5 ms·

“with German requirement” is the issue - you’ve no longer got over 1 billion people who speak English, but only about 150 million, and a lot of those second-lan

“with German requirement” is the issue - you’ve no longer got over 1 billion people who speak English, but only about 150 million, and a lot of those second-language speakers skew old. If you’re a young person who has learned front-end development, you’re more likely to have picked up English along the way than German. English exposure is casual (documentation, tech communities, American pop culture); German exposure outside of DACH requires seeking it out. I work at a big, traditional German manufacturing company, and the “old” parts of IT (infrastructure, SAP) generally talk amongst themselves in German and produce obviously translated English documentation stuffed into badly-organized PDFs, while the newer parts (machine learning and its cloud-based infrastructure, web and app development) are a glorious mix of languages and cultures, with English as the means of communication (German colleagues occasionally having arguments and explaining complex things to each other in German) and documentation of varying quality accessible and searchable as HTML. Several colleagues in the “new” part of IT who speak just enough German to deal with the Ausländerbehörde and order at a Biergarten, but have to interact with our local internal customers in English. They get hired anyway. They’re offered German courses, but as a side benefit, not required training. Not speaking German well puts a ceiling on your career here, but certainly wouldn’t stop someone getting hired for a hard-to-fill technical role.

hughesjj 3y ago
As an American this sounds like my fiancee speaking mandarin any time shit gets real lol English is the new lingua franca, and I'd bet English terms will have as much sticking power 1000 years from now as latin/"Italian" does today as a result.
- hyperman1 3y ago
  English having sticking power depends on how the future goes. Why did Latin stick around so much? Basically because no 2 european countries spoke the same language so it was the only way long-term communication was possible, voth over time and distance. Additional causes were the church clinging to latin, and knowledge in books was in Latin. Both of these were self reenforcing. So in a future with 100s of tiny languages, English might stick around for a long time. If however a new great empire rises ( China? Arab? Something on nobody's radar?), the days of all previous great languages are over, including English.
  - carlmr 3y ago
    I'm not that convinced. Latin was used past the crumbling roman empire because it was sticky. Like you said, the only way to communicate. And English already spread to all continents, something Latin didn't have at the time. If e.g. Mandarin Chinese were to become lingua franca they'd have to first simplify the writing system. It's just too much effort for a foreigner to learn. Excluding the Japanese for this, since they share a lot of the writing system. They might have a chance. Vietnamese shows that you can communicate in a language that was entirely written in Chinese characters before if you add word separation, tone markers and latin characters. Pinyin with tone markers and word separation is quite readable. It could be a way forward. Korean also has letters and used to be Chinese characters. It's definitely possible but the move would have to come before widespread adoption could happen. I know plenty of people who tried to learn Chinese for 2-5 years and plainly gave up because it's too hard. English on a similarly basic level can be adopted in ~6 months with less effort. It's not the same. Arabic could more easily become a lingua franca by virtue of a) already being widespread, and b) having pretty good standardization already. If India rises they're already using English to communicate, because Hindi only gets you so far. It would probably be more stickiness for English.
    - hyperman1 3y ago
      I'll respectfully disagree here. English is one of the worst choices for a latin alphabet based lingua franca, as a mix of germanic and romanic languages, with inconsistent to non-existent rules, differences between sound vs written character. It got its current status by piggybacking on 2 empires, with a bonus of hollywood for planetary indoctrination. I've seen a few languages lose lingua franca status in their subdomains in my liftime: French as the ex-language of political power in Belgium, and German as the ex-technical documentation language. In fact, seeing more and more Chinese appear in electronic spec cheats, I've wondered if such a change isn't already happening for English. As always, the cultural core of the power in vogue will be the last to notice the disappearance of status. There was a document regularly appearing here on HN: The fate of empires, linked below. If you follow it's rules, you'd expect a new power appear out of nowhere. So for a new lingua franca, we just can't predict what will be the choice, but the existing big languages might be the worst candidates. I believe English will be lingua franca until a new empire will rule the world. If the USA disappears and balkanization follows, English will have a long life. But if a global invasion from a new culture comes, English is done for. http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf
egeozcan 3y ago
I (edit: I mean, "we", of course) did relax the German language requirement once, and did find talent from eastern Europe, but for the whole team, it just felt too awkward having to segregate meetings between English and German speaking crowd. Both sides had shown some inflexibility. Especially older Germans finding it too much trouble having to speak English and complaining that they can't fully express themselves, while the few English-speaking complaining about the poor quality of the generated subtitles and leaving, in the extremely rare (once or twice per year) event that they got invited into a German-speaking meeting (things like Townhall meetings and such, nothing too important). So after a year or two, most left. On the other hand, many new graduates are complaining that they can't find a job, while most of them fail at fizzbuzz (I hate the silly brain-teaser interviews just as the next person but fizzbuzz, come on!), rest get totally demotivated when they hear that they can't just code 100% greenfield projects and/or show zero interest in learning anything that's not React. I'm known to be lazy, but I came here 14 years ago as the kid who develops small business sites in Perl/PHP and had the motivation to learn German, learn all the -ends (back, front, embedded, had the "chance" to do weird stuff with RFID gates and such), learned to do ETL stuff, involved in consulting, architecture and so on... Many colleagues did the same as well. Currently in a lead position but I've learned a lot how the Java ecosystem works and involved even in JSF in my current job! My point is, I never had the worry to be irrelevant because there were always something next, but currently most juniors just want the one true and tested way to go forward. I sincerely don't get why.
- fatfingerd 3y ago
  I think your expectations aren't really inline with the environment from the perspective of these different possible employees. In Switzerland, my minimum salary expectation was 30k more a year if working in English for a US/International company remotely or here, that was extremely realistic and someone in Germany would be looking at a much larger loss in pay when working for a German firm. If they are making that choice they may think local job and culture should be rubbing off as a benefit, so you only need to send them to one general event to show their limited potential upside isn't making progress per year despite high cost per year.
  - 3y ago
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
This is very similar to France. The last sentence is particularly true: lots of important things are being said in French among French-speaking people. Spoken French is also quite complex because it makes use of many references (usually shared by people of similar age) and relies a lot on second degree (what you hear is not what is meant). This is probably the most complicated part. My wife learnt to speak French and she initially had issues to understand people nt because she was lacking words but because what she was hearing did not make a lot of sense. It is because it was either a reference or (less common because people knew she was not a native speaker) second degree). Finally we decide in France to make our own life difficult by reinventing a lot of technical computer-oriented words, but this si the same in German.
BrandoElFollito 3y ago
This is very similar to France. The last sentence is particularly true: lots of important things are being said in French among French-speaking people. Spoken French is also quite complex because it makes use of many references (usually shared by people of similar age) and relies a lot on second degree (what you hear is not what is meant). This is probably the most complicated part. My wife learnt to speak French and she initially had issues to understand people nt because she was lacking words but because what she was hearing did not make a lot of sense. It is because it was either a reference or (less common because people knew she was not a native speaker) second degree). Finally we decide in France to make our own life difficult by reinventing a lot of technical computer-oriented words, but this is the same in German.
- tharkun__ 3y ago
  Can't say anything about the France part but as for the difficult by reinventing a lot of technical computer-oriented words, but this is the same in German. This isn't actually the case in German. One reason why it was so easy to run away from Germany was that all the work related stuff was basically in English already anyway. You just had to learn the "regular sentence parts between the work related words" and that you learn in high-school English well enough. Sure there was the odd professor that would call a stack a "Stapel", but nobody but him would call it that. Now of course the parts of CS that are pure maths, you are correct that they all have German words. But they're had that for hundreds of years. Actual computer-oriented run-of-the-ill words like you describe? Lots of Denglish! I actually find that I can talk and converse perfectly at work because of it. Never lost for words. But in regular conversation outside of work I do search for words sometimes still.
  - rubberpoliceman 3y ago
    > Sure there was the odd professor that would call a stack a "Stapel" “Kellerspeicher”, certainly
    - tharkun__ 3y ago
      OMG, that rings a bell. Might have been that instead, yep! It's been a while. Was literally only the one prof too.

hughesjj 3y ago

As an American this sounds like my fiancee speaking mandarin any time shit gets real lol English is the new lingua franca, and I'd bet English terms will have as much sticking power 1000 years from now as latin/"Italian" does today as a result.

hyperman1 3y ago
English having sticking power depends on how the future goes. Why did Latin stick around so much? Basically because no 2 european countries spoke the same language so it was the only way long-term communication was possible, voth over time and distance. Additional causes were the church clinging to latin, and knowledge in books was in Latin. Both of these were self reenforcing. So in a future with 100s of tiny languages, English might stick around for a long time. If however a new great empire rises ( China? Arab? Something on nobody's radar?), the days of all previous great languages are over, including English.
- carlmr 3y ago
  I'm not that convinced. Latin was used past the crumbling roman empire because it was sticky. Like you said, the only way to communicate. And English already spread to all continents, something Latin didn't have at the time. If e.g. Mandarin Chinese were to become lingua franca they'd have to first simplify the writing system. It's just too much effort for a foreigner to learn. Excluding the Japanese for this, since they share a lot of the writing system. They might have a chance. Vietnamese shows that you can communicate in a language that was entirely written in Chinese characters before if you add word separation, tone markers and latin characters. Pinyin with tone markers and word separation is quite readable. It could be a way forward. Korean also has letters and used to be Chinese characters. It's definitely possible but the move would have to come before widespread adoption could happen. I know plenty of people who tried to learn Chinese for 2-5 years and plainly gave up because it's too hard. English on a similarly basic level can be adopted in ~6 months with less effort. It's not the same. Arabic could more easily become a lingua franca by virtue of a) already being widespread, and b) having pretty good standardization already. If India rises they're already using English to communicate, because Hindi only gets you so far. It would probably be more stickiness for English.
  - hyperman1 3y ago
    I'll respectfully disagree here. English is one of the worst choices for a latin alphabet based lingua franca, as a mix of germanic and romanic languages, with inconsistent to non-existent rules, differences between sound vs written character. It got its current status by piggybacking on 2 empires, with a bonus of hollywood for planetary indoctrination. I've seen a few languages lose lingua franca status in their subdomains in my liftime: French as the ex-language of political power in Belgium, and German as the ex-technical documentation language. In fact, seeing more and more Chinese appear in electronic spec cheats, I've wondered if such a change isn't already happening for English. As always, the cultural core of the power in vogue will be the last to notice the disappearance of status. There was a document regularly appearing here on HN: The fate of empires, linked below. If you follow it's rules, you'd expect a new power appear out of nowhere. So for a new lingua franca, we just can't predict what will be the choice, but the existing big languages might be the worst candidates. I believe English will be lingua franca until a new empire will rule the world. If the USA disappears and balkanization follows, English will have a long life. But if a global invasion from a new culture comes, English is done for. http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf http://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf

egeozcan 3y ago

I (edit: I mean, "we", of course) did relax the German language requirement once, and did find talent from eastern Europe, but for the whole team, it just felt too awkward having to segregate meetings between English and German speaking crowd. Both sides had shown some inflexibility. Especially older Germans finding it too much trouble having to speak English and complaining that they can't fully express themselves, while the few English-speaking complaining about the poor quality of the generated subtitles and leaving, in the extremely rare (once or twice per year) event that they got invited into a German-speaking meeting (things like Townhall meetings and such, nothing too important). So after a year or two, most left. On the other hand, many new graduates are complaining that they can't find a job, while most of them fail at fizzbuzz (I hate the silly brain-teaser interviews just as the next person but fizzbuzz, come on!), rest get totally demotivated when they hear that they can't just code 100% greenfield projects and/or show zero interest in learning anything that's not React. I'm known to be lazy, but I came here 14 years ago as the kid who develops small business sites in Perl/PHP and had the motivation to learn German, learn all the -ends (back, front, embedded, had the "chance" to do weird stuff with RFID gates and such), learned to do ETL stuff, involved in consulting, architecture and so on... Many colleagues did the same as well. Currently in a lead position but I've learned a lot how the Java ecosystem works and involved even in JSF in my current job! My point is, I never had the worry to be irrelevant because there were always something next, but currently most juniors just want the one true and tested way to go forward. I sincerely don't get why.

fatfingerd 3y ago
I think your expectations aren't really inline with the environment from the perspective of these different possible employees. In Switzerland, my minimum salary expectation was 30k more a year if working in English for a US/International company remotely or here, that was extremely realistic and someone in Germany would be looking at a much larger loss in pay when working for a German firm. If they are making that choice they may think local job and culture should be rubbing off as a benefit, so you only need to send them to one general event to show their limited potential upside isn't making progress per year despite high cost per year.
- 3y ago

BrandoElFollito 3y ago

This is very similar to France. The last sentence is particularly true: lots of important things are being said in French among French-speaking people. Spoken French is also quite complex because it makes use of many references (usually shared by people of similar age) and relies a lot on second degree (what you hear is not what is meant). This is probably the most complicated part. My wife learnt to speak French and she initially had issues to understand people nt because she was lacking words but because what she was hearing did not make a lot of sense. It is because it was either a reference or (less common because people knew she was not a native speaker) second degree). Finally we decide in France to make our own life difficult by reinventing a lot of technical computer-oriented words, but this si the same in German.

BrandoElFollito 3y ago

tharkun__ 3y ago
Can't say anything about the France part but as for the difficult by reinventing a lot of technical computer-oriented words, but this is the same in German. This isn't actually the case in German. One reason why it was so easy to run away from Germany was that all the work related stuff was basically in English already anyway. You just had to learn the "regular sentence parts between the work related words" and that you learn in high-school English well enough. Sure there was the odd professor that would call a stack a "Stapel", but nobody but him would call it that. Now of course the parts of CS that are pure maths, you are correct that they all have German words. But they're had that for hundreds of years. Actual computer-oriented run-of-the-ill words like you describe? Lots of Denglish! I actually find that I can talk and converse perfectly at work because of it. Never lost for words. But in regular conversation outside of work I do search for words sometimes still.
- rubberpoliceman 3y ago
  > Sure there was the odd professor that would call a stack a "Stapel" “Kellerspeicher”, certainly
  - tharkun__ 3y ago
    OMG, that rings a bell. Might have been that instead, yep! It's been a while. Was literally only the one prof too.