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Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. You can have near unlimited low-qualification worker supply from your strictly speaking neighboring countr

Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. You can have near unlimited low-qualification worker supply from your strictly speaking neighboring countries, but not necessarily world-class skilled workers, specially, if those workers willing to move from one country to another can pick options with less conditions. Also, you can have potential supply, not willing to move, just because of nationalist stuff (forced "integration") or other elements that could make a country less attractive than another. Don't get me wrong: I would love Germany, and all EU countries getting as much talent as possible, from the internal EU area, and also from other countries as well. I'm worried about nationalism and the lack of pragmatism ruining job flexibility and business attractiveness, so European companies have such a huge handicap for competing in the international market.

wolfgke 9y ago
> Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. There are only three EU countries (UK, Ireland, Malta) where English is an official language - soon there will be only two. For comparison: German is official language in four EU countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg) and French in three (France, Belgium, Luxembourg). Now let's look at data for language knowledge in the EU: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languages_of_the_European_Union&oldid=776168976#Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languages_of_the_... The most common first language in the EU is German. Other important first languages are English, French and Italian (this table has not yet included the fact that soon for English this number has to be much lower). Totally (in number of native and non-native speakers) English (51%) looks more important than German (32%) or French (26%). Now I tell you an observation: When (EU) people are talking that they know English as an additional language, this often means "really bad English" (just try to converse with Italians in English ;-) ). This is clearly not sufficient knowledge for using English in a professional environment. On the other hand when they claim to know German or French as an additional language, this typically promises much better language skills than if such a claim is made for English by some person. So I would argue that "people knowing enough of the language such that in, say, half a year they could use this language in a professional environment" for English the "51%" must be made smaller by a lot, while for German and French a similar correction should be much more minor. Really: On a wordwide scale English might have a large role, but if you talk about EU, there are other languages (in particular German and French) that are at least of similar importance "for EU purposes" (just as in South America Spanish and Portuguese are the important languages and not English) - and with Brexit their importance will surely even increase.
- faragon 9y ago
  English is the lingua franca in IT, worldwide. Everyone in IT knows it, to some extent. And even general population get English as second or third language. English teaching is generalized at developed countries, while German it is not. P.S. My English is also "bad", being a Spaniard myself, but enough for working in English in IT (not for writing novels, obviously).
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > English is the lingua franca in IT, worldwide. Everyone in IT knows it, to some extent. At an internship at a German-French software company there also was a French programming department (alongside the German one, where I interned). I can assure you: They hardly knew English, at best it was a mixture between French and English, where to understand the English (in the source code) you often had to translate it back to French in your mind (because otherwise it made no sense).
    - faragon 9y ago
      Sure, that's precisely what I'm warning about: if you need to adapt to the international market you can not wait 2 or 3 years for someone to adapt to a local "circumstance". Not taking advance that in all EU countries English is at least in primary and secondary education, it is a mistake, in my opinion. More pragmatism in IT through the EU would increase the capability for reaching regional full potential. E.g. Imagine you're in Germany and you can not hire an expert in some specific specialty because language issues (i.e. because your staff is not able to work in English). Also, when doing collaboration between European companies: imagine having to deal with documentation written in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, etc. Fortunately, most European IT companies do most of the code and documentation in English (that was not the case of 20-30 years ago, e.g. Imagine having to reprogram 6502 assembly stuff commented in French -or a CPU-less logic circuit, for adding more fun-, or understanding the German documentation for a 25 year old ticket issue machine built in Austria).

wolfgke 9y ago

> Well, for neighboring countries I meant EU countries. There are only three EU countries (UK, Ireland, Malta) where English is an official language - soon there will be only two. For comparison: German is official language in four EU countries (Germany, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg) and French in three (France, Belgium, Luxembourg). Now let's look at data for language knowledge in the EU: > https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languages_of_the_European_Union&oldid=776168976#Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Languages_of_the_... The most common first language in the EU is German. Other important first languages are English, French and Italian (this table has not yet included the fact that soon for English this number has to be much lower). Totally (in number of native and non-native speakers) English (51%) looks more important than German (32%) or French (26%). Now I tell you an observation: When (EU) people are talking that they know English as an additional language, this often means "really bad English" (just try to converse with Italians in English ;-) ). This is clearly not sufficient knowledge for using English in a professional environment. On the other hand when they claim to know German or French as an additional language, this typically promises much better language skills than if such a claim is made for English by some person. So I would argue that "people knowing enough of the language such that in, say, half a year they could use this language in a professional environment" for English the "51%" must be made smaller by a lot, while for German and French a similar correction should be much more minor. Really: On a wordwide scale English might have a large role, but if you talk about EU, there are other languages (in particular German and French) that are at least of similar importance "for EU purposes" (just as in South America Spanish and Portuguese are the important languages and not English) - and with Brexit their importance will surely even increase.

faragon 9y ago
English is the lingua franca in IT, worldwide. Everyone in IT knows it, to some extent. And even general population get English as second or third language. English teaching is generalized at developed countries, while German it is not. P.S. My English is also "bad", being a Spaniard myself, but enough for working in English in IT (not for writing novels, obviously).
- wolfgke 9y ago
  > English is the lingua franca in IT, worldwide. Everyone in IT knows it, to some extent. At an internship at a German-French software company there also was a French programming department (alongside the German one, where I interned). I can assure you: They hardly knew English, at best it was a mixture between French and English, where to understand the English (in the source code) you often had to translate it back to French in your mind (because otherwise it made no sense).
  - faragon 9y ago
    Sure, that's precisely what I'm warning about: if you need to adapt to the international market you can not wait 2 or 3 years for someone to adapt to a local "circumstance". Not taking advance that in all EU countries English is at least in primary and secondary education, it is a mistake, in my opinion. More pragmatism in IT through the EU would increase the capability for reaching regional full potential. E.g. Imagine you're in Germany and you can not hire an expert in some specific specialty because language issues (i.e. because your staff is not able to work in English). Also, when doing collaboration between European companies: imagine having to deal with documentation written in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, etc. Fortunately, most European IT companies do most of the code and documentation in English (that was not the case of 20-30 years ago, e.g. Imagine having to reprogram 6502 assembly stuff commented in French -or a CPU-less logic circuit, for adding more fun-, or understanding the German documentation for a 25 year old ticket issue machine built in Austria).