True, that's another big reason for people to not move out of the UK. I've worked in Germany before, and I left mainly because of the language.

Why not just learn German? It's relatively close to English and one of the more useful languages to know.

Having spent many years living in Switzerland (and learning German), it's really hard for people in our industry to do that. Maybe if you work as a bartender all day you'll get fluent fast, but in the software business the entire industry is oriented around English, so you tend to use English all day even in places where most of your colleagues are from other European countries.

And you want to make friends, right? Well, there are lots of other people who want to make friends too: other foreigners who moved there. Who also don't speak the local language.

So you end up finding that learning German or whatever ends up being not much easier than doing so in high school: your opportunities to practice are limited. I have learned it, but basically through just doing lessons. My best Swiss friend comes from the French speaking part, so that was no help.

Excuses, excuses

> your opportunities to practice are limited

I spent 1 weekend in Zurich. I had a lot of opportunities to practice, falling back to English only when needed.

Then I went to Germany for a bit and again had endless opportunities to practice.

You still have to deal with eating, shopping, renting a place, going to a doctor, etc.

If the first thing that comes out of your mouth is "English, bitte?", yeah, you're not learning anything.

And the other foreigners there? Some have better German than English. They also want to learn.

One weekend is not what I'd call "a lot of opportunities". If you think it is then we're discussing different levels of fluency. I'm quite conversational in German. I would not say I have a lot of opportunities to practice because restaurant and supermarket German are so simple they don't help me get any better.

Swiss people learn English in school. I have only met a few who cannot speak English well. It's a much more common issue that I want to speak German with them, but they don't actually like German (it's something of a foreign language too compared to dialect), and they prefer to practice their English with me. Linguistic tugs of war are always awkward.

> One weekend is not what I'd call "a lot of opportunities". If you think it is then we're discussing different levels of fluency. I'm quite conversational in German

I fully agree with you, I was at a beginner's level on that occasion. Yes, if you are conversational then it's not going to change much (from your original post it seemed you barely spoke German)

And yes, the way to progress from conversational to the upper levels is mainly through classes

> but they don't actually like German (it's something of a foreign language too compared to dialect)

Ah that's true. Nobody speaks Hochdeutsch on everyday life. And Schweizerdeutsch is weird

It takes time. I was actually working and taking German classes after work. But that adds to frustration, since you get more tired and you still don't understand anything because it takes a lot of time to get proficient.

It is funny that people in the start-up industry are unwilling to be 'agile' about languages. Personally, I'm terrible at learning languages, but limiting myself to potentially a hazardous place to live in just because they speak english, is not a great reason.

That is a more serious issue but there's the option of Dublin/Ireland and other places where the population is English-fluent and everything is available in English.

In Amsterdam speaking English is well accepted.