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Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. Otherwise there's no "luring people in." Every time someone brings this up, a bunch of

Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. Otherwise there's no "luring people in." Every time someone brings this up, a bunch of people are like, "Have you ever worked in the EU? They all speak English at work." Yes, I have, and also on three other continents. Europe hasn’t adopted English at work that much, and no one I know is excited about dealing with racism, picking up the local language while doing high-octane white-collar jobs or research. Europe keeps a ton of jobs gated behind language requirements. Sure, you'll get the most desperate people who need a visa this way, but Europe isn’t attracting top of the crop like the US this way. Also, the red tape is brutal and everything requires six layers of bureaucracy. Even Amazon orders and customer service suck, but that's beside the point. It's way easier to get into a great US university and get funding for research. It's also easier to get a job afterward. The sheer number of opportunities, combined with the lack of a language barrier and less bureaucracy, makes the US better than all the other alternatives despite the poor transportation, weak social safety net, and terrible healthcare.

viraptor 1y ago
Holy mother of generalisations. I'm not even going to try addressing separate things. My problem with the post is that the claims are too broad to refute, but too FUD to not respond to.
prmoustache 1y ago
> Europe hasn’t adopted English at work that much Not where it isn't strictly necessary and I believe it is a good thing but I've seen english being used whenever people from multiple european countries are working with each other. It is the case in IT and definitely the case in research too. Even 27 years ago when I was an intern in France, my office was next to the office of some mathematicians, I believe one japanese, a russian and another one I don't remember and they were all speaking in english.
hnhg 1y ago
Which part of Europe? It really doesn't make sense to generalise such a diverse set of countries. Can you be more specific?
satanfirst 1y ago
Drawing on one or even a few experiences for a conclusion for all of Europe in all sectors is a bit much. Scientific Organizations are not looking for local language skills. Many are in Germany which is very bureaucratic about other aspects of life, but they all spend their time on standardized International bureaucracy. The Universities in other countries might be harder to get in to, yet I wouldn't buy a $250k US University scratch ticket in a field like science. (The US University is a particularly poor investment for less qualified students.)
klunger 1y ago
This reads like a bitter ex-employee. I guess you were in Germany? There are plenty of European countries that do use English as the working language for technical fields, if there is not enough domestic talent. What you say about the US research ecosystem may have been true until January 2025 but it is unfortuantely no longer the case. At the same time, the EU is finally getting its act together in both defense AND research funding. So I would forecast a sunnier future in Europe for scientists than the the US, at least for the next generation.
- ykonstant 1y ago
  I don't know about defense, but on mathstodon people are having bitter laughs over the "500 million for research", when the UK alone with its faltering economy manages to get multiple times that in the same time frame.
  - alternatex 1y ago
    Is it 500 million for research or 500 million for luring US researchers to Europe? They are vastly different things so we need to be on the same page for this to be a productive discussion.
    - klunger 1y ago
      It 500 mil to lure US researchers. They say "from every country" because they have to, but we know why it was made and who will get most of it.
MattPalmer1086 1y ago
It may have been easier to get funding for research in the US, but that's looking a bit harder right now, no?
peer2pay 1y ago
Out of everything wrong in this comment the funniest one is "Even Amazon orders […] suck" Care to elaborate? Last time I was in the US my prime order took over a week to be delivered because it had to get shipped from a warehouse in rural Ohio to San Diego. Here in Germany you get absolutely everything next day because the country is about the size of an average US state.
- Axsuul 1y ago
  If you live in a major metropolitan area in the US it’s basically same day more
aden1ne 1y ago
> Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. But it is International English alright, which may be somewhat of a novelty to the native English speaker if they haven't been exposed. > Even Amazon orders That's wholly Amazon's problem. If I order something from BOL or Coolblue it arrives within 12-24 hours. Even small pop-and-mom webstores usually deliver within 1-2 business days. It's only Amazon that somehow manages to average more than a week (my last order at Amazon only arrived after 2 months. Guess why I no longer use their service).
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- NotOscarWilde 1y ago
  > I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. I have the same trajectory as you -- multiple countries in the EU, working in academia -- but different experiences for sure. Or at least a mixed bag. Let me list them in order of how much English sufficed: 1. The Netherlands -- common knowledge is that their English is top notch and anecdotally it was the case as well, I also got by purely with English. 2. Germany -- their English is also good but I needed German in edge cases. One edge case was finding an apartment (not speaking German simply pushed you down the list of candidates, even with a full time job in academia). Another one were university rules and announcements; not every email was in English, but arguably easy to get by with modern translation tools. 3. Czechia & Poland -- English is good among the professors but the percentage of locals at the university level is so high that most internal meetings, announcements, local seminars take place in the local language. In my experience, non-faculty university staff (department secretaries, payroll, entrance security) usually strongly dislike speaking English or outright do not speak it at all. --- I've omitted some more cases where local languages are required. If you live in a country, you will eventually interact with the healthcare sector, where the language experience will likely mimic the experience at the workplace (for the countries above, it would be in the same order for the healthcare sector). Another case is government bureaucracy. For most of the EU countries I've been to, the official language of the country is their local language and only their local language. This means that government employees are not required to speak any other language other than the official one to you, plus you might be required to fill in forms and communicate in the official language if you want to talk to them. In my experience, the helpful/good ones may try to communicate with you in English but if you need something from them or if the bureaucrat had a bad day, you better start talking in the official language.
aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. Indeed: German is the most common first language of the EU, and French is the second-most common first language of the EU. [1] Let's from now on decide that all EU citizens have to speak one of these two languages. Language fragmentation problem solved. :-) Or are you one of the nerds who lobbies for the idea that everybody should speak Esperanto. Concerning the idea that "everybody in the EU should speak English": since UK left the EU, there exists no EU country anymore in which English is the only official language: only in Ireland and Malta, English is one of the official languages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union#Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...
- waltercool 1y ago
  I disagree. You can't kill million years of history, so you can get more immigrants. Languages are lot more than speak, it also describes people and the way they interact each other.
eGP9jDq_nw 1y ago
Europe's cultural and linguistic diversity is a feature, not a bug. Anyone unwilling to acquire a nation's national tongue is unfit for migration to begin with and the primary cause for rising anti-migration sentiment across the continent

viraptor 1y ago

Holy mother of generalisations. I'm not even going to try addressing separate things. My problem with the post is that the claims are too broad to refute, but too FUD to not respond to.

prmoustache 1y ago

> Europe hasn’t adopted English at work that much Not where it isn't strictly necessary and I believe it is a good thing but I've seen english being used whenever people from multiple european countries are working with each other. It is the case in IT and definitely the case in research too. Even 27 years ago when I was an intern in France, my office was next to the office of some mathematicians, I believe one japanese, a russian and another one I don't remember and they were all speaking in english.

hnhg 1y ago

Which part of Europe? It really doesn't make sense to generalise such a diverse set of countries. Can you be more specific?

satanfirst 1y ago

Drawing on one or even a few experiences for a conclusion for all of Europe in all sectors is a bit much. Scientific Organizations are not looking for local language skills. Many are in Germany which is very bureaucratic about other aspects of life, but they all spend their time on standardized International bureaucracy. The Universities in other countries might be harder to get in to, yet I wouldn't buy a $250k US University scratch ticket in a field like science. (The US University is a particularly poor investment for less qualified students.)

klunger 1y ago

This reads like a bitter ex-employee. I guess you were in Germany? There are plenty of European countries that do use English as the working language for technical fields, if there is not enough domestic talent. What you say about the US research ecosystem may have been true until January 2025 but it is unfortuantely no longer the case. At the same time, the EU is finally getting its act together in both defense AND research funding. So I would forecast a sunnier future in Europe for scientists than the the US, at least for the next generation.

ykonstant 1y ago
I don't know about defense, but on mathstodon people are having bitter laughs over the "500 million for research", when the UK alone with its faltering economy manages to get multiple times that in the same time frame.
- alternatex 1y ago
  Is it 500 million for research or 500 million for luring US researchers to Europe? They are vastly different things so we need to be on the same page for this to be a productive discussion.
  - klunger 1y ago
    It 500 mil to lure US researchers. They say "from every country" because they have to, but we know why it was made and who will get most of it.

MattPalmer1086 1y ago

It may have been easier to get funding for research in the US, but that's looking a bit harder right now, no?

peer2pay 1y ago

Out of everything wrong in this comment the funniest one is "Even Amazon orders […] suck" Care to elaborate? Last time I was in the US my prime order took over a week to be delivered because it had to get shipped from a warehouse in rural Ohio to San Diego. Here in Germany you get absolutely everything next day because the country is about the size of an average US state.

Axsuul 1y ago
If you live in a major metropolitan area in the US it’s basically same day more

aden1ne 1y ago

> Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. The language fragmentation certainly is an issue in the general workplace. But academia does use English as its lingua franca throughout most of the EU, though it might depend on the country. Certainly in places I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. But it is International English alright, which may be somewhat of a novelty to the native English speaker if they haven't been exposed. > Even Amazon orders That's wholly Amazon's problem. If I order something from BOL or Coolblue it arrives within 12-24 hours. Even small pop-and-mom webstores usually deliver within 1-2 business days. It's only Amazon that somehow manages to average more than a week (my last order at Amazon only arrived after 2 months. Guess why I no longer use their service).

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
NotOscarWilde 1y ago
> I've worked in academia - and yes, that has been in multiple countries in the EU - I've never had to utter a single word in something other than English in the workplace. I have the same trajectory as you -- multiple countries in the EU, working in academia -- but different experiences for sure. Or at least a mixed bag. Let me list them in order of how much English sufficed: 1. The Netherlands -- common knowledge is that their English is top notch and anecdotally it was the case as well, I also got by purely with English. 2. Germany -- their English is also good but I needed German in edge cases. One edge case was finding an apartment (not speaking German simply pushed you down the list of candidates, even with a full time job in academia). Another one were university rules and announcements; not every email was in English, but arguably easy to get by with modern translation tools. 3. Czechia & Poland -- English is good among the professors but the percentage of locals at the university level is so high that most internal meetings, announcements, local seminars take place in the local language. In my experience, non-faculty university staff (department secretaries, payroll, entrance security) usually strongly dislike speaking English or outright do not speak it at all. --- I've omitted some more cases where local languages are required. If you live in a country, you will eventually interact with the healthcare sector, where the language experience will likely mimic the experience at the workplace (for the countries above, it would be in the same order for the healthcare sector). Another case is government bureaucracy. For most of the EU countries I've been to, the official language of the country is their local language and only their local language. This means that government employees are not required to speak any other language other than the official one to you, plus you might be required to fill in forms and communicate in the official language if you want to talk to them. In my experience, the helpful/good ones may try to communicate with you in English but if you need something from them or if the bureaucrat had a bad day, you better start talking in the official language.

aleph_minus_one 1y ago

> Europe really needs to fix the funding issue and language fragmentation. Indeed: German is the most common first language of the EU, and French is the second-most common first language of the EU. [1] Let's from now on decide that all EU citizens have to speak one of these two languages. Language fragmentation problem solved. :-) Or are you one of the nerds who lobbies for the idea that everybody should speak Esperanto. Concerning the idea that "everybody in the EU should speak English": since UK left the EU, there exists no EU country anymore in which English is the only official language: only in Ireland and Malta, English is one of the official languages. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Union#Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...

waltercool 1y ago
I disagree. You can't kill million years of history, so you can get more immigrants. Languages are lot more than speak, it also describes people and the way they interact each other.

eGP9jDq_nw 1y ago

Europe's cultural and linguistic diversity is a feature, not a bug. Anyone unwilling to acquire a nation's national tongue is unfit for migration to begin with and the primary cause for rising anti-migration sentiment across the continent