| ▲ | dgs_sgd 4 hours ago |
| I appreciate your perspective, but I was curious what B1 proficiency actually entails and this is what I found [1]: - understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar topics such as work, school, or leisure
- manage most situations that occur while traveling in German-speaking areas
- produce simple, connected text on familiar subjects
- describe experiences, events, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and briefly explain your opinions or plans That seems like a reasonable standard of native language proficiency to ask of people who want to make the county with said language their permanent home. [1] https://www.sprachenatelier-berlin.de/en/topic/3736.german-p... |
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| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| B1 is a completely fair minimum standard. It's normal for many countries to expect residents to have basic conversational adequacy. It's also the kind of requirement that's made explicit on government information about residency. So it shouldn't have been a surprise. |
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| ▲ | dgs_sgd 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Like, I imagine if I moved to a country and couldn’t do the B1 things in their language, I would have daily obstacles doing basic life things. | | |
| ▲ | 14u2c an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. It actually can be a problem because most people switch to English as soon as they realize your are not a native speaker, which can make learning harder. | | |
| ▲ | aleph_minus_one 43 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > Not in most of Western and Central Europe. Everyone speaks great English. For sure not in France and Spain (outside of tourist areas). |
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| ▲ | blks an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That is not true for many countries, especially in EU, and especially when you move as a skilled worker. | |
| ▲ | aranelsurion 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I would have daily obstacles doing basic life things. That heavily depends on the city and country. I don't know where OP is, but for example in Berlin it's kinda rare to meet people not speaking any English, basically mostly old people/retirees don't. There are gyms where people speak English, cinemas with English subtitles, all kinds of doctors speak English, even a lot of bureaucracy like driving exams etc. can be taken in English. Speak to a random person in English, odds are very high they respond back in English. I'm not saying this to mean it's 100% easy of course. Default language is ofc German, and not knowing it locks you out sometimes. Just saying that it's possible to live in a city like Berlin and not speak the language, and most days you barely think about it. I'd say it's an obstacle once-twice a month rather than daily. | | |
| ▲ | aleph_minus_one 38 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Berlin is a completely different world than the rest of Germany. Never make the mistake of generalizing anything that you observed in Berlin to Germany outside of Berlin. |
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| ▲ | michaelt 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | A lot of societies are set up to accommodate that society's dumbest members, and tourists, for most everyday tasks. Outside of the workplace and my hobbies, I can't remember the last time someone asked me to read more than a few words, write anything at all, or do any maths more complicated than "the 12:20 train is 10 minutes late" Personally I would say it's not respectful to a society to move there and not make a decent effort to learn the language - but I have no doubt a person could survive with only basic skills, if their workplace worked in their native language and they had an ethnic enclave as a support network. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I have B1 German, finally managing an official certification at the start of this year despite living here since the end of summer of 2018. As societies require accommodations for idiots, I found it so easy to get by with the German I did know that I kept incorrectly assuming I was at B1 level for years and years. B1 requires being able to read headlines and a few paragraphs of a typical newspapers, to briefly plan events, that kind of thing; not just the ingredients and cooking instructions on the back of food packaging and know how much money to hand over to the cashier. Given what I still can't do, I can totally understand why so many job openings I see at the moment require B2 or C1: My grammar is still terrible, and my grasp of accents is still heavily biased towards a handful of podcasts and youtube channels, and being surprised by the conversation topic can still easily confuse me, as I found out on Sunday when someone's classic motorbike broke down outside my house and they asked to borrow a 19mm spanner. | |
| ▲ | mr_toad 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > for most everyday tasks That’s true, if you’re in Paris you can get by with very little French. But don’t be too surprised if Gendarmerie aren’t particularly lenient just because tu ne comprends pas le français. |
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| ▲ | parineum 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | A country like the USA? | | |
| ▲ | thesmtsolver2 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | For the US, you don’t have to know English for permanent residency. You can even have your interview in your own language with an interpreter https://www.uscis.gov/citizenship/exceptions-and-accommodati... | |
| ▲ | cpursley 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | For all its problems, the US is one of the best at accommodating non English. | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not really. There are many immigrant-majority communities in the USA where you can live most of your day-to-day without needing to speak much English. | | |
| ▲ | justacrow 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Any $200k+ SW engineering jobs? | | |
| ▲ | nkrisc 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I’ve known some devs who were recent immigrants and did not speak much English. It wasn’t FAANG and not West coast so I don’t think they were making $200k but they got by and often paired with other devs who spoke their language and much better English. Overall they were nice people and their English improved over time for the duration I knew them. It was a bit of a struggle to communicate sometimes but I didn’t mind it. Any time I felt frustrated about it I just thought about how they must be feeling, and it didn’t seem so bad anymore. English is a pretty forgiving language. | |
| ▲ | ryandrake 12 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | OP was just talking about "doing basic life things." | |
| ▲ | marseysneed 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In the bay area you can get away with very little english proficiency | |
| ▲ | ang_cire 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Honestly, this question is really revealing, because it's the lower-paid SWE jobs that are probably not Bay Area or NYC, which are precisely the places where lower* English fluency is most likely to be tolerated or even the majority. I was the only person on my 5-person team with 'Business English' at my first BA startup, so I got the job of writing all external-routing communications. When I worked remote for a Midwest company years later, it was very clear that anything but perfect English was disqualifying in the eyes of a lot of (Midwest white male) management there. |
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| ▲ | vachina 36 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Exactly. Your life will be easier if you have B1. Your correspondence with everything is in German. |
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| ▲ | rurp 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 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. |
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| ▲ | overfeed 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > 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 41 minutes ago | parent [-] | | 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. |
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| ▲ | blks an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | 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. | |
| ▲ | nkrisc 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | 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. |
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| ▲ | thenoblesunfish 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Agreed, and (especially if you are a nerd who is good at tests) the description of the levels always seemed to me to imply more ability than what you really need to pass the test. OP, just study for the test and pass it. You can, and you will be proud of yourself and happier in your new home country. |
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| ▲ | ButlerianJihad 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Lyft and Uber, currently in my state, are onboarding drivers who are not required to speak any English at all. Their textual communications can occur through app translation, and the driver is not expected to understand anything a rider should say, because the driver should be following their app, not the rider's instructions. The joke is on them, though, because I happen to speak impeccable Spanish with 40 years' experience, and I've successfully intervened when the app inevitably misdirects the driver. I also happily greet drivers in Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, or at least try to understand what country/dictatorship/failed state that they've emigrated/fled from, to be driving in the United States. |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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