You'd be amazed at the bubbles expats can live in, especially high-value personnel like embassy staff, executives or subject matter experts. I've heard of peopl

You'd be amazed at the bubbles expats can live in, especially high-value personnel like embassy staff, executives or subject matter experts. I've heard of people with english-speaking house staff (who also do all shopping), driver, everyone at the office, personal secretary who organises absolutely everything, doctors, schools - and a 24-hour phone number to dial if there's any difficulties outside that. People can go for years without ever actually having to talk to a local in their own language. Plus, there can be weird dynamics at work. Some people will actually look down on you as having somehow debased yourself for making too much effort to study the local language, both fellow foreigners and the locals themselves. As best as I can understand, they think it comes across as too eager to please, or an attempt to ingratiate, or that you obviously don't love your own culture enough, or that you evidently have too much time and thus can't be all that important... have heard some variation on all of them. Especially in Asia, there's a kind of stereotype of the Big Important Foreigner who has been Appointed to this Developing Country to do Important Things. Suddenly breaking into fluent $LOCALDIALECT kind of shatters that illusion and raises all sorts of questions. Sounds strange, but it's a thing.