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Agree on language, but that's actually a strength of Berlin vs. anywhere else on the Continent: you can get by with English-only quite well. Maybe not quite as

by rdl 13y ago

Agree on language, but that's actually a strength of Berlin vs. anywhere else on the Continent: you can get by with English-only quite well. Maybe not quite as well as in the nordic countries/NL, but cost of living is absurd in nordics, and they're "boring" so not so appealing to 15-35 year old immigrants from the US/UK/etc. who could live/work anywhere. (If I were the DE or Berlin governments, I'd make a huge focus of putting dual German/English signage all over in government and private life; everyone meaningful can speak English, but there are a bunch of places with German-only signage. In Frankfurt, there's the semi-absurd situation of English only signage, for stuff like Rental Car Return; due to the US military presence and international companies, there are probably more English-only renters than German-only renters.) (I'm not sure what's gone wrong with Amsterdam. It had some great early successes, and some great universities, and hfh were about as awesome as ccc, if smaller, but people seem...not so risk-taking, and consensus focused?)

netcan 13y ago
Amsterdam seems ideal on paper. It's fun, young, eductaed, extremely international and easy to immigrate to. Cheaper than London. Warmer than Copenhagen. English is as good as a second language can be. I'm not even sure you can make a cultural argument that makes sense about Amsterdam. There are so many foreigners there that the culture is <40% Dutch. A city where most residents decided to live there because of a fun urban environment is risk taking by some definition of the term. The only cultural argument I can think of is that it's quite euro-leftist, not very capitalistic.
neverminder 13y ago
I've travelled quite a bit around Europe, spent probably a year of my life in Germany, 5 years in Norway and now 5 years in UK. I can only tell you this - if you stay in the country and not speak it's language you will always be a designated "tourist". Speaking the language means that you're serious about investing in that country and that gives you undeniable credibility. So yes, in Berlin not speaking German can definitely be a problem, but I don't think that learning it is a big problem either. Determination of a startup founder goes a long way, eh?
- rdl 13y ago
  The surreal thing for me was that the only people I encountered who didn't speak (great) English, and forced me to rely on my mediocre 20-years-ago High School German, were Turkish (fairly recent immigrants; I was staying in Neukoelln). You definitely would want to learn German for social reasons but it's absolutely not a prerequisite for moving there and being effective at most companies -- unlike, say, a top Japanese or Chinese company, or (from what I've been told) major French or Italian companies. In those places you might get away without good local language skills briefly if you're a specialist consultant, but it's going to make you pretty useless professionally otherwise, long term. I suspect a reasonably intelligent English speaker could pick up enough German to be happy socially in months, based on my reasonably intelligent English-speaking friends who moved there without speaking German beforehand.

by rdl 13y ago

netcan 13y ago

Amsterdam seems ideal on paper. It's fun, young, eductaed, extremely international and easy to immigrate to. Cheaper than London. Warmer than Copenhagen. English is as good as a second language can be. I'm not even sure you can make a cultural argument that makes sense about Amsterdam. There are so many foreigners there that the culture is <40% Dutch. A city where most residents decided to live there because of a fun urban environment is risk taking by some definition of the term. The only cultural argument I can think of is that it's quite euro-leftist, not very capitalistic.

neverminder 13y ago

I've travelled quite a bit around Europe, spent probably a year of my life in Germany, 5 years in Norway and now 5 years in UK. I can only tell you this - if you stay in the country and not speak it's language you will always be a designated "tourist". Speaking the language means that you're serious about investing in that country and that gives you undeniable credibility. So yes, in Berlin not speaking German can definitely be a problem, but I don't think that learning it is a big problem either. Determination of a startup founder goes a long way, eh?

rdl 13y ago
The surreal thing for me was that the only people I encountered who didn't speak (great) English, and forced me to rely on my mediocre 20-years-ago High School German, were Turkish (fairly recent immigrants; I was staying in Neukoelln). You definitely would want to learn German for social reasons but it's absolutely not a prerequisite for moving there and being effective at most companies -- unlike, say, a top Japanese or Chinese company, or (from what I've been told) major French or Italian companies. In those places you might get away without good local language skills briefly if you're a specialist consultant, but it's going to make you pretty useless professionally otherwise, long term. I suspect a reasonably intelligent English speaker could pick up enough German to be happy socially in months, based on my reasonably intelligent English-speaking friends who moved there without speaking German beforehand.