7 ms·

Random thought: the UK has the advantage of speaking English. First, that makes it easier for them to pull in other Europeans, since english is commonly the se

Random thought: the UK has the advantage of speaking English. First, that makes it easier for them to pull in other Europeans, since english is commonly the second language of most other Europeans. Second they can also pull in American and Canadian expats much easier than anyone else in Europe. Germany is more interesting to me. German is not exactly the worlds most common first or second language. So this is more evidence of their complete and utter domination within the eu.

pjmlp 8y ago
When I did my degree in the mid-90s it was already common to do a semester in Germany. My university had exchange programs with Fraunhofer for those doing graphics research.
borroka 8y ago
Assuming (wrongly, but that's ok at first approximation) that money spent on academic research is a fraction of GDP, and that there is a positive correlation between money spent on research and jobs in research, UK and Germany should come on top for number of scientists. Plus they have, apart from the French CNRS, the top Institutions for scientific research in Europe.
egeozcan 8y ago
Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can learn German rather easily (with a pretty distinct accent, which I really like :)). Your point stands though, as they usually don't know this before they actually start learning, so they must have other reasons.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  Totally irrelevant but perhaps amusing: In my American high school, I took German as a second language (yay Wisconsin). I then took Mandarin Chinese in college. Even in my fifth year, when a teacher asked me a question, I had a 50/50 chance of thinking of the answer in German first. It was utterly maddening. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to travel abroad or maintain that knowledge, so all I really remember is "ich spreche nür ein bischen deutch". That, and the day that my teacher asked me what "ich habe keine ahnung" meant, I didn't know. She had me ask another student... Imagine my frustration when the only answer was "I have no idea".
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Oh, it’s not hard, I agree. I just think that continentals being taught English so they can do business with the Americans is probably very common.
- zhdc1 8y ago
  Boatloads of native English speaking expats in Germany would love it if this were true.
- jayalpha 8y ago
  "Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can learn German rather easily" I doubt that. While English is part of the West Germanic languages, there are huge grammatical differences. I assume it would be much easier for a Polish or Russian Person to learn German than for an English. The sentence "Man bites Dog" and "Dog bites Man" has a different meaning in English, due to to position of the noun. In German, both is possible. "Der Hund beisst den Mann" and "Den Mann beisst der Hund" has the same meaning. Declension makes the word order in German very flexible.
  - sverige 8y ago
    As a native English speaker who studied German, Russian, and Polish, German was much easier to learn than the Slavic languages. The case system is smaller than Russian or Polish, and there are far more cognates which makes learning vocabulary much easier. Also, articles (e.g., "a" and "the") are notoriously difficult for non-native speakers of English, but German is similar enough. Learning cases is a little hard, and the silly capitalization rules are a hindrance, but probably the most difficult thing in German for most English speakers is waiting for the damn verb to make its appearance. It's harder to guess what it will be than it is for native German speakers. I would guess that learning German would be easier than English for a native speaker of a Slavic language, though, precisely because syntax plays such a critical role in English, which has only the barest vestiges of a case system remaining. My Russian friends in particular make some amusing errors with word order sometimes, but I think it's charming. Edit: and for the example given, "Man bites dog" and "Dog bites man," what is required is a verb change, perhaps a couple of articles, and correct capitalization (unless it's a news headline, in which case it's fine). So, "Dog bites Man" can be written as "The man was bitten by a dog" with the same meaning. English verbs are also hard for non-native speakers, though.
    - _delirium 8y ago
      I guess some of this is also, to what level do you need to learn German? Some of the parts of German grammar that are difficult for English speakers can be mostly avoided by just phrasing things differently. Basic use of cases is necessary, but some of the rules around compound sentences can be skipped at first by just using simpler sentences. If what you're after is a reasonable conversational/email level of German, that's enough for many things, and you can always learn more constructs later. If you want to be a professor in the humanities and need to write/speak a formal academic level of German, that's different, but that's probably not the common case for HN readers.
- tphan 8y ago
  Can you tell the difference between American and British English speakers?
rndgermandude 8y ago
German is the most common language in the EU after English, and the top first language even before English.
- iaskwhy 8y ago
  Sorry, it's not your fault but I found this funny because, of course German is the top first language in the EU, it's EU's most populous country, by far. Romanian is the 7th and Dutch the 8th and so on, pretty much every country has its own national language, with only a few exceptions.
  - jotm 8y ago
    Don't forget Austria, those sneaky bastards also speak German, adding to the numbers :D
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      As an American who learned German, that feels more like a technicality than a reality.
      - zeroc8 8y ago
        It's the common language that divides us ;) (I'm Austrian)
  - bobthechef 8y ago
    But there are more non-native English speakers than non-native German speakers. Everyone is learning English, German far less so.
pageald 8y ago
Are there a lot of American expat software engineers in the UK? For most people, it would be a steep pay cut to move from the US to anywhere in the EU.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  There are some especially in the city finance and some engineering firms do pay six figures for non managerial engineering talent and while the pound has dropped it’s still possible to get a $130-150k base salary in the city and unlike the US you get a very good pension and benefits on top of that. But if you compare the averages then yes you’ll be lucky breaking $70K in the EU.
  - meguest 8y ago
    I work for a US organisation in London, and not finance. The average compensation for engineers is about £100,000 - some above and some below. This is on top of private medical and dental, generous pension contributions and a number of other benefits.
    - dogma1138 8y ago
      Same for us, finance has slightly above average comp packages especially the bonus but in London it’s possible to get to 100K as an engineer outside of it it begins to drop drastically some tech hubs can have high salaries but Manchester for example tops out at around 80K and that’s also pretty hard to get. Outside of the UK you might be lucky to get €50-60K even when working for US firms on average this includes Germany. Some Nordic countries have higher salaries but the CoL is pretty steep. Overall if you don’t include taxes it’s possible to get competitive salaries in the UK and some parts of Europe once you take into account income tax and VAT you’ll the race isn’t nearly as close anymore. Also startups do not pay well at all and equity is nearly unheard off even for single digit non-founder employees.
      - olavgg 8y ago
        CoL? Seriously here in Norway getting over 100K € annually is becoming normal. If you are really talented, then you can even make 150k € annually. Freelancers make over 200k € annually. There is a huge shortage for developers these days, much thanks to "digital transformation" trend.
zhdc1 8y ago
English is very prevalent in German higher academia and industry.

pjmlp 8y ago

When I did my degree in the mid-90s it was already common to do a semester in Germany. My university had exchange programs with Fraunhofer for those doing graphics research.

borroka 8y ago

Assuming (wrongly, but that's ok at first approximation) that money spent on academic research is a fraction of GDP, and that there is a positive correlation between money spent on research and jobs in research, UK and Germany should come on top for number of scientists. Plus they have, apart from the French CNRS, the top Institutions for scientific research in Europe.

egeozcan 8y ago

Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can learn German rather easily (with a pretty distinct accent, which I really like :)). Your point stands though, as they usually don't know this before they actually start learning, so they must have other reasons.

zdragnar 8y ago
Totally irrelevant but perhaps amusing: In my American high school, I took German as a second language (yay Wisconsin). I then took Mandarin Chinese in college. Even in my fifth year, when a teacher asked me a question, I had a 50/50 chance of thinking of the answer in German first. It was utterly maddening. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to travel abroad or maintain that knowledge, so all I really remember is "ich spreche nür ein bischen deutch". That, and the day that my teacher asked me what "ich habe keine ahnung" meant, I didn't know. She had me ask another student... Imagine my frustration when the only answer was "I have no idea".
village-idiot 8y ago
Oh, it’s not hard, I agree. I just think that continentals being taught English so they can do business with the Americans is probably very common.
zhdc1 8y ago
Boatloads of native English speaking expats in Germany would love it if this were true.
jayalpha 8y ago
"Contrary to what most people believe, I see that native English speakers can learn German rather easily" I doubt that. While English is part of the West Germanic languages, there are huge grammatical differences. I assume it would be much easier for a Polish or Russian Person to learn German than for an English. The sentence "Man bites Dog" and "Dog bites Man" has a different meaning in English, due to to position of the noun. In German, both is possible. "Der Hund beisst den Mann" and "Den Mann beisst der Hund" has the same meaning. Declension makes the word order in German very flexible.
- sverige 8y ago
  As a native English speaker who studied German, Russian, and Polish, German was much easier to learn than the Slavic languages. The case system is smaller than Russian or Polish, and there are far more cognates which makes learning vocabulary much easier. Also, articles (e.g., "a" and "the") are notoriously difficult for non-native speakers of English, but German is similar enough. Learning cases is a little hard, and the silly capitalization rules are a hindrance, but probably the most difficult thing in German for most English speakers is waiting for the damn verb to make its appearance. It's harder to guess what it will be than it is for native German speakers. I would guess that learning German would be easier than English for a native speaker of a Slavic language, though, precisely because syntax plays such a critical role in English, which has only the barest vestiges of a case system remaining. My Russian friends in particular make some amusing errors with word order sometimes, but I think it's charming. Edit: and for the example given, "Man bites dog" and "Dog bites man," what is required is a verb change, perhaps a couple of articles, and correct capitalization (unless it's a news headline, in which case it's fine). So, "Dog bites Man" can be written as "The man was bitten by a dog" with the same meaning. English verbs are also hard for non-native speakers, though.
  - _delirium 8y ago
    I guess some of this is also, to what level do you need to learn German? Some of the parts of German grammar that are difficult for English speakers can be mostly avoided by just phrasing things differently. Basic use of cases is necessary, but some of the rules around compound sentences can be skipped at first by just using simpler sentences. If what you're after is a reasonable conversational/email level of German, that's enough for many things, and you can always learn more constructs later. If you want to be a professor in the humanities and need to write/speak a formal academic level of German, that's different, but that's probably not the common case for HN readers.
tphan 8y ago
Can you tell the difference between American and British English speakers?

rndgermandude 8y ago

German is the most common language in the EU after English, and the top first language even before English.

iaskwhy 8y ago
Sorry, it's not your fault but I found this funny because, of course German is the top first language in the EU, it's EU's most populous country, by far. Romanian is the 7th and Dutch the 8th and so on, pretty much every country has its own national language, with only a few exceptions.
- jotm 8y ago
  Don't forget Austria, those sneaky bastards also speak German, adding to the numbers :D
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    As an American who learned German, that feels more like a technicality than a reality.
    - zeroc8 8y ago
      It's the common language that divides us ;) (I'm Austrian)
- bobthechef 8y ago
  But there are more non-native English speakers than non-native German speakers. Everyone is learning English, German far less so.

pageald 8y ago

Are there a lot of American expat software engineers in the UK? For most people, it would be a steep pay cut to move from the US to anywhere in the EU.

dogma1138 8y ago
There are some especially in the city finance and some engineering firms do pay six figures for non managerial engineering talent and while the pound has dropped it’s still possible to get a $130-150k base salary in the city and unlike the US you get a very good pension and benefits on top of that. But if you compare the averages then yes you’ll be lucky breaking $70K in the EU.
- meguest 8y ago
  I work for a US organisation in London, and not finance. The average compensation for engineers is about £100,000 - some above and some below. This is on top of private medical and dental, generous pension contributions and a number of other benefits.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Same for us, finance has slightly above average comp packages especially the bonus but in London it’s possible to get to 100K as an engineer outside of it it begins to drop drastically some tech hubs can have high salaries but Manchester for example tops out at around 80K and that’s also pretty hard to get. Outside of the UK you might be lucky to get €50-60K even when working for US firms on average this includes Germany. Some Nordic countries have higher salaries but the CoL is pretty steep. Overall if you don’t include taxes it’s possible to get competitive salaries in the UK and some parts of Europe once you take into account income tax and VAT you’ll the race isn’t nearly as close anymore. Also startups do not pay well at all and equity is nearly unheard off even for single digit non-founder employees.
    - olavgg 8y ago
      CoL? Seriously here in Norway getting over 100K € annually is becoming normal. If you are really talented, then you can even make 150k € annually. Freelancers make over 200k € annually. There is a huge shortage for developers these days, much thanks to "digital transformation" trend.

zhdc1 8y ago

English is very prevalent in German higher academia and industry.