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I am non-German living and working for a startup in Berlin and so far my biggest struggle is the language barrier. If you don't know German you will be fine in

I am non-German living and working for a startup in Berlin and so far my biggest struggle is the language barrier. If you don't know German you will be fine in your work but outside you will feel as a stranger. You usually feel it when you go to a doctor, you shop for something more complex, you use services where you need to communicate or you go to government offices or when you look for a flat. It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that.

ido 10y ago
Is there anywhere else where learning the local language doesn't play the same role?
- sweezyjeezy 10y ago
  Pretty much every young person in the western world speaks English, so I'd say anywhere where that is the local language.
  - walterstucco 10y ago
    Pretty much everywhere in the world english is a second language...
  - dazc 10y ago
    How are you defining 'western world'? I live in Spain and, outside of the tourist resorts, very few people speak English.
  - kome 10y ago
    Sorry, you are really deluding yourself here. Not even in Scandinavia or in the Netherlands - where literally everybody speaks good english - english alone is enough. You will always feel alienated without the local language.
    - k-mcgrady 10y ago
      > "You will always feel alienated without the local language." My experience throughout Europe is that people generally have enough knowledge of English that you can get through a 2 week holiday without knowing the language. But even during those two weeks you start to learn little things to make life a bit easier. I don't understand people who go to a foreign country and expect to live without learning the local language. It's hard work but not impossible and just seems arrogant.
      - SneakerXZ 10y ago
        You cannot compare holidays with actually living there. In your everyday life you have problems that you don't experience as a tourist or did you order a plumber to fix your pipes? Or did you buy a television that you had to return because it was not working correctly? Try to figure out these problems with your A1 German.
        k-mcgrady 10y ago
        That was my point. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. 1. You may be able to do 2 weeks there without learning the language. 2. That doesn't mean you can live there without learning the language.
    - detaro 10y ago
      Unless I'm misreading the parent comment, he is saying that it is not as important in countries were English is the primary language, because most people moving there already know it as a second language and don't have to start from scratch?
  - realusername 10y ago
    As a French, I'm the only one who can speak/read English of my whole family (regardless of the age).
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    You will always be an outsider if you don't speak the local language.
- ddorian43 10y ago
  Netherlands should be better. But you still need to learn the language to get really integrated. Though there are people that've lived for 10+ years and don't know it there.
- pcr0 10y ago
  Most big Asian cities.
- spyder 10y ago
  Scandinavian countries: 80 - 90% of them speak English. http://www.fluentin3months.com/scandinavian/ http://www.fluentin3months.com/scandinavian/ http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/scandinavianenglish/ http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/scandinavianenglish/
  - soft_dev_person 10y ago
    True, but you'll still not be completely integrated on a social level until you speak the native language.
antouank 10y ago
Exactly. That was the main reason why I left Germany. If you want to stay, it should be your first priority to learn german.
walterstucco 10y ago
isn't it normal? most of the world does not speak english as first language, especially in Europe, where each country, even the smallest, use its own language.
- SneakerXZ 10y ago
  Yes, it is normal. I am just saying what is the biggest struggle of non-German worker of Berlin startup from my point of view that almost nobody takes into consideration when they talk about the Berlin startup scene.
Arnt 10y ago
Bah. I came here with about ten words. The only verb I could conjugate on the day I arrived was erschrecken, a couple of months later I did well already. The key, and I think this applies to any language, is not NOT BACK DOWN. Some things will be hugely painful, if you back down you just defer the pain. The Germans will want to be polite and helpful (and practise their own English), don't let them. Some HNers will know about the Israeli language courses after the war, when Israel had a seven-digit number of immigrants, hardly any of which spoke modern Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is an invented language, BTW, so "hardly any" is not an exaggeration. The model that worked was three-week full-time courses where ONLY modern Hebrew was spoken. They didn't let anyone back down: Students went without food until they were able to order in a restaurant where the waiters were helpful but spoke no foreign languages (usually late on the first day).
- SneakerXZ 10y ago
  I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at work where you speak English and after that go outside and immerse yourself to German for a few hours and do that every single day for at least a year.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at work where you speak English I'm pretty sure at work they understand German, too.
    - ced 10y ago
      Yeah, that's the key. I studied in a Max Planck Institute in Germany. 80% of the students were international and spoke English, but I could always speak German to the remaining 20% and to faculty. Of course, we'd switch to English for technical discussion, but chit-chatting in German makes a difference. Also, you can think in German at any time of the day.
jk4930 10y ago
Some resources that could be helpful: http://www.howtogermany.com/ http://www.howtogermany.com/ http://www.exberliner.com/ http://www.exberliner.com/ http://www.meetup.com/berlin-expats/ http://www.meetup.com/berlin-expats/ Guess one could get help and exchange info there. But I'm speaking without experience here. Could you (and others here) give some experiences with the issues you mentioned? Doctor, shopping for something more complex etc. I can imagine it's difficult with governmental stuff, but for the others I assume there should be solutions. E.g. going to doctors in expat-heavy boroughs, going shopping in tourist-oriented areas etc. But I could be completely wrong. So please tell me about your (negative) experiences and the barriers /showstoppers.
- SneakerXZ 10y ago
  You find solutions to these problems and you survive. You ask your HR to help you, you ask your acquaintances or friends to go somewhere with you or call somewhere for you and you start limiting your options only to places where they speak English based on sites where they gather English speaking places. But at end of the day you limit your options because of your handicap and it decreases quality of your life.
bogomipz 10y ago
Can I ask where you are from and how long you have been there? Are language classes not an option with the amount of work involved with the with working at a start up there?
wingerlang 10y ago
That is crazy, I like in SEA and I've never felt not knowing the local language is an issue. Especially for the things you mention: doctor, flat and government stuff. Germany have always been a stickler for dubbing things though, maybe they don't put as much effort into it.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > Germany have always been a stickler for dubbing things though, maybe they don't put as much effort into it. There are hardly any countries that put more effort into dubbing foreign movies than Germany, but in this points Germans are perfectionists: If a dubbing doesn't use all the possible nuances that the German language allows for the best possible translation, people will complain. I've read (can't give source, it was many years ago) that among computer translations for pairs of "popular" Western language pairs, the pair "English -> German" is among the most difficult to handle. In my humble opinion this is because German is very exact in its wordings and allows to express lots of subtleties by its very free ordering of clauses. This makes it necessary to read additional things into the original text, which computers have difficulties with. There are even people who say that the German dubbing of some American movies is yet better than the English original.
  - chestnut-tree 10y ago
    A bit of a digression, but...I strongly dislike dubbing and simply cannot enjoy a dubbed drama or film. First, you have the distracting mismatch between the actor's mouth movements and the dubbed dialogue. Second, the way an actor speaks in their native language is an intrinsic part of their performance. A dubbed performance will be different, but can never match the original (unless we're talking about a poorly acted, poor quality production). To give an example, the Scandinavian series The Bridge has won great praise for the performance of its lead (Sofia Helin). This has been a big international hit (in the UK it was shown subtitled). Can a dubbing actor really ever inhabit a character in the same way as the original performer? (Don't forget the dubbing actor also sits in a room performing the dub, not on location like the original actors). There is one scenario where I understand dubbing is necessary: children's films. But even here, you can notice a difference. When Disney dubbed the Japanese animated movie Spirited Away, they did a very good job with the American voice actors. However, if you listen to the original Japanese soundtrack, you come away with a different impression of the film because the Japanese language has a very different tone and inflection to English.
wolfgke 10y ago
> It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that. I'm a little bit surprised: Relocating for a job in a completely different country (with a different language, culture etc.) also requires huge effort and dedication in my opinion. Why were you capable of doing this step but claim that learning German is so hard? Yes, it takes a little bit more time, but I can't see the orders of magnitude difference in required effort and dedication.
- k__ 10y ago
  I know a few Greeks who went to German language schools for a few months, when they arrived at Germany and they speak German really well. Yes not perfect, but fluent.
- SneakerXZ 10y ago
  You cannot compare these. You relocate once and after that it is done. Learning a language is on going process that has a lot of phases and you need to do it continuously every single day. I don't want complain how learning German is hard. I only wanted to mention something that nobody says when they talk about Berling being tech hub. You don't have this issue in Silicon Valley. Your working language is also your life language.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > You cannot compare these. You relocate once and after that it is done. Learning a language is on going process that has a lot of phases and you need to do it continuously every single day. Living and working in a foreign country with foreign language/culture is an ongoing process continuing every single day, too.
sneak 10y ago
Learning German isn't that hard, it just takes time.
jfaucett 10y ago
this. I think many German startups perceive it as hip to speak English (while 95℅ of the team speaks fluent if not natively German), and completely neglect the real world negative consequences this policy creates. IMHO the benefits are in most startup cases near none. First, for most German startups your market is German speaking, second almost any super English only speaking talent is going to be even more exited to work for you if you can offer them assimilation, valuable German language work experience, and give them access to all German society has to offer. This is especially true for any immigrant. Finally, in the long term some people might not care about participating in society, watching news, speaking to people without a stilted veil of a foreign accent, or bugging a friend to get a repairman to come to their house, but the vast majority will prefer to be treated as other Germans not as outsiders and be able to fully function in society.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  I read somewhere (can't find the reference right now) that many German companies require everyone to speak English in the workplace because of pan-EU work policies. It's an interchange language that also allows citizens from Sweden & Italy etc to work with German speakers, since they all share solid English-as-a-second-language speaking skills. It isn't just limited to startups. [That said, I absolutely believe immigrants should make every effort to learn the native language, it's why I've spent so long trying to learn German before attempting to move there.]
  - jfaucett 10y ago
    This is true - externally i.e. outside the 100 million+ people German speaking market. If you need to do business with Swedes, you will do this is English, same for most other EU member states. My point was specific to startups though, once you are a large established company with offices across Europe, English becomes much more beneficial.
merb 10y ago
> It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that. Actually I'm german and I think to learn every bits of our language takes a huge effort. I mean we maybe don't have so many Characters like the Chinese ones. But our huge rules of grammar and special word cases makes it ridicoulus. And then there is the "Neue deutsche Rechtschreibung", which of course some things were reversed in the last years. Basically when just ignoring all those stuff you are probably understood by the most people here even if they will likely try to correct you but I guess except a few there aren't much people that really know how to correctly use the language as a whole.
- rb2k_ 10y ago
  > But our huge rules of grammar and special word cases makes it ridicoulus I'm German but living in the US for the last few years. I've had American friends in Germany and from what I understand, most things are pretty "regular" compared to other languages. Not that many exceptions. People tell me that pronunciation is usually pretty straight forward compared to e.g. English. There are also some weird rules that I don't recall ever hearing before. e.g. everything ending in "-chen" or "-lein" uses "das" as an article. Not sure if German learners can confirm/deny the learning complexity compared to other languages.
  - merb 10y ago
    yeah the basic stuff. but when it comes to tenses, etc. Just look at job descriptions, even feminists don't care about our language.
- lorenzhs 10y ago
  Neue Rechtschreibung makes things simpler when learning the language. It's only hard to internalize the changes, but esier when learning from scratch. It brings spelling and pronunciation in line. For example, daß doesn't make any sense if you know that "ß" is preceded by a long vowel whereas "ss" (as n the new spelling, dass) is preceded by a short one. Others have already noted that the other things you mentioned may not be as bad as they seem to you.
funkaster 10y ago
Isn't that kind of expected? I mean, if you move to Shanghai I wouldn't expect you to live only speaking English. Or, if you apply to startup Chile, and decide to stay there, at some point I would expect you to learn Spanish. Learning any language takes time and effort and it's integral part of adapting to your host country culture and people. I would even say it's key for a successful relocation.
- SneakerXZ 10y ago
  Indeed, but what I wanted to say this kind of article creates an impression Berlin is cool place with a startup scene where anyone can move and work there and a lot of people ignore their quality of life will decrease because they don't know the language.
  - funkaster 10y ago
    I still don't get your point. I would expect someone moving to some other country to at least read about that place. If I was moving to China, because the startup scene was so good over there, I take for granted that at some point I will have to learn Chinese. It would be very, very naive to move to a country because you read somewhere that the startup scene is so cool somewhere and then realize they don't speak English at the grocery store where you get your croissants.
danmaz74 10y ago
I was thinking how useful it would be to have some "bilingual districts" in at least the top EU cities - areas where you could expect everything to also work in English (including doctors, shops, schools, etc.). For example, I'm considering relocating with my family from Rome and would prefer to stay in the EU, but the UK isn't an option anymore. I'm not planning to move permanently, so, being sure to be able to do everything (not just work) in a comfortable enough way without having to learn the local language would be great.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > I was thinking how useful it would be to have some "bilingual districts" in at least the top EU cities There are many people who (in my opinion rightfully) complain that when English speaking people talk of "bilingual"/"multilingual" they nearly always mean "native language + English" instead of "native language + another common language". For example in the southwest of Germany many people will understand French, too. But you stated clearly that this is exactly not what you mean. > I'm considering relocating with my family from Rome Here also Italian + French or Italian + German would be a very natural combinations for a bilingual district in Rome or Italy (Austria, Switzerland and France border to Italy - thus these combinations would be very natural).
  - danmaz74 10y ago
    Yes we could also create N! districts, where N is the number of languages spoken in the EU... On a more practical level, I and my wife already speak English fluently, I have two remote teams composed with people from three different nations with whom I speak English, and having to learn eg German would make me need to use 3 different languages (4 for my wife, who is Russian). Seriously, the only shot we have at a European lingua franca at the moment is English. Well, maybe I'll just have to move to Ireland or Canada if I actually move.
    - wolfgke 10y ago
      > Seriously, the only shot we have at a European lingua franca at the moment is English. If we look at the language knowledge in the EU > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union#Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio... 51% knowledge for English is far from a lingua franca in Europe. At least German (32%) and French (26%) are also very common to know. In this sense you shouldn't think that there is some European lingua franca, but rather a small set of languages which has the property that if you know them, the probability is high that you will be understood.
igor_filippov 10y ago
Depends on how you see the world. I know many people who don't speak German and as germans say "fühlen sich wohl".
messutied 10y ago
Been feeling the same since Im living here in Berlin (about 3 months), I know I need to learn the language otherwise I'll never stop feeling like a stranger, but its hard to find time after work, I tried the German course for a month but it was so tiring, now I'm just trying to learn at my own pace with Babel and some audio courses.
maxxxxx 10y ago
I can't imagine not learning the local language quickly if I lived in another country. To me it's part of the fun but it als shows respect. English speaking countries expect immigrants to speak English. So why would things be different anywhere else?
vram22 10y ago
>It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that. Interesting. Wondering whether your native language is English. While mine is not, I'm pretty fluent in it. Why I am saying this, is because I've been learning German slowly for a few months now via the Duolingo app on mobile, and I did not find it (so far, anyway) to be very difficult. And that - not finding it difficult - surprised me a bit, because I had heard from friends in high school that they though German, for instance, was harder to learn than French (anecdote only, not data). I thought about the possible reasons for this (my not finding it too hard), and came up with one: since I know English, and German and English have some words and historical and cultural background in common, I could make educated guesses in many cases about the meanings of German words, before learning what they meant (because they were similar to English words meaning the same thing), and also in some other cases, after learning what the words meant, I could, with hindsight, relate them to English words meaning the same thing, just spelled a bit differently. This trick does not work for all words, of course, but does for enough of them, that it eases my learning. Also, I've developed a memory trick to associate new German words with known English words. It's not really anything new, just a form of association of the new word with a memorable (to me) English word or phrase, using what I think is called the memory palace method or something like that (I need to look up if that is the right one I mean).
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  Duolingo is good, but I'm not sure it's a great measure of understanding the language. I've been teaching myself German over the last 5 years using Duolingo (and LingQ) and I've completed all the German lessons (Level 23) - and while I can read German reasonably well now, I would still struggle to write or speak fluently in German. Thinking of what you want to say quickly is a skill that Duolingo doesn't really teach - but maybe that's where iTalki or LingQ Skype classes come in. [Native English speaker here, for what it's worth.]
  - vram22 10y ago
    >Duolingo is good, but I'm not sure it's a great measure of understanding the language. On further thought, I agree. When I wrote what I wrote above, it was in the back of my mind, to also add that I don't think the rate of progress that Duolingo shows for me, can be even near correct. E.g. after these few months (which also had gaps of a few days now and then during which I did not use the app), it now tells me I am 14 or 15% fluent in German - which I don't think can be the case at all, even without knowing much about the structure of the language, the number and kinds of grammar rules, tenses, the number of words in the German vocabulary, etc. (I'm probably much lower, maybe 1 or 2% is my guess, if such a thing can even be measured.) Also, some of my school friends who said German was hard to learn - for others, were Germans (who also spoke good English), so they likely knew what they were saying. >and while I can read German reasonably well now, I would still struggle to write or speak fluently in German. Interesting. Will have to see what my experience is as time goes by. >Thinking of what you want to say quickly is a skill that Duolingo doesn't really teach Will check that as time goes by. Maybe immersion is more useful for that skill.
tormeh 10y ago
I'm not exactly recommending this, but there are communities in Berlin whose main language is English, Turkish, Polish, Russian, whatever. It will probably hurt you in the long run, but you could always "live" in one of these.
collyw 10y ago
It does have the advantage that none of the subtle NLP based advertising will have much effect on you.
junto 10y ago
I'm British and I've been in Germany on and off since 2007. The first few years of learning the language were hard. I spent most of my time with German speakers, and after a few months they got tired of all speaking English for my benefit. At first spending time in a foreign language environment is immensely tiring. I'd be ready for bed every night at 9:30 just from the mental exhaustion, but after a while things start to click. To start with you start to get the gist of the conversations going around you. Then you'd start to participate, and finally you'd have a pretty good idea of what everyone is talking about and would be able to converse with everyone in a social environment. My German is still full of mistakes, and my 5 year old speaks better grammatical German than I do, but people understand me, and that's enough for me.
- pm90 10y ago
  That's very interesting! I don't think I've read about this process of learning a new language in such a specific way. It makes sense though. I do have a question, if you don't mind my asking. When I arrived in the US from India, I learned very quickly that accent and voice intonation are very important for first impressions and learning an American accent with good intonation has greatly helped me both personally and professionally. So my question is: is it similar in Germany? I was curios to know whether this was just an American cultural thing or whether it was more universal.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > I learned very quickly that accent and voice intonation are very important for first impressions and learning an American accent with good intonation has greatly helped me both personally and professionally. So my question is: is it similar in Germany? First: There aren't many varieties of German (and you will probably want to learn "Hochdeutsch" (high German) which is the variation that is spoken in Hannover in its purest form) - yes there are varieties, but this is not a concern for most people learning German as a foreign language. So there simply isn't such an analogue to Indian English accent vs. American English accent in German for making first impression etc., since there is "mostly only Hochdeutsch". As long as you have a correct pronounciation it is much more important to be really certain in the grammar (the German grammar has its ugly parts which even some low-educated Germans do wrong; so if you want to make an educated impression it is important to be very certain in the grammar) and have good vocabulary. If you really are able reach this level of German as a foreign speaker, I believe there will be hardly anyone who doubts your willingness to learn. :-)
solidsnack9000 10y ago
An hour a week with a tutor can make a marked difference. While living in Switzerland, I found that High German was not useful and so I would have to learn Swiss German to be able to order a coffee, understand commands in exercise class, &c. Swiss German is not in practice mutually intelligible with German and is for the most part an oral language, lacking online resources or even a standard orthography. Trying to learn from papers and linguistic studies was not working...so I got a tutor. The combination of appropriate source material and targeted corrections made a huge difference in my progress and for a long time after returning to the states I was much more comfortable with Swiss German than High German.
Maultasche 10y ago
I've lived in Germany before, and my advice is to try to speak and listen to the language as much as you possibly can. Don't know the word for something in German? Just throw in the English word and say the rest in German. Will the person you are talking to understand what you are saying? Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. The point is to try to speak as much German as you possibly can. I found it helpful to make a list of words I needed to say, but couldn't. Then I'd look them up and put them on flash cards until I learned them. Pay attention to the words other people are using when they speak to you. Sometimes you'll catch on to what the word mean without having to look them up and other time you'll need to look them up. I learned so much just from listening to other people. When you're speaking German (or any other language you're learning), you will make mistakes and you will feel like a fool. The most important part is to not let that stop you. Keep making mistakes and keep making stupid blunders, and learn from those mistakes. Anyone who isn't afraid to make mistakes and look stupid will learn a lot faster than someone who is. I was talking to some German students who were recounting some particularly embarrassing language mistakes an American exchange student had made. They did think it was pretty funny, but they also really liked and respected him for trying really hard to speak German, even if he did make mistakes. This same student eventually ended up speaking very good German, and I'm pretty sure it was because he was willing to continue trying despite making lots of mistakes.

ido 10y ago

Is there anywhere else where learning the local language doesn't play the same role?

sweezyjeezy 10y ago
Pretty much every young person in the western world speaks English, so I'd say anywhere where that is the local language.
- walterstucco 10y ago
  Pretty much everywhere in the world english is a second language...
- dazc 10y ago
  How are you defining 'western world'? I live in Spain and, outside of the tourist resorts, very few people speak English.
- kome 10y ago
  Sorry, you are really deluding yourself here. Not even in Scandinavia or in the Netherlands - where literally everybody speaks good english - english alone is enough. You will always feel alienated without the local language.
  - k-mcgrady 10y ago
    > "You will always feel alienated without the local language." My experience throughout Europe is that people generally have enough knowledge of English that you can get through a 2 week holiday without knowing the language. But even during those two weeks you start to learn little things to make life a bit easier. I don't understand people who go to a foreign country and expect to live without learning the local language. It's hard work but not impossible and just seems arrogant.
    - SneakerXZ 10y ago
      You cannot compare holidays with actually living there. In your everyday life you have problems that you don't experience as a tourist or did you order a plumber to fix your pipes? Or did you buy a television that you had to return because it was not working correctly? Try to figure out these problems with your A1 German.
      - k-mcgrady 10y ago
        That was my point. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. 1. You may be able to do 2 weeks there without learning the language. 2. That doesn't mean you can live there without learning the language.
  - detaro 10y ago
    Unless I'm misreading the parent comment, he is saying that it is not as important in countries were English is the primary language, because most people moving there already know it as a second language and don't have to start from scratch?
- realusername 10y ago
  As a French, I'm the only one who can speak/read English of my whole family (regardless of the age).
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  You will always be an outsider if you don't speak the local language.
ddorian43 10y ago
Netherlands should be better. But you still need to learn the language to get really integrated. Though there are people that've lived for 10+ years and don't know it there.
pcr0 10y ago
Most big Asian cities.
spyder 10y ago
Scandinavian countries: 80 - 90% of them speak English. http://www.fluentin3months.com/scandinavian/ http://www.fluentin3months.com/scandinavian/ http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/scandinavianenglish/ http://www.thepolyglotdream.com/scandinavianenglish/
- soft_dev_person 10y ago
  True, but you'll still not be completely integrated on a social level until you speak the native language.

antouank 10y ago

Exactly. That was the main reason why I left Germany. If you want to stay, it should be your first priority to learn german.

walterstucco 10y ago

isn't it normal? most of the world does not speak english as first language, especially in Europe, where each country, even the smallest, use its own language.

SneakerXZ 10y ago
Yes, it is normal. I am just saying what is the biggest struggle of non-German worker of Berlin startup from my point of view that almost nobody takes into consideration when they talk about the Berlin startup scene.

Arnt 10y ago

Bah. I came here with about ten words. The only verb I could conjugate on the day I arrived was erschrecken, a couple of months later I did well already. The key, and I think this applies to any language, is not NOT BACK DOWN. Some things will be hugely painful, if you back down you just defer the pain. The Germans will want to be polite and helpful (and practise their own English), don't let them. Some HNers will know about the Israeli language courses after the war, when Israel had a seven-digit number of immigrants, hardly any of which spoke modern Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is an invented language, BTW, so "hardly any" is not an exaggeration. The model that worked was three-week full-time courses where ONLY modern Hebrew was spoken. They didn't let anyone back down: Students went without food until they were able to order in a restaurant where the waiters were helpful but spoke no foreign languages (usually late on the first day).

SneakerXZ 10y ago
I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at work where you speak English and after that go outside and immerse yourself to German for a few hours and do that every single day for at least a year.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > I am not saying it is not possible and definitely total immersion helps and at some point you will learn the language but it is not easy to spend 9 hours at work where you speak English I'm pretty sure at work they understand German, too.
  - ced 10y ago
    Yeah, that's the key. I studied in a Max Planck Institute in Germany. 80% of the students were international and spoke English, but I could always speak German to the remaining 20% and to faculty. Of course, we'd switch to English for technical discussion, but chit-chatting in German makes a difference. Also, you can think in German at any time of the day.

jk4930 10y ago

Some resources that could be helpful: http://www.howtogermany.com/ http://www.howtogermany.com/ http://www.exberliner.com/ http://www.exberliner.com/ http://www.meetup.com/berlin-expats/ http://www.meetup.com/berlin-expats/ Guess one could get help and exchange info there. But I'm speaking without experience here. Could you (and others here) give some experiences with the issues you mentioned? Doctor, shopping for something more complex etc. I can imagine it's difficult with governmental stuff, but for the others I assume there should be solutions. E.g. going to doctors in expat-heavy boroughs, going shopping in tourist-oriented areas etc. But I could be completely wrong. So please tell me about your (negative) experiences and the barriers /showstoppers.

SneakerXZ 10y ago
You find solutions to these problems and you survive. You ask your HR to help you, you ask your acquaintances or friends to go somewhere with you or call somewhere for you and you start limiting your options only to places where they speak English based on sites where they gather English speaking places. But at end of the day you limit your options because of your handicap and it decreases quality of your life.

bogomipz 10y ago

Can I ask where you are from and how long you have been there? Are language classes not an option with the amount of work involved with the with working at a start up there?

wingerlang 10y ago

That is crazy, I like in SEA and I've never felt not knowing the local language is an issue. Especially for the things you mention: doctor, flat and government stuff. Germany have always been a stickler for dubbing things though, maybe they don't put as much effort into it.

wolfgke 10y ago
> Germany have always been a stickler for dubbing things though, maybe they don't put as much effort into it. There are hardly any countries that put more effort into dubbing foreign movies than Germany, but in this points Germans are perfectionists: If a dubbing doesn't use all the possible nuances that the German language allows for the best possible translation, people will complain. I've read (can't give source, it was many years ago) that among computer translations for pairs of "popular" Western language pairs, the pair "English -> German" is among the most difficult to handle. In my humble opinion this is because German is very exact in its wordings and allows to express lots of subtleties by its very free ordering of clauses. This makes it necessary to read additional things into the original text, which computers have difficulties with. There are even people who say that the German dubbing of some American movies is yet better than the English original.
- chestnut-tree 10y ago
  A bit of a digression, but...I strongly dislike dubbing and simply cannot enjoy a dubbed drama or film. First, you have the distracting mismatch between the actor's mouth movements and the dubbed dialogue. Second, the way an actor speaks in their native language is an intrinsic part of their performance. A dubbed performance will be different, but can never match the original (unless we're talking about a poorly acted, poor quality production). To give an example, the Scandinavian series The Bridge has won great praise for the performance of its lead (Sofia Helin). This has been a big international hit (in the UK it was shown subtitled). Can a dubbing actor really ever inhabit a character in the same way as the original performer? (Don't forget the dubbing actor also sits in a room performing the dub, not on location like the original actors). There is one scenario where I understand dubbing is necessary: children's films. But even here, you can notice a difference. When Disney dubbed the Japanese animated movie Spirited Away, they did a very good job with the American voice actors. However, if you listen to the original Japanese soundtrack, you come away with a different impression of the film because the Japanese language has a very different tone and inflection to English.

wolfgke 10y ago

> It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that. I'm a little bit surprised: Relocating for a job in a completely different country (with a different language, culture etc.) also requires huge effort and dedication in my opinion. Why were you capable of doing this step but claim that learning German is so hard? Yes, it takes a little bit more time, but I can't see the orders of magnitude difference in required effort and dedication.

k__ 10y ago
I know a few Greeks who went to German language schools for a few months, when they arrived at Germany and they speak German really well. Yes not perfect, but fluent.
SneakerXZ 10y ago
You cannot compare these. You relocate once and after that it is done. Learning a language is on going process that has a lot of phases and you need to do it continuously every single day. I don't want complain how learning German is hard. I only wanted to mention something that nobody says when they talk about Berling being tech hub. You don't have this issue in Silicon Valley. Your working language is also your life language.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > You cannot compare these. You relocate once and after that it is done. Learning a language is on going process that has a lot of phases and you need to do it continuously every single day. Living and working in a foreign country with foreign language/culture is an ongoing process continuing every single day, too.

sneak 10y ago

Learning German isn't that hard, it just takes time.

jfaucett 10y ago

this. I think many German startups perceive it as hip to speak English (while 95℅ of the team speaks fluent if not natively German), and completely neglect the real world negative consequences this policy creates. IMHO the benefits are in most startup cases near none. First, for most German startups your market is German speaking, second almost any super English only speaking talent is going to be even more exited to work for you if you can offer them assimilation, valuable German language work experience, and give them access to all German society has to offer. This is especially true for any immigrant. Finally, in the long term some people might not care about participating in society, watching news, speaking to people without a stilted veil of a foreign accent, or bugging a friend to get a repairman to come to their house, but the vast majority will prefer to be treated as other Germans not as outsiders and be able to fully function in society.

SyneRyder 10y ago
I read somewhere (can't find the reference right now) that many German companies require everyone to speak English in the workplace because of pan-EU work policies. It's an interchange language that also allows citizens from Sweden & Italy etc to work with German speakers, since they all share solid English-as-a-second-language speaking skills. It isn't just limited to startups. [That said, I absolutely believe immigrants should make every effort to learn the native language, it's why I've spent so long trying to learn German before attempting to move there.]
- jfaucett 10y ago
  This is true - externally i.e. outside the 100 million+ people German speaking market. If you need to do business with Swedes, you will do this is English, same for most other EU member states. My point was specific to startups though, once you are a large established company with offices across Europe, English becomes much more beneficial.

merb 10y ago

> It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that. Actually I'm german and I think to learn every bits of our language takes a huge effort. I mean we maybe don't have so many Characters like the Chinese ones. But our huge rules of grammar and special word cases makes it ridicoulus. And then there is the "Neue deutsche Rechtschreibung", which of course some things were reversed in the last years. Basically when just ignoring all those stuff you are probably understood by the most people here even if they will likely try to correct you but I guess except a few there aren't much people that really know how to correctly use the language as a whole.

rb2k_ 10y ago
> But our huge rules of grammar and special word cases makes it ridicoulus I'm German but living in the US for the last few years. I've had American friends in Germany and from what I understand, most things are pretty "regular" compared to other languages. Not that many exceptions. People tell me that pronunciation is usually pretty straight forward compared to e.g. English. There are also some weird rules that I don't recall ever hearing before. e.g. everything ending in "-chen" or "-lein" uses "das" as an article. Not sure if German learners can confirm/deny the learning complexity compared to other languages.
- merb 10y ago
  yeah the basic stuff. but when it comes to tenses, etc. Just look at job descriptions, even feminists don't care about our language.
lorenzhs 10y ago
Neue Rechtschreibung makes things simpler when learning the language. It's only hard to internalize the changes, but esier when learning from scratch. It brings spelling and pronunciation in line. For example, daß doesn't make any sense if you know that "ß" is preceded by a long vowel whereas "ss" (as n the new spelling, dass) is preceded by a short one. Others have already noted that the other things you mentioned may not be as bad as they seem to you.

funkaster 10y ago

Isn't that kind of expected? I mean, if you move to Shanghai I wouldn't expect you to live only speaking English. Or, if you apply to startup Chile, and decide to stay there, at some point I would expect you to learn Spanish. Learning any language takes time and effort and it's integral part of adapting to your host country culture and people. I would even say it's key for a successful relocation.

SneakerXZ 10y ago
Indeed, but what I wanted to say this kind of article creates an impression Berlin is cool place with a startup scene where anyone can move and work there and a lot of people ignore their quality of life will decrease because they don't know the language.
- funkaster 10y ago
  I still don't get your point. I would expect someone moving to some other country to at least read about that place. If I was moving to China, because the startup scene was so good over there, I take for granted that at some point I will have to learn Chinese. It would be very, very naive to move to a country because you read somewhere that the startup scene is so cool somewhere and then realize they don't speak English at the grocery store where you get your croissants.

danmaz74 10y ago

I was thinking how useful it would be to have some "bilingual districts" in at least the top EU cities - areas where you could expect everything to also work in English (including doctors, shops, schools, etc.). For example, I'm considering relocating with my family from Rome and would prefer to stay in the EU, but the UK isn't an option anymore. I'm not planning to move permanently, so, being sure to be able to do everything (not just work) in a comfortable enough way without having to learn the local language would be great.

wolfgke 10y ago
> I was thinking how useful it would be to have some "bilingual districts" in at least the top EU cities There are many people who (in my opinion rightfully) complain that when English speaking people talk of "bilingual"/"multilingual" they nearly always mean "native language + English" instead of "native language + another common language". For example in the southwest of Germany many people will understand French, too. But you stated clearly that this is exactly not what you mean. > I'm considering relocating with my family from Rome Here also Italian + French or Italian + German would be a very natural combinations for a bilingual district in Rome or Italy (Austria, Switzerland and France border to Italy - thus these combinations would be very natural).
- danmaz74 10y ago
  Yes we could also create N! districts, where N is the number of languages spoken in the EU... On a more practical level, I and my wife already speak English fluently, I have two remote teams composed with people from three different nations with whom I speak English, and having to learn eg German would make me need to use 3 different languages (4 for my wife, who is Russian). Seriously, the only shot we have at a European lingua franca at the moment is English. Well, maybe I'll just have to move to Ireland or Canada if I actually move.
  - wolfgke 10y ago
    > Seriously, the only shot we have at a European lingua franca at the moment is English. If we look at the language knowledge in the EU > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union#Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio... 51% knowledge for English is far from a lingua franca in Europe. At least German (32%) and French (26%) are also very common to know. In this sense you shouldn't think that there is some European lingua franca, but rather a small set of languages which has the property that if you know them, the probability is high that you will be understood.

igor_filippov 10y ago

Depends on how you see the world. I know many people who don't speak German and as germans say "fühlen sich wohl".

messutied 10y ago

Been feeling the same since Im living here in Berlin (about 3 months), I know I need to learn the language otherwise I'll never stop feeling like a stranger, but its hard to find time after work, I tried the German course for a month but it was so tiring, now I'm just trying to learn at my own pace with Babel and some audio courses.

maxxxxx 10y ago

I can't imagine not learning the local language quickly if I lived in another country. To me it's part of the fun but it als shows respect. English speaking countries expect immigrants to speak English. So why would things be different anywhere else?

vram22 10y ago

>It is possible to learn German but it requires huge effort and dedication and not many people are capable of that. Interesting. Wondering whether your native language is English. While mine is not, I'm pretty fluent in it. Why I am saying this, is because I've been learning German slowly for a few months now via the Duolingo app on mobile, and I did not find it (so far, anyway) to be very difficult. And that - not finding it difficult - surprised me a bit, because I had heard from friends in high school that they though German, for instance, was harder to learn than French (anecdote only, not data). I thought about the possible reasons for this (my not finding it too hard), and came up with one: since I know English, and German and English have some words and historical and cultural background in common, I could make educated guesses in many cases about the meanings of German words, before learning what they meant (because they were similar to English words meaning the same thing), and also in some other cases, after learning what the words meant, I could, with hindsight, relate them to English words meaning the same thing, just spelled a bit differently. This trick does not work for all words, of course, but does for enough of them, that it eases my learning. Also, I've developed a memory trick to associate new German words with known English words. It's not really anything new, just a form of association of the new word with a memorable (to me) English word or phrase, using what I think is called the memory palace method or something like that (I need to look up if that is the right one I mean).

SyneRyder 10y ago
Duolingo is good, but I'm not sure it's a great measure of understanding the language. I've been teaching myself German over the last 5 years using Duolingo (and LingQ) and I've completed all the German lessons (Level 23) - and while I can read German reasonably well now, I would still struggle to write or speak fluently in German. Thinking of what you want to say quickly is a skill that Duolingo doesn't really teach - but maybe that's where iTalki or LingQ Skype classes come in. [Native English speaker here, for what it's worth.]
- vram22 10y ago
  >Duolingo is good, but I'm not sure it's a great measure of understanding the language. On further thought, I agree. When I wrote what I wrote above, it was in the back of my mind, to also add that I don't think the rate of progress that Duolingo shows for me, can be even near correct. E.g. after these few months (which also had gaps of a few days now and then during which I did not use the app), it now tells me I am 14 or 15% fluent in German - which I don't think can be the case at all, even without knowing much about the structure of the language, the number and kinds of grammar rules, tenses, the number of words in the German vocabulary, etc. (I'm probably much lower, maybe 1 or 2% is my guess, if such a thing can even be measured.) Also, some of my school friends who said German was hard to learn - for others, were Germans (who also spoke good English), so they likely knew what they were saying. >and while I can read German reasonably well now, I would still struggle to write or speak fluently in German. Interesting. Will have to see what my experience is as time goes by. >Thinking of what you want to say quickly is a skill that Duolingo doesn't really teach Will check that as time goes by. Maybe immersion is more useful for that skill.

tormeh 10y ago

I'm not exactly recommending this, but there are communities in Berlin whose main language is English, Turkish, Polish, Russian, whatever. It will probably hurt you in the long run, but you could always "live" in one of these.

collyw 10y ago

It does have the advantage that none of the subtle NLP based advertising will have much effect on you.

junto 10y ago

I'm British and I've been in Germany on and off since 2007. The first few years of learning the language were hard. I spent most of my time with German speakers, and after a few months they got tired of all speaking English for my benefit. At first spending time in a foreign language environment is immensely tiring. I'd be ready for bed every night at 9:30 just from the mental exhaustion, but after a while things start to click. To start with you start to get the gist of the conversations going around you. Then you'd start to participate, and finally you'd have a pretty good idea of what everyone is talking about and would be able to converse with everyone in a social environment. My German is still full of mistakes, and my 5 year old speaks better grammatical German than I do, but people understand me, and that's enough for me.

pm90 10y ago
That's very interesting! I don't think I've read about this process of learning a new language in such a specific way. It makes sense though. I do have a question, if you don't mind my asking. When I arrived in the US from India, I learned very quickly that accent and voice intonation are very important for first impressions and learning an American accent with good intonation has greatly helped me both personally and professionally. So my question is: is it similar in Germany? I was curios to know whether this was just an American cultural thing or whether it was more universal.
- wolfgke 10y ago
  > I learned very quickly that accent and voice intonation are very important for first impressions and learning an American accent with good intonation has greatly helped me both personally and professionally. So my question is: is it similar in Germany? First: There aren't many varieties of German (and you will probably want to learn "Hochdeutsch" (high German) which is the variation that is spoken in Hannover in its purest form) - yes there are varieties, but this is not a concern for most people learning German as a foreign language. So there simply isn't such an analogue to Indian English accent vs. American English accent in German for making first impression etc., since there is "mostly only Hochdeutsch". As long as you have a correct pronounciation it is much more important to be really certain in the grammar (the German grammar has its ugly parts which even some low-educated Germans do wrong; so if you want to make an educated impression it is important to be very certain in the grammar) and have good vocabulary. If you really are able reach this level of German as a foreign speaker, I believe there will be hardly anyone who doubts your willingness to learn. :-)

solidsnack9000 10y ago

An hour a week with a tutor can make a marked difference. While living in Switzerland, I found that High German was not useful and so I would have to learn Swiss German to be able to order a coffee, understand commands in exercise class, &c. Swiss German is not in practice mutually intelligible with German and is for the most part an oral language, lacking online resources or even a standard orthography. Trying to learn from papers and linguistic studies was not working...so I got a tutor. The combination of appropriate source material and targeted corrections made a huge difference in my progress and for a long time after returning to the states I was much more comfortable with Swiss German than High German.

Maultasche 10y ago

I've lived in Germany before, and my advice is to try to speak and listen to the language as much as you possibly can. Don't know the word for something in German? Just throw in the English word and say the rest in German. Will the person you are talking to understand what you are saying? Sometimes they will and sometimes they won't. The point is to try to speak as much German as you possibly can. I found it helpful to make a list of words I needed to say, but couldn't. Then I'd look them up and put them on flash cards until I learned them. Pay attention to the words other people are using when they speak to you. Sometimes you'll catch on to what the word mean without having to look them up and other time you'll need to look them up. I learned so much just from listening to other people. When you're speaking German (or any other language you're learning), you will make mistakes and you will feel like a fool. The most important part is to not let that stop you. Keep making mistakes and keep making stupid blunders, and learn from those mistakes. Anyone who isn't afraid to make mistakes and look stupid will learn a lot faster than someone who is. I was talking to some German students who were recounting some particularly embarrassing language mistakes an American exchange student had made. They did think it was pretty funny, but they also really liked and respected him for trying really hard to speak German, even if he did make mistakes. This same student eventually ended up speaking very good German, and I'm pretty sure it was because he was willing to continue trying despite making lots of mistakes.