4 ms·

It seems weird to me that someone would even want to settle in a foreign country without a good understanding of the language and cultural basics. I've done som

by rurp 3mo ago

It seems weird to me that someone would even want to settle in a foreign country without a good understanding of the language and cultural basics. I've done some traveling in non-English speaking countries and it was a huge hurdle not being completely fluent in the local language. It just seems like common sense to me to dive in all the way if you are moving somewhere long term. I don't really see what a good salary has to do with it either. When it's hard for me to communicate with a neighbor or coworker I don't care whether they have a high or low salary.

nkrisc 3mo ago
Well it’s definitely the best way to learn the language, if you’re motivated to do so. If you want to learn a language, the absolute best thing you can do is to be completely immersed in it.
overfeed 3mo ago
> It seems weird to me that someone would even want to settle in a foreign country without a good understanding of the language and cultural basics These people typically call themselves "expatriates"
- annzabelle 3mo ago
  There's also supposed to be a distinction about intent to leave in a relatively short predetermined time period. I consider myself an expat in New Zealand, because I'm on a ~2 year visa that cannot be extended, and I have no particular intent to try to transfer to a different visa. If I'd been here the same amount of time, in the same job, but on a straight to residency visa I intended to convert to PR/Citizenship, I would be an immigrant.
  - marcus_holmes 3mo ago
    I agree with you, but some don't; I lived in Cambodia for a while, and there were/are "ex-pats" living there with Khmer wives and children, who speak perfect Khmer, work in Cambodian companies, have been there for 20+ years, and still refer to themselves as "ex-pats". But I think this is might be cultural about the host country. Cambodia is blatantly racist, "Cambodia is for the Khmer people" is a thing there. Any non-Khmer immigrant will never be considered Cambodian, always a "barang"(foreigner) no matter how long they live there. This isn't true of NZ, who would happily consider you a Kiwi if you got the citizenship and lived there for a while, no matter your race or origin country.
    - Xixi 3mo ago
      An expat is someone living outside (ex) of their homeland (patria, technically fatherland rather than homeland if we are pedantic). All immigrants and non-immigrants [1] are expats, by definition, no matter the connotation some people have decided to give the word. [1] Non-immigrant is the administrative word used by the United States to designate people that are supposed to leave the country rather than settle in the US, usually on training/work/investor visas.
      - marcus_holmes 3mo ago
        Words mean what people say they mean, in the context that they're said.
    - throwaway2037 3mo ago
      > Cambodia is blatantly racist In my experience, there is nothing special about Cambodia in this regard. You could substitute any poorly developed nation, and you would have similar results. If Cambodia had a GDP per capita similar to Japan/Korea/Taiwan, they would "suddenly" become less racist because they would be much more concerned with economics rather than ethnicity/religion.
      - throw-the-towel 3mo ago
        Who ever said Japan is not xenophobic in this way?
        throwaway2037 3mo ago
        Whenever I bring up Japanese culture, I am guaranteed to get a response like this. It is like a doctor's hammer to the knee: The leg always kicks. It is as low effort as someone saying that there are still blatantly racist people who live in the US "Bible Belt" and think all black people are inferior to white people. It adds so little to the conversation. Ask anyone who has spent time in Japan, there has been a dramatic fall in blatant racism in the last 10-20 years. Yes, there are still rare instances, but the bad old days (before 2000) are gone. There is now a consistent, tiny, visible minority of non-East Asians that live and work in all major Japanese cities. And their children go to local schools. They are mostly working in low skill jobs like restaurants, construction, retail shops, farms, or factories. To be clear, many of those businesses require highly skilled people to run them, but the immigrant labour is doing low skill jobs. Also, there is a tiny fraction of those immigrant workers whom have trained very hard and are no longer low skill, like a bus driver or elderly care nurse. Korea and Taiwan also have large numbers of immigrants doing low skill work. My guess is that probably Taiwan is the most exposed to non-East Asian immigrants because they have a large population of foreign domestic helpers (clean/cook/child+elder care), so that is someone foreign in and around your house all day. I don't think Japan nor Korea has that system.
  - graemep 3mo ago
    I think "supposed" is the key word there. Lots of people live somewhere for decades and still call themselves, and are called, expats.
    - ralferoo 3mo ago
      And they are correct according to the meaning of the word. Expats simply means someone who resides outside of their native country. I guess colloquially it probably implies moving somewhere as an adult, but the word itself doesn't carry that meaning (it's literally ex=outside + patris=homeland). But for instance, my sister has lived permanently in New Zealand for 25 years now (and a few years prior to her permanent move) and has no intention to ever leave, but would still be considered an expat. Her children were born in the UK, but they were 4 and 2 when they moved there, and I don't think they'd ever have considered themselves expats as they've never known anywhere but NZ. In fact the oldest is visiting the UK for a week this year, it'll be the second time he's been in the UK since moving to NZ aged 4.
      - graemep 3mo ago
        That is the original definition, but then all immigrants are expats, and all expats are migrants. The words become synonyms. Then its become very interesting to ask why people prefer one word over the other for particular groups of people.
        ralferoo 3mo ago
        To me, it's useful because it frames it in terms of social connections in the target country and because how it works with an adjective. So, British expats in Spain and Chinese expats in Spain are likely to socialise in their specific group, but rarely if ever intersect. They are all immigrants in the target country (and especially when considered as a whole as everyone from "outside"), and they are all expats (but probably in defined cliques). I'd say these clusters of people are living the "expat life", but equally there are many immigrants who don't particularly want to hang out with other expats, because they're not trying to recreate where they left in a new place, but are trying to assimilate to the new place. They themselves are still expats even if they don't socialise much with other expats, but wouldn't be living the expat life.
- throwaway2037 3mo ago
  This is a perfect reply. When you are a (relatively) high-income migrant, you can safely call yourself an expatriate instead of an immigrant!
blks 3mo ago
Travelling somewhere is not the same as living. It’s pretty common among people without immigration experience to have a certain idealistic idea about it, that does not work in reality. This person lives in a very international city where they speak English at work. For some people it’s not as easy to get to B1-B2 levels while working full time, having children and using English to communicate daily without issues. In many EU countries requirement for a permanent resident status is just 4-6 years of residency, plus sometimes certain income/language level. And there is always EU permanent residence permit that just requires you to reside for 5 years.
graemep 3mo ago
> I've done some traveling in non-English speaking countries and it was a huge hurdle not being completely fluent in the local language. It just seems like common sense to me to dive in all the way if you are moving somewhere long term. I know lots of English speaking people who have settled in non-English speaking countries (or at least countries in which most people do not speak English as a first language) with little knowledge of the main language(s).
jonash54 3mo ago
Exactly. As a german i can say we don‘t care about your salary, we only really care about your language and culture. If you move to a foreign country, learn their language, it‘s literally the only way to integrate into a culture. Germans frown upon rich, tax-paying immigrants that don‘t try to learn german way more than they frown upon B1 speaking ones that don‘t have a job. It‘s about culture, not money. It‘s not the US lol
- sdevonoes 3mo ago
  Doesn’t really match my experience. If you are non white and you go and look for an apartment in any big german city (because you shouldn’t move a small town if you are non white) then you have 2 options: you have money and can afford a slightly higher rent than average or you don’t have extra money and have to compete with the locals. You have very little chance to find something decent if you compete against the locals.
  - ChemSpider 3mo ago
    >(because you shouldn’t move a small town if you are non white) Where does this rule come from? It does not match my experience.

by rurp 3mo ago

nkrisc 3mo ago

Well it’s definitely the best way to learn the language, if you’re motivated to do so. If you want to learn a language, the absolute best thing you can do is to be completely immersed in it.

overfeed 3mo ago

> It seems weird to me that someone would even want to settle in a foreign country without a good understanding of the language and cultural basics These people typically call themselves "expatriates"

annzabelle 3mo ago
There's also supposed to be a distinction about intent to leave in a relatively short predetermined time period. I consider myself an expat in New Zealand, because I'm on a ~2 year visa that cannot be extended, and I have no particular intent to try to transfer to a different visa. If I'd been here the same amount of time, in the same job, but on a straight to residency visa I intended to convert to PR/Citizenship, I would be an immigrant.
- marcus_holmes 3mo ago
  I agree with you, but some don't; I lived in Cambodia for a while, and there were/are "ex-pats" living there with Khmer wives and children, who speak perfect Khmer, work in Cambodian companies, have been there for 20+ years, and still refer to themselves as "ex-pats". But I think this is might be cultural about the host country. Cambodia is blatantly racist, "Cambodia is for the Khmer people" is a thing there. Any non-Khmer immigrant will never be considered Cambodian, always a "barang"(foreigner) no matter how long they live there. This isn't true of NZ, who would happily consider you a Kiwi if you got the citizenship and lived there for a while, no matter your race or origin country.
  - Xixi 3mo ago
    An expat is someone living outside (ex) of their homeland (patria, technically fatherland rather than homeland if we are pedantic). All immigrants and non-immigrants [1] are expats, by definition, no matter the connotation some people have decided to give the word. [1] Non-immigrant is the administrative word used by the United States to designate people that are supposed to leave the country rather than settle in the US, usually on training/work/investor visas.
    - marcus_holmes 3mo ago
      Words mean what people say they mean, in the context that they're said.
  - throwaway2037 3mo ago
    > Cambodia is blatantly racist In my experience, there is nothing special about Cambodia in this regard. You could substitute any poorly developed nation, and you would have similar results. If Cambodia had a GDP per capita similar to Japan/Korea/Taiwan, they would "suddenly" become less racist because they would be much more concerned with economics rather than ethnicity/religion.
    - throw-the-towel 3mo ago
      Who ever said Japan is not xenophobic in this way?
      - throwaway2037 3mo ago
        Whenever I bring up Japanese culture, I am guaranteed to get a response like this. It is like a doctor's hammer to the knee: The leg always kicks. It is as low effort as someone saying that there are still blatantly racist people who live in the US "Bible Belt" and think all black people are inferior to white people. It adds so little to the conversation. Ask anyone who has spent time in Japan, there has been a dramatic fall in blatant racism in the last 10-20 years. Yes, there are still rare instances, but the bad old days (before 2000) are gone. There is now a consistent, tiny, visible minority of non-East Asians that live and work in all major Japanese cities. And their children go to local schools. They are mostly working in low skill jobs like restaurants, construction, retail shops, farms, or factories. To be clear, many of those businesses require highly skilled people to run them, but the immigrant labour is doing low skill jobs. Also, there is a tiny fraction of those immigrant workers whom have trained very hard and are no longer low skill, like a bus driver or elderly care nurse. Korea and Taiwan also have large numbers of immigrants doing low skill work. My guess is that probably Taiwan is the most exposed to non-East Asian immigrants because they have a large population of foreign domestic helpers (clean/cook/child+elder care), so that is someone foreign in and around your house all day. I don't think Japan nor Korea has that system.
- graemep 3mo ago
  I think "supposed" is the key word there. Lots of people live somewhere for decades and still call themselves, and are called, expats.
  - ralferoo 3mo ago
    And they are correct according to the meaning of the word. Expats simply means someone who resides outside of their native country. I guess colloquially it probably implies moving somewhere as an adult, but the word itself doesn't carry that meaning (it's literally ex=outside + patris=homeland). But for instance, my sister has lived permanently in New Zealand for 25 years now (and a few years prior to her permanent move) and has no intention to ever leave, but would still be considered an expat. Her children were born in the UK, but they were 4 and 2 when they moved there, and I don't think they'd ever have considered themselves expats as they've never known anywhere but NZ. In fact the oldest is visiting the UK for a week this year, it'll be the second time he's been in the UK since moving to NZ aged 4.
    - graemep 3mo ago
      That is the original definition, but then all immigrants are expats, and all expats are migrants. The words become synonyms. Then its become very interesting to ask why people prefer one word over the other for particular groups of people.
      - ralferoo 3mo ago
        To me, it's useful because it frames it in terms of social connections in the target country and because how it works with an adjective. So, British expats in Spain and Chinese expats in Spain are likely to socialise in their specific group, but rarely if ever intersect. They are all immigrants in the target country (and especially when considered as a whole as everyone from "outside"), and they are all expats (but probably in defined cliques). I'd say these clusters of people are living the "expat life", but equally there are many immigrants who don't particularly want to hang out with other expats, because they're not trying to recreate where they left in a new place, but are trying to assimilate to the new place. They themselves are still expats even if they don't socialise much with other expats, but wouldn't be living the expat life.
throwaway2037 3mo ago
This is a perfect reply. When you are a (relatively) high-income migrant, you can safely call yourself an expatriate instead of an immigrant!

blks 3mo ago

Travelling somewhere is not the same as living. It’s pretty common among people without immigration experience to have a certain idealistic idea about it, that does not work in reality. This person lives in a very international city where they speak English at work. For some people it’s not as easy to get to B1-B2 levels while working full time, having children and using English to communicate daily without issues. In many EU countries requirement for a permanent resident status is just 4-6 years of residency, plus sometimes certain income/language level. And there is always EU permanent residence permit that just requires you to reside for 5 years.

graemep 3mo ago

> I've done some traveling in non-English speaking countries and it was a huge hurdle not being completely fluent in the local language. It just seems like common sense to me to dive in all the way if you are moving somewhere long term. I know lots of English speaking people who have settled in non-English speaking countries (or at least countries in which most people do not speak English as a first language) with little knowledge of the main language(s).

jonash54 3mo ago

Exactly. As a german i can say we don‘t care about your salary, we only really care about your language and culture. If you move to a foreign country, learn their language, it‘s literally the only way to integrate into a culture. Germans frown upon rich, tax-paying immigrants that don‘t try to learn german way more than they frown upon B1 speaking ones that don‘t have a job. It‘s about culture, not money. It‘s not the US lol

sdevonoes 3mo ago
Doesn’t really match my experience. If you are non white and you go and look for an apartment in any big german city (because you shouldn’t move a small town if you are non white) then you have 2 options: you have money and can afford a slightly higher rent than average or you don’t have extra money and have to compete with the locals. You have very little chance to find something decent if you compete against the locals.
- ChemSpider 3mo ago
  >(because you shouldn’t move a small town if you are non white) Where does this rule come from? It does not match my experience.