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.

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.

> 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.