4 ms·

>As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another langua

>As someone from the UK, my main reason for not moving anywhere else in Europe is the language barrier. I'm not even sure I'm capable of learning another language I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you. Not long after arriving, I accidentally got a job at a startup, and I'd been led to believe everything was done in English internally: communications; client emails; heck, even variable names in the code, all was in English and I had nothing to fear. This turned out to be a slight exaggeration; anything in English was the rare exception, rather than the rule. You know what, though? Even without lessons and fully resenting Polish's grammar, you learn really quick. You also won't be facing this alone; as long as you're actually capable of getting the job done, plenty of local language speakers in your office will bend over backwards to encourage and help you. Don't let language be the only thing holding you back. If I had my time again, I'd let things like bureaucracy and road safety guide my decision rather than what noises come out of peoples' mouths.

Tade0 10y ago
> I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you. Interesting direction. As a Polish person I have to ask: was your reason to move personal, or did you notice a career opportunity and went after it?
- dvdhnt 10y ago
  So, I still live in the U.S., but generally try to meet people abroad as often as possible while remaining in contact via Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. While, personally, the U.K. and Sweden remain the most viable destinations if I were to move abroad, Poland isn't far behind in terms of the personalities of the people I've met, the scenery they've showed me, and the cultural/historical depth there. Obviously, take that with a truck load of salt since I've yet to visit.
  - reacharavindh 10y ago
    Curious what you think of Netherlands and Denmark as places to live and work..
krzyk 10y ago
> even variable names in the code, all was in English As a English-is-my-second-language person I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English. English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish), and it is much easier to share code on the net, find help on stackoverflow, etc.
- otoburb 10y ago
  >>English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish) [...] If one were to pick Polish variable names, would the default be the neutral forms[1]? I'm sure this applies to other languages that also have forms of complex declension compared to English. Which would make more sense in Polish? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar#Nouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar#Nouns
- mgbmtl 10y ago
  Say you're implementing a field-specific solution, do you use the US English term or the term that's written on the users know? (specs, documentation, etc) If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? There's also a huge risk in having a translation error. We're programmers, not translators. For general variable names, I agree. On the other hand, in my experience, when the programmers aren't fluent enough in English, if English is imposed, they tend to choose really bad variable names and not comment their code properly. So I tend to impose clear names/doc over imposing a specific language.
  - krzyk 10y ago
    In Poland it is generally assumed that a programmer knows English, most of the companies here are just branches of companies from other countries (not only US/UK based) and to communicate we use English as a common ground. Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing: if (znalezione) { ... } looks awkward. Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code: zwierzęta.stream() .filter(z -> z.kończyny().contains(noga)) .map(z -> z.toString()) .collect(Collectors.toList());

Tade0 10y ago

> I moved to Poland from the UK yonks ago, and have equally disastrous - if not worse - language skills as you. Interesting direction. As a Polish person I have to ask: was your reason to move personal, or did you notice a career opportunity and went after it?

dvdhnt 10y ago
So, I still live in the U.S., but generally try to meet people abroad as often as possible while remaining in contact via Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. While, personally, the U.K. and Sweden remain the most viable destinations if I were to move abroad, Poland isn't far behind in terms of the personalities of the people I've met, the scenery they've showed me, and the cultural/historical depth there. Obviously, take that with a truck load of salt since I've yet to visit.
- reacharavindh 10y ago
  Curious what you think of Netherlands and Denmark as places to live and work..

krzyk 10y ago

> even variable names in the code, all was in English As a English-is-my-second-language person I can't imagine naming variables using any other language but English. English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish), and it is much easier to share code on the net, find help on stackoverflow, etc.

otoburb 10y ago
>>English is most of the times more concise than my mother language (Polish) [...] If one were to pick Polish variable names, would the default be the neutral forms[1]? I'm sure this applies to other languages that also have forms of complex declension compared to English. Which would make more sense in Polish? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar#Nouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_grammar#Nouns
mgbmtl 10y ago
Say you're implementing a field-specific solution, do you use the US English term or the term that's written on the users know? (specs, documentation, etc) If another developer comes on board, will their English be fluent enough to know those terms? There's also a huge risk in having a translation error. We're programmers, not translators. For general variable names, I agree. On the other hand, in my experience, when the programmers aren't fluent enough in English, if English is imposed, they tend to choose really bad variable names and not comment their code properly. So I tend to impose clear names/doc over imposing a specific language.
- krzyk 10y ago
  In Poland it is generally assumed that a programmer knows English, most of the companies here are just branches of companies from other countries (not only US/UK based) and to communicate we use English as a common ground. Another factor to consider is that if we write in language that has some constructs (e.g. C - if/then/else/while/return/int/double/class/void etc.) then writing: if (znalezione) { ... } looks awkward. Also one has to consider popular libraries and functions/methods/classes in them are English based, so this would add even more awkwardness to the code: zwierzęta.stream() .filter(z -> z.kończyny().contains(noga)) .map(z -> z.toString()) .collect(Collectors.toList());