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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.
by dgs_sgd 2mo ago
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.
- parineum 2mo agoA country like the USA?
- ryandrake 2mo agoNot really. There are many immigrant-majority communities in the USA where you can live most of your day-to-day without needing to speak much English.
- justacrow 2mo agoAny $200k+ SW engineering jobs?
- marseysneed 2mo agoIn the bay area you can get away with very little english proficiency
- nkrisc 2mo agoI’ve known some devs who were recent immigrants and did not speak much English. It wasn’t FAANG and not West coast so I don’t think they were making $200k but they got by and often paired with other devs who spoke their language and much better English. Overall they were nice people and their English improved over time for the duration I knew them. It was a bit of a struggle to communicate sometimes but I didn’t mind it. Any time I felt frustrated about it I just thought about how they must be feeling, and it didn’t seem so bad anymore. English is a pretty forgiving language.
- ang_cire 2mo agoHonestly, this question is really revealing, because it's the lower-paid SWE jobs that are probably not Bay Area or NYC, which are precisely the places where lower* English fluency is most likely to be tolerated or even the majority. I was the only person on my 5-person team with 'Business English' at my first BA startup, so I got the job of writing all external-routing communications. When I worked remote for a Midwest company years later, it was very clear that anything but perfect English was disqualifying in the eyes of a lot of (Midwest white male) management there.
- ryandrake 2mo agoOP was just talking about "doing basic life things."
- cpursley 2mo agoFor all its problems, the US is one of the best at accommodating non English.
- thesmtsolver2 2mo agoFor the US, you don’t have to know English for permanent residency. You can even have your interview in your own language with an interpreter https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/exceptions-and-accommodations https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/exceptions-and-accommodati...
- michaelt 2mo agoA lot of societies are set up to accommodate that society's dumbest members, and tourists, for most everyday tasks. Outside of the workplace and my hobbies, I can't remember the last time someone asked me to read more than a few words, write anything at all, or do any maths more complicated than "the 12:20 train is 10 minutes late" Personally I would say it's not respectful to a society to move there and not make a decent effort to learn the language - but I have no doubt a person could survive with only basic skills, if their workplace worked in their native language and they had an ethnic enclave as a support network.
- mr_toad 2mo ago> for most everyday tasks That’s true, if you’re in Paris you can get by with very little French. But don’t be too surprised if Gendarmerie aren’t particularly lenient just because tu ne comprends pas le français.
- ben_w 2mo agoI have B1 German, finally managing an official certification at the start of this year despite living here since the end of summer of 2018. As societies require accommodations for idiots, I found it so easy to get by with the German I did know that I kept incorrectly assuming I was at B1 level for years and years. B1 requires being able to read headlines and a few paragraphs of a typical newspapers, to briefly plan events, that kind of thing; not just the ingredients and cooking instructions on the back of food packaging and know how much money to hand over to the cashier. Given what I still can't do, I can totally understand why so many job openings I see at the moment require B2 or C1: My grammar is still terrible, and my grasp of accents is still heavily biased towards a handful of podcasts and youtube channels, and being surprised by the conversation topic can still easily confuse me, as I found out on Sunday when someone's classic motorbike broke down outside my house and they asked to borrow a 19mm spanner.
- aranelsurion 2mo ago> 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 be taken in English. Speak to a random person in English, odds are very high they respond back in English. I'm not saying this to mean it's 100% easy of course. Default language is ofc German, and not knowing it locks you out sometimes. Just saying that it's possible to live in a city like Berlin and not speak the language, and most days you barely think about it. I'd say it's an obstacle once-twice a month rather than daily.
- aleph_minus_one 2mo agoBerlin 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.
- throwaway2037 2mo agoGreat 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.
- keiferski 2mo agoBerlin 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.
- throwaway2037 2mo ago> Berlin isn’t the alpha economic city in Germany though. There isn’t really one, but it’s more like Frankfurt. You are right. I will add one thing: Berlin is the alpha economic city in Germany for the new economy. Frankfurt is for finance, and Munich is for manufacturing, but those are the old economy -- barely changing.
- 14u2c 2mo agoNot 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.
- aleph_minus_one 2mo ago> Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. For sure not in France and Spain (outside of tourist areas).
- throwaway2037 2mo agoYou 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!
- 21asdffdsa12 2mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYYpTfx1ey8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYYpTfx1ey8
- bloppe 2mo agoI'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.
- vidarh 2mo agoTo butcher a old quote about English: Spanish is just badly pronounced Italian, after all ;)
- throwaway2037 2mo agoI recall reading an autobiography by US Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor. She used to represent Fendi, the Italian fashion brand, when there were suing for copyright infringement (counterfeit goods). She would speak Spanish and the Fendi senior execs would speak Italian and they understood each other well enough. That was a real a-ha moment for me!
- blks 2mo agoThat is not true for many countries, especially in EU, and especially when you move as a skilled worker.
- throwaway2037 2mo agoPeople who work low skills jobs do this all the time. In rich countries, many construction sites and factories have people working for little more than minimum wage in low skill jobs that barely speak the local language. They make it. If they have a family, they live in a native language bubble at home, but their kids are immersed in the local language at school.
- retired 2mo agoI have no issues with A1 Spanish in Spain for daily life.
- itake 2mo agoThe US has a huge population of Spanish only speakers and they find success. I live in Vietnam for over three years, and while I continue to practice the language, I literally cannot pronounce the tones for about a third of the letters, but I still have a very happy and comfortable life here
- account42 2mo agoThey find success by forming their own enclaves instead of integrating. Great for them perhaps but not something that the host country has to accept.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]