5 ms·

What about the language barrier? Would English be enough?

by ayberk 10y ago

erikbye 10y ago
At least in the beginning, and for many companies. International hires is common. There are quite a few offices where English is the official language, as well. You can see that a lot of ads on the site is in English.
chillax 10y ago
for consulting learning norwegian would probably be an advantage.
- erikbye 10y ago
  It's implicitly understood that learning a country's official language(s) is an advantage.
  - janoc 10y ago
    In Scandinavia you could get by with English as a lot of people speak it, but for business dealings you need to learn the local language. If nothing else you will need to communicate with the authorities constantly - immigration/work permit matters, insurances, health care, etc. So don't expect English to carry you far unless you know at least the basics of the local language.
    - rhblake 10y ago
      Not merely a lot (in Sweden, anyway) - I'd say the vast majority of Swedes are fluent in English; of course more or less so but I don't think I've ever met a Swede who couldn't at the very least hold a basic conversation in English. And that goes for authorities too. Had a non-Swedish partner for a few years who always communicated in English in all interactions with Sweden's governmental services - no problem. All important government websites are available in English. Knowing Swedish isn't even a requirement for citizenship. So while knowing Swedish is certainly very beneficial and recommended, you can certainly get by without it, and work for many interesting companies (at least as a developer).
      - groovy2shoes 10y ago
        My wife and I spent two weeks in Sweden (well, two of those days were spent in Oslo...), and we only encountered one person who didn't speak English. He was a pizzaman/bartender in Nynäshamn, and luckily all the dudes sitting at the bar translated for us in drunken semi-unison :) (Honestly, though, we probably would've gotten along fine without the translators, as we'd spent a couple months with Rosetta Stone before traveling... we were/are far from fluent, sure, but good enough to order a pizza, I'd imagine ;) ).
      - janoc 10y ago
        I lived in Denmark for 5 years and yes, it has been like that. However, all the paperwork you will need to handle will still come in the official language, not in English. All contracts and legal documents will be in that language as well. So not knowing at least the basics will handicap you severely. I have learned enough of Danish to be able to read the paperwork and do some basic writen communication. That's really the minimum to get you by. Spoken Danish was a bit too much - the saying that Danish is not a language but a throat disease is not far from the truth!
      - Broken_Hippo 10y ago
        I'm in Norway, and it is similar here. Not all industries are so kind to non-Norwegian speaking applicants, but government and everyday life usually isn't an issue. Half of the official paperwork has English as well as Norwegian - and English transcripts and official documents are OK to turn into the government without further translation. That said, as soon as I started getting some actual Norwegian language skills, it improved.
        erikbye 10y ago
        Where did you relocate from? Differences of note in regards to work culture?
dzhiurgis 10y ago
Looking at the brackets in original post it's mostly Lisp
- Johnny_Brahms 10y ago
  I know it was a joke, but we might actually be hiring someone to do scheme development (in Sweden, not Norway). We started as a mostly delphi shop doing software for smaller private healthcare businesses. Most of our internal tooling evolved started as one-off scripts I wrote in guile. Our business grew to deliver huge installations on tens of thousands of computers, and our internal tooling grew as well. We have well over 100k lines of scheme. Since it works well, we don't really want to invest in porting it. We tried rewriting our macro system in python, but it was god-awfully slow, and ended up being harder to read. With scheme, we can just rely on syntax-case to de-construct the macros, which is not only fast but also easy to extend.
  - snowcrshd 10y ago
    This looks pretty interesting. Would you have a jobs listing page somewhere? I've dabbled in scheme, though I'm most proficient at Clojure.
staticelf 10y ago
I am from Sweden and basically everyone here (except some immigrants) speak english very fluently. You would have no issues living in any Nordic country with only English. I worked at a pretty international company before where there was several individuals whom had lived in Sweden for several years without even bothering to learn the language. Don't be that guy or gal though, Swedes don't like it when you live here for years without learning anything. Norway is the same, same with Finland and Denmark. You are welcome, if you ever consider moving I could probably give you some tips of potential employers!
- tasnimreza 10y ago
  Hey I'm moving at Gothenburg around end of November, anything should i consider?
  - staticelf 10y ago
    Don't move to the ghetto. I don't know what places are bad to live in Gothenburg but I am sure you can look it up. But regarding employers, I don't know that many in Gothenburg but you could look up Fast2 maybe?
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      Parts of Gothemburg is actually bad I understand. Even police refuse to go there.
- zeus_hammer 10y ago
  I've been strongly considering moving since spending a semester abroad. Any potential employers or leads you think I should consider? Email's in profile so feel free to pm
  - staticelf 10y ago
    You can check some work at https://www.uptrail.com/ https://www.uptrail.com/ for example. I am actually in the making of a swedish job site for developers. But you will have to wait for that one though. Otherwise, you can search for your language of choice at https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/ https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/. I am sure lots of jobs will turn up, at least in Stockholm. What you want to do is probably to use Google Translate on that webpage or something because their english version sucks ass.
kmfrk 10y ago
The Nordic countries and Finland have the highest proficiency in English as a foreign language, so you'll have no problem communicating with them. And the Duolingo app has Norwegian, too. :)
Broken_Hippo 10y ago
Sometimes English is enough to get through a workplace at times - a lot of tech jobs have English speaking workplaces, for example. Outside of some industries, however, learning the language is nearly required. Socially, however, you'll likely find you'll want to learn the local language. English does get you pretty far, however, and a lot of folks speak English to varying degrees.

What about the language barrier? Would English be enough?

by ayberk 10y ago

What about the language barrier? Would English be enough?

At least in the beginning, and for many companies. International hires is common. There are quite a few offices where English is the official language, as well. You can see that a lot of ads on the site is in English.

chillax 10y ago

for consulting learning norwegian would probably be an advantage.

erikbye 10y ago
It's implicitly understood that learning a country's official language(s) is an advantage.
- janoc 10y ago
  In Scandinavia you could get by with English as a lot of people speak it, but for business dealings you need to learn the local language. If nothing else you will need to communicate with the authorities constantly - immigration/work permit matters, insurances, health care, etc. So don't expect English to carry you far unless you know at least the basics of the local language.
  - rhblake 10y ago
    Not merely a lot (in Sweden, anyway) - I'd say the vast majority of Swedes are fluent in English; of course more or less so but I don't think I've ever met a Swede who couldn't at the very least hold a basic conversation in English. And that goes for authorities too. Had a non-Swedish partner for a few years who always communicated in English in all interactions with Sweden's governmental services - no problem. All important government websites are available in English. Knowing Swedish isn't even a requirement for citizenship. So while knowing Swedish is certainly very beneficial and recommended, you can certainly get by without it, and work for many interesting companies (at least as a developer).
    - groovy2shoes 10y ago
      My wife and I spent two weeks in Sweden (well, two of those days were spent in Oslo...), and we only encountered one person who didn't speak English. He was a pizzaman/bartender in Nynäshamn, and luckily all the dudes sitting at the bar translated for us in drunken semi-unison :) (Honestly, though, we probably would've gotten along fine without the translators, as we'd spent a couple months with Rosetta Stone before traveling... we were/are far from fluent, sure, but good enough to order a pizza, I'd imagine ;) ).
    - janoc 10y ago
      I lived in Denmark for 5 years and yes, it has been like that. However, all the paperwork you will need to handle will still come in the official language, not in English. All contracts and legal documents will be in that language as well. So not knowing at least the basics will handicap you severely. I have learned enough of Danish to be able to read the paperwork and do some basic writen communication. That's really the minimum to get you by. Spoken Danish was a bit too much - the saying that Danish is not a language but a throat disease is not far from the truth!
    - Broken_Hippo 10y ago
      I'm in Norway, and it is similar here. Not all industries are so kind to non-Norwegian speaking applicants, but government and everyday life usually isn't an issue. Half of the official paperwork has English as well as Norwegian - and English transcripts and official documents are OK to turn into the government without further translation. That said, as soon as I started getting some actual Norwegian language skills, it improved.
      - erikbye 10y ago
        Where did you relocate from? Differences of note in regards to work culture?

dzhiurgis 10y ago

Looking at the brackets in original post it's mostly Lisp

Johnny_Brahms 10y ago
I know it was a joke, but we might actually be hiring someone to do scheme development (in Sweden, not Norway). We started as a mostly delphi shop doing software for smaller private healthcare businesses. Most of our internal tooling evolved started as one-off scripts I wrote in guile. Our business grew to deliver huge installations on tens of thousands of computers, and our internal tooling grew as well. We have well over 100k lines of scheme. Since it works well, we don't really want to invest in porting it. We tried rewriting our macro system in python, but it was god-awfully slow, and ended up being harder to read. With scheme, we can just rely on syntax-case to de-construct the macros, which is not only fast but also easy to extend.
- snowcrshd 10y ago
  This looks pretty interesting. Would you have a jobs listing page somewhere? I've dabbled in scheme, though I'm most proficient at Clojure.

staticelf 10y ago

I am from Sweden and basically everyone here (except some immigrants) speak english very fluently. You would have no issues living in any Nordic country with only English. I worked at a pretty international company before where there was several individuals whom had lived in Sweden for several years without even bothering to learn the language. Don't be that guy or gal though, Swedes don't like it when you live here for years without learning anything. Norway is the same, same with Finland and Denmark. You are welcome, if you ever consider moving I could probably give you some tips of potential employers!

tasnimreza 10y ago
Hey I'm moving at Gothenburg around end of November, anything should i consider?
- staticelf 10y ago
  Don't move to the ghetto. I don't know what places are bad to live in Gothenburg but I am sure you can look it up. But regarding employers, I don't know that many in Gothenburg but you could look up Fast2 maybe?
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    Parts of Gothemburg is actually bad I understand. Even police refuse to go there.
zeus_hammer 10y ago
I've been strongly considering moving since spending a semester abroad. Any potential employers or leads you think I should consider? Email's in profile so feel free to pm
- staticelf 10y ago
  You can check some work at https://www.uptrail.com/ https://www.uptrail.com/ for example. I am actually in the making of a swedish job site for developers. But you will have to wait for that one though. Otherwise, you can search for your language of choice at https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/ https://www.arbetsformedlingen.se/. I am sure lots of jobs will turn up, at least in Stockholm. What you want to do is probably to use Google Translate on that webpage or something because their english version sucks ass.

kmfrk 10y ago

The Nordic countries and Finland have the highest proficiency in English as a foreign language, so you'll have no problem communicating with them. And the Duolingo app has Norwegian, too. :)

Broken_Hippo 10y ago

Sometimes English is enough to get through a workplace at times - a lot of tech jobs have English speaking workplaces, for example. Outside of some industries, however, learning the language is nearly required. Socially, however, you'll likely find you'll want to learn the local language. English does get you pretty far, however, and a lot of folks speak English to varying degrees.