, more so than in other places. Any person, whether German or foreigner, who appears to have difficulty with the language, is easily looked down upon.

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

#563

Post by fleroviumna » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:05 AM UTC

ikut3hva wrote: post #165

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…

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

#564

Post by hunterpayne » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:09 AM UTC

throw-the-towel wrote: post #526

hunterpayne wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You probably have a different definition of programmer than me. Yours seem to be someone who uses a computer.

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

#565

Post by musha68k » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:09 AM UTC

ikut3hva wrote: post #165

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…

I know life as an immigrant, especially while having kids and professional careers can be tough.

That said, personally I'm thankful for Quebec having been the forcing function to learn French.

With no prior formation to reach "intermédiaire avancé" took me about 20 months of studying on the side with one lesson per week for most of that time; usually before or during work hours (partially was a group setting there).

I'm a German native speaker so I'm probably biased / ignorant about some major language hurdles but to me German must be the easier language to pick up for most as it's way more regular.

I think the trick is to make a deliberate choice / opening up to love language and people, speaking with as many native speakers as possible etc. It also really helped me to almost exclusively switch to consuming French news and most of other media.

I'm not a fan of dubbing in general but for learning, Hollywood movies in French have been mostly great same as with German translations. Maybe watch older movies, they used to put in an unreasonable amount of work into those especially.

Computer games I'm personally still playing mostly in French to this day and I know that German translations are usually done with a lot of heart as well.

Edit: do check out https://www.arte.tv/de/ if you haven't - one of our favourites for both French and German of course; probably one of, if not the best TV worldwide. Always especially palpable after having been on youtube for a while too long; just the opposite of engagement bait, wholesome and good journalism and more.

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

#566

Post by DStiego » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:11 AM UTC

heyheyhouhou wrote: post #101

Alien1Being wrote: post #2

German discrimination and racism towards migrant workers and visible minorities is world class. And with Alternative für Deutschland / AfD rising rapidly, this is only going to get much, much worse. https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/70478/study-finds-racis... https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/germany-...

I'm from a "southern" country and I lived in Germany for 10 years. My kids were born there. Last year we decided to move to my home country because of "too many things" but also fed up of feeling an immigrant. Few months ago I met a German family living around here in a coastal area. I asked them why they moved here and they answered me straight to my face "Because in Germany there are too many immigrants". I think t…

I don't think it's an obvious joke.

In general, you can totally be against the way immigration is handled in one place while being an immigrant elsewhere.

The family you mentioned likely considered themselves different from the immigrants that they complained about.

I'm not agreeing/disagreeing with these people I don't know, but the general point is fair.

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

#567

Post by bloppe » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #519

aleph_minus_one wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. For sure not in France and Spain (outside of tourist areas).

You beat me to it! This is the classic HN reply. Even in Paris or Milan, as soon as you leave the central areas, most people will speak little English and are happy to allow you to practice your poor French/Italian with them!

I'm constantly amazed at how far I can get in Portugal or Italy speaking only Spanish. They're different languages but you can make it work well enough in pretty much every situation I've been in.

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

#568

Post by DStiego » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:13 AM UTC

throw-the-towel wrote: post #116

superze wrote: post #9

Why would anyone wanna go to a country that pays them low abuses them and they end up alone with no friends because this is Germany.

In my case (not Germany but also in the EU), I just bought into European propaganda too much.

Can you give examples? I'm curious which of your beliefs have changed

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

#569

Post by doikor » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:14 AM UTC

thayne wrote: post #535

marcus_holmes wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Even when I vacationed in Bayern (Bavaria), a lot of people switched to English when they realized that my German wasn't that good. Which was frustrating, because I wanted to practice speaking with native speakers. Although, there were also people who only spoke German.

If you want to learn you just pretend that you don’t speak English and keep on speaking German. They will switch back fast.

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

#570

Post by FabCH » Wed, Jul 08, 2026, 5:19 AM UTC

zerr wrote: post #391

FabCH wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you a net positive? Just because somebody pays taxes, it doesn’t necessarily make them a net positive. For example, do you contribute culturally? That can be quite hard to do without speaking the language. What about defense. Would you fight for the country? Hard to do if you don’t understand the orders. What about spiritually? Emotionally?

I believe you are mixing permanent presidentship with citizenship. That's why I've clarified that PR != citizenship.

Not at all.

Citizenship allows you the final participation: political. The right to be chosen and the right to choose.

Everything else applies to anyone who lives permanently in a given place. A permanent resident.

FWIW: I personally politically support PRs being given the political right to be voted into office as well.