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Why skilled workers come to Germany and then leave again

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

#751

Post by mananaysiempre »

watwut wrote: post #691
mananaysiempre wrote: post #505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It is other way round. If you are unfamiliar with CERF, you assume a lot more skill from the description then is actually required. > B1 is something like five uninterrupted years[1] of consistent lessons. If you go to lessons twice a week and dont do much else, yes. Or, if you go duolingo 15 min a day way. Otherwise no, it does not require 5 years. And what you need the most are not so much lessons (tho you need som…

> If you go to lessons twice a week and dont do much else, yes.

Right, this is with a schedule of 2–3 hr/wk of classes (and, as I’ve said, probably 1× to 2× that in homework). Remember this is for someone who likely has to work long hours already; but also, there’s a reason why everything over that is usually described as an intensive course: diminishing returns hit hard at 4–5 hr/wk (in decreasing retention as well as not having the energy to do much homework).

> Or, if you go duolingo 15 min a day way.

I’m not convinced Duolingo can get one to B1 at all but I guess it must work for somebody?..

> And what you need the most are not so much lessons (tho you need some for grammar)

As well as to have a place where somebody will correct you whenever you go wrong and also to ask about that elusive word stuff that’s too long for the normal dictionary but too flexible to count as an idiom.

> as watching and reading of basic media - and german has tons of those.

Again, no experience with German in particular, and this also depends on your tolerance for frustration and your native language, but I’d say tail end of B1 is when you can start reading unadapted books etc. Once you do, it’ll speed up your journey through the bog of intermediate, so to say, quite a bit, but through A2 and lower B1 you do still need graded readers and other kinds of specially prepared comprehensible input.

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

#752

Post by soco »

socalgal2 wrote: post #117
soco wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about my Swiss village, the only takeout worth thinking about is the delicious kebab downhill which doesn't do delivery. Otherwise it would be all eat.ch and similar. Why should I drive when I can get it delivered for no extra cost? I guess it's just a cultural difference, not a drawback (in either direction)

Maybe you need to live somewhere with more options to compare? As one example, Tokyo has 160,000 restaurants. NYC has 21k. Divided by population that's 5x more in Tokyo. Other example would be most major Asian cities. Taipei for example has 20-30 night markets each with 50 to 500 stalls. Kuala Lumpur has mamak food stand areas all over, often open till 4am.

Cool numbers, so are you making an argument for eating out, for getting take out, or for ordering delivery? Or for moving to Asia? Sorry I don't know what to do with all that information.

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

#753

Post by customguy »

mstaoru wrote: post #745
customguy wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German, don't respect Germans who move abroad and never learn the local language because they "don't have to", either. I cut a lot more slack for people who come here, but I can't help but notice this sense of entitlement to Germany I don't see an equivalent to with other countries. There's at least one person in this thread who outright said nah, knowing English is enough, as if Germans better accept that. Hone…

Let me play a bit of devil's advocate here. This is not what I really think but it's a point that has merit. Germany is in deep demographic and economic crisis, mostly due to talent shortage. If it has any ambition to maintain being #3 economy (by GDP), while simultaneously paying cushy pensions to a growing pool of retirees, it must either very quickly build talent (but it has a very limited pool due to demographic)…

That's like Germans moving to a poor country and being annoying to the waiter, then going "do you want my money or not?" When it comes to respecting someone -- which is what I'm talking about -- that just makes it worse.

> Germany is in deep demographic and economic crisis, mostly due to talent shortage. If it has any ambition to maintain being #3 economy

Countries don't have aims or ambitions, people in them do. If someone acts entitled and assumes I have to accomodate their laziness forever, not just until they'll get settled in, I won't like them, and there won't be much warmth between us. If that dooms the nation, that's totally fine. You don't make friends by blackmail, but by being friendly.

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

#754

Post by sinuhe69 »

froh wrote: post #624
sinuhe69 wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medical and long-term care expenses outweighs by a large margin the loss of consumption or tax revenue for retirees, especially for a welfare state like Germany. Many studies in Germany have showed exactly this constellation of cost-benefit.

interesting. I wonder how many move back to Germany when fragile though. requires citizenship though? unless your permanent residency stays valid when you move abroad. what would I have to use as search terms on Google scholar to find the many studies?

Generationsbilanz, AHV, Bernd Raffelhüschen

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

#755

Post by mananaysiempre »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #590
throwaway2037 wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 writte…

Follow-up reply: I asked ChatGPT about those six languages in Israel. > The six primary languages supported by Israel's government for immigrants (Olim) are Hebrew, English, Russian, Spanish, French, and Amharic. The Ministry of Aliyah and Integration uses these languages for government services, informational portals, and the official Olim App to help newcomers manage their entitlements. Very cool! I felt stupid tha…

Hebrew doesn’t count in my mind, but there’s also Portuguese (more for the sake of Latin America than Portugal itself). Arabic is missing from the list likely because almost every prospective immigrant with such a background has already moved (or died); Yiddish and Ladino because the government likes to pretend they don’t exist anymore.

I wasn’t talking about that though—plenty of countries are friendly to speakers of foreign languages to varying degrees (especially if that color is black^W^W^W language is English). I was more talking about written guides on the education system, the heathcare system, the tax system[1], walkthroughs on what documents you need to get and in which order[2] and so on. If you’ve ever spent a few months in a foreign country without already-settled friends or family, you know what I’m talking about, otherwise you probably won’t get it from my explanation. Israel is I believe unique in writing this stuff down pretty thoroughly; elsewhere things like guides for international students may help (even if you aren’t one), but be ready for gaps and holes.

[1] Believe me, as an A2 to B1 speaker you are not reading laws yourself, much as this might seem natural to our RTFM instincts; and as a relatively cash-strapped immigrant, you’re not hiring a lawyer either, assuming you can even figure out how to find one.

[2] Let’s say you need a mobile phone number to get a bank account, and a bank account to get a phone number. Not a problem in Israel but in the EU that’s a pretty common catch-22 to have to work around.

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

#756

Post by dofm »

simianwords wrote: post #612
dofm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All black people? Or just those from some regions or ethnicities? The point I am making is that “white” and “black” simply aren’t races on any biological basis. It’s nothing more than a social distinction. The level of scientific ignorance on display here is weird.

You seem to keep suggesting that boundaries have to be perfect for categories to exist. This is not the case. White colour and dark colour exist as categories yet are blurry. Yet no sane person suggests colours don’t exist. There’s no sharp boundary between a hill and a mountain. There’s no sharp boundary between dark and white colours. There’s no sharp boundary between male and female either at the edge cases when y…

I am not pretending that sociological concepts of race don’t exist.

I am saying that it is clear from scientific consensus that biological, genetic race does not exist.

If it did, as I keep saying, “white” and “black” would not be biological races. That is actually not plausible. It’s scientific racism to claim it is.

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

#757

Post by suddenlybananas »

bcye wrote: post #750
suddenlybananas wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very bad faith and you know it.

It was in fact not, hence why I asked :/

I don't think even the women wearing the hijabs would consider it to be part of German culture.

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

#758

Post by xienze »

customguy wrote: post #749
xienze wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Races don't exist on any biological level. You sure about that? https://www.nmdp.org/get-involved/join-the-registry/ethnicit... > Finding the right donor for a patient isn’t simple. Donors and patients are matched largely based on genes called human leukocyte antigens (HLAs). These genes code for proteins—or markers—found on most of the cells in your body. When it comes to matching HLA types, a patient’s ethnic bac…

That article doesn't mention the word "race" once. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_(human_categorization) > there is a broad scientific agreement that essentialist and typological conceptions of race are untenable Any educated person with access to the internet who never was even curious about this I'm suspicious of. If you don't arrive at it by the thought experiments a bored teenager might do, it takes like 5 mi…

> That article doesn't mention the word "race" once.

Are you being intentionally obtuse by pretending ethnicity and race can't be used interchangeably on a broad level? The entire point of requiring "diversity in bone marrow donation" is that you can't just take bone marrow from an ethnically caucasian ("white" in racial classification terms) and expect the transfer to be successful for an African American person ("black" in racial classification terms). Yes "white", "black" et al are imprecise terms but they broadly align with certain ethnic groups, and there ARE biological differences between ethnicities.

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

#760

Post by mstaoru »

customguy wrote: post #753
mstaoru wrote: post #745

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me play a bit of devil's advocate here. This is not what I really think but it's a point that has merit. Germany is in deep demographic and economic crisis, mostly due to talent shortage. If it has any ambition to maintain being #3 economy (by GDP), while simultaneously paying cushy pensions to a growing pool of retirees, it must either very quickly build talent (but it has a very limited pool due to demographic)…

That's like Germans moving to a poor country and being annoying to the waiter, then going "do you want my money or not?" When it comes to respecting someone -- which is what I'm talking about -- that just makes it worse. > Germany is in deep demographic and economic crisis, mostly due to talent shortage. If it has any ambition to maintain being #3 economy Countries don't have aims or ambitions, people in them do. If…

> accomodate their laziness forever, not just until they'll get settled in

Do expats in Germany walk around with "I've been in Germany X months" clock on their foreheads? :) Of course you learn eventually... some faster than others. And some not fast enough before "maybe I should just work in Switzerland" kicks in.

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