As others have replied, maybe that is less of an issue in a certain tech-related bubble, but...
I have seen foreigners working in customer service who dont speak the local language sufficiently. People like you maybe expect the customer to speak english such that these people can fullfill the job? I don't.
Maybe I'm old fashioned or something. I still think there's something to be said for learning the local language (and c'mon if you've been there for 10 years, I'm sure you can pick it up).
This even goes without saying it's Japan where the level of english is far worse than that in Germany (where honestly the standard of English isn't anything like that you find in Sweden / Norway)
Absolutely! I worked in South Korea myself for four years and did a year of Korean school in Berlin first to prepare, and then more tutoring and self-study in country. I wasn't particularly great at learning overall, but did get to survival levels of conversational and it definitely enhanced the experience and gave me a connection to last a lifetime.
It's still a lot of fun to watch a Korean show now and be able to pick up on it when the subtitles are bad and miss all the cultural nuances of word and grammar choices, etc.
I just think it's great when people discover that for themselves.
Surprised though that the BBC hasn't put that as a requirement before sending him to Japan for a 10-year stint. Afaik The Economist requires of their potential correspondents that they know Chinese before posting them to China, and this is why many of their Chaguan China-focused editorials are really interesting (for example in the latest one [1] the Economist journalist takes a train ride before the Chinese New Year and talks with Chinese people with whom he shares the ride)
My wife learned enough business French that she was able to survive, but never became fluent.
There are just some people who cannot learn the local language, no matter how hard you may want to force them to do so or how long they've been living in that country. And I think it's a huge mistake to try to force them, or to judge them poorly for being unable to warp their mind around something that is a fundamentally alien concept for them.
I will agree that I didn't go to a full immersion language school. But we did arrange for multiple tutors, some on our own dime and some paid for by her employer or mine. And we interacted with the people in our neighborhood on a daily basis.
I found that those who were Flemish speakers would actively prefer to practice their English with me, while Francophones would usually switch to English grudgingly, once they discovered how bad my French was. There were a few Francophones who couldn't speak English at all, or who refused to switch, and interactions with them were very limited and not very productive.
I honestly tried to learn French, but none of it stuck.
In contrast, during those same years, my wife and I took three different vacations to Italy. Twice to Rome and once to Ischia and the Amalfi coast. And I swear to $DEITY that I learned and used more Italian in those four total weeks, than all the French I ever spoke over nearly eight years in Belgium. Something about Italian and Spanish is just far easier for me to pick up.
When they began speaking (Greek) it was like my brain shorted out. I was so excited for them but it took active mental effort to translate what they were saying. I began speaking to them in English and I nearly couldn't force myself to speak Greek.
This was not elitism or snobbery, it was like my brain decided the path of least resistance was English and I used it automatically. Very strange experience.
This reminded me of an article written by an American living in China recounting his early days there. In it he describes the tricks he developed to practice the local language despite the higher interest of the locals to practice their English with him.
https://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2010/05/18/language...
I never got a chance to try to learn Flemish. Every single one of those speakers that I met, were also master linguists (whether they acknowledged it or not), and spoke at least six languages fluently, and those were the only ones they admitted to. They also spoke at least two or three other languages with less fluency, and yet they claimed only the ones in which they were fluent.
During the time I worked at Snow, BV (a Dutch consulting company), part of my employment agreement with them was that they would pay for and arrange to have a Dutch tutor for me, in Brussels. By someone who really spoke Dutch, not Flemish. Unfortunately, that never happened.
To my ears, Flemish and Dutch seemed to be the same language. But not to the Flemish people in Belgium -- to them, these are two distinct languages. The Dutch would agree with me.
And to my ears, both of these languages sound like German but spoken with English word sounds. Every time tried to listen closely, it would nearly break my brain.
The GP talked about Berlin. Berlin is somewhat special as it attracts quite some foreigners. For me as a German-native it is sometimes weird if I go to a bar or something, outside tority, but "hip" areas and the bar staff only speaks limited to no German, so that the orders etc. have to be done in English.
There is quite a live you can life speaking only English. Of course once you leave the "hip" areas it becomes more limited.
What an odd mindset. Anecdotally, prior generations of Europeans (and expatriates) valued being multilingual. Having a working knowledge of German, Italian, French, English was fun, valuable, and normal especially when doing business in diverse countries and with diverse peoples.
That generation even taught us that "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." I guess that principle is no longer a thing.
That's nice with all these very similar languages using latin alphabet and now try it with Chinese characters and tones in China or at least kanji/hiragana without tones in Japan. Characters are huge barrier when learning the language, because you don't see words to memorize everywhere you look, you see just bunch of strokes. I really wish Chinese switched completely to pinyin as Vietnamese did (and Chinese intended, but didn't finish), it would remove huge barrier in communication (and also tehcnologically wise, after all most of the Chinese already write pinyin anyway on smartphones/computers, which just transcribe their pinyin back to characters) and people would realize Chinese is actually very simple language, where you don't have tenses, plural, etc.
As someone speaking English/German and my other two mother languages I can still understand some Italian, French or Dutch (which is basically English mixed with German by drunk sailor), because of how similar these languages are, so picking up some of them would be very easy compared to Chinese/Japanese (well at least Japanese has much more loaned words from English than Chinese).
The characters actually make it easier to learn the language imo, and anyone who claims otherwise hasn't actually tried to learn seriously
Korean was using kanji the same way Japanese are using them now, and Japan could totally switch to hiragana only like Korea went for hangul. I've had some Japanese friends who were advocated for hiragana only, and were writing (on Twitter or blog posts) in hiragana only.
Yes, once you know kanji it's easier to read that full hiragana, but there is a point to be made about how learning kanji is difficult. Not just for foreigners, but also for Japanese students from first grade to high school.
Abolishing kanjis might've worked for the Korean language, but Korean isn't Japanese. They're entirely different languages. Funnily though, that's something that the Unicode Consortium also needs a reminder on [1].
> Not just for foreigners, but also for Japanese students from first grade to high school.
This is an exaggeration. Native Japanese speakers in middle school would have no problem reading common kanjis in real life. A high schooler would be able to read as well as a grownup.
But that's true as much of modern Japanese as it was of Korean before they dropped Chinese characters, or of Chinese before the simplification of Hanzi.
Eventually, people would just get used to a new way of writing things and be able to absorb that quickly and efficiently.
On top of that, the language itself is phonetically very simple, so if you didn't have kanji there would be way too much ambiguity in written text, which is already very differen from spoken Japanese.
Now, if Japanese invented a new Korean style alphabet that combines sounds into a single character, and introduced spaces to the language then I could see it working, but I don't think most people would want that.
Also, as I said, what worked for Korea centuries ago won't work for modern day Japan. Hangul was developed in an entirely different era where most people was illiterate, and the means for scaling education was non-existent by today's standards. It therefore made sense to reduce the number of letters in the alphabet. However, in modern age Japan, you'll be hard pressed to find a healthy person who can't read or write. There's no reason nor desire to switch to hiraganas only, and every reason otherwise. Changing a language is probably a terrible idea if there's no documented instance of native speakers actually wanting the change.
Humans are good at disambiguating in context. Those ambiguities can arise in spoken language too (minus those that are differentiated by pitch accent, but that still leaves enough room for homonyms).
> Changing a language is probably a terrible idea if there's no documented instance of native speakers actually wanting the change.
I agree but that has something to do with sociological reasons. I wasn't advocating for changing Japanese.
As late as the Edo period, there were entire genres of literature that were written almost entirely in Kana: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanaz%C5%8Dshi
Clearly, people were able to read that.
Perhaps Americans would take the first step and switch from imperial to metric, then we can discuss and tell everyone what to do.
That's like wishing English would switch to IPA because English spelling is wildly inconsistent - which English would you choose? People who speak different dialects can still understand each other using written Chinese, whereas Pinyin is for Mandarin only.
Cantonese speakers don't use Pinyin.
If you go live in a country (long-term, which 10 years is), you should learn the language and not expect the locals to try to conform to your not-knowing the language... you're there, it's their country, their language, not vice-versa. How can you expect a country where people employed there don't know the local language to even work? Imagine a postman, a service worker, etc. not knowing german.. how is that going to work? When stuff like this happens, you get immiggrant ghettos and yes, in turn xenophobia, because people there cannot get normal jobs and expect the germans to adapt to them instead of vice-versa.
Do you guys know how every language came to be? It was through the interaction of people from different cultures, and it is an ongoing process. Germany was not even a country not so long ago. I reject the normative notion that learning a language is central to being a positive member of a community.
Imagine a brit going to france, driving his car on the "wrong" side of the road and saying "it doesn't matter, people just drive around me, it's not an issue".
Lol no. You’re not a sovereign individual. You’re part of a society, and every society is the product of people who have a culture that’s been cultivated over generations. Japan is a creation of the Japanese—the fruit of generations of Japanese people building a society according to their culture—not some foreigner who’s lived there for a fraction of a lifetime.
Let's just take one example. John von Neumann - a gasp immigrant - may have more to do with how America looks like today than anybody alive in the 1800s. Should America make some silly rule like you propose, and say that people like him are not welcome there, or that America does not "belong" to them? I suppose you support giving back the land to indigenous tribes then?
Not at all. Bangladesh, where I’m from, has computers too, but its government, institutions, infrastructure, constitution, etc., are still what Bangladeshis and the British created. Society is a product of culture, and culture runs deep and is extremely sticky.
My wife’s family fought in the American revolution and were among the first pioneers to settle the Oregon coast. That frontier culture reverberates through all of America to this day. By contrast my family came here in 1989 to a country that was fully formed in its modern incarnation. It strikes me as absurd when people assert out of misplaced political correctness that America is my country just as much as it is her country. It reduces culture and nationhood and citizenship to a shallow and impoverished concept.
Why is that alright? Were the anti-miscegenation laws wrong, but the newspapers not?
If you're from here or reside here and are committed to the future of the country, you are American. The country in its history has mostly not offered that assurance, and the law and culture behind it was badly racist.
That’s just a state of affairs that arises when people immigrate. Nobody gives up the culture of old country completely in a single generation, nor do they fully maintain that culture either. Desire for belonging can’t change who you are, which is a product of your parents and their parents and their parents.
> If you're from here or reside here and are committed to the future of the country, you are American.
That defines “American-ness” as an individual characteristic, but nationality is a group concept. When you go visit America and say Japan you can easily observe aggregate group differences in culture, customs, attitudes, etc. That’s what makes one place america and the other place Japan. And if your ancestors were the ones who cultivated that culture, customs, and attitudes, and you were born and socialized into them, you’re more American or Japanese than someone who wasn’t.
> The country in its history has mostly not offered that assurance, and the law and culture behind it was badly racist.
You’re conflating race with culture and national origin. For example, most Bangladeshis wouldn’t consider me Bangladeshi, because I was raised in the US. Obviously that’s not “racist”—I’m the same race as 95% of that country. It’s because I was raised in a foreign cultural environment that’s alien to Bangladesh. For the same reason, it’s not “racist” for Americans not to consider me American. Because I’m not. As a first generation immigrant there’s huge swaths of my socialization and world view that comes from old country, not from America.
And that’s true of my kids too, who are being socialized very differently than the cousins from my American wife’s side of the family. Maybe generations from now their grandkids will be American, both in the sense that they’ll be assimilated into the dominant culture, but also in the sense that continuing south Asian immigration to America will have changed American culture, the same way that Germans and Italians did. But in the meantime there is no better way to describe them than observing that they have one foot in each world.
... and don't get me wrong that is pretty rad. I have driven to and from St. Louis from the West coast a few times, and it is insane that anyone ever packed their family and shit from there to there in anything less than a huge truck/family minivan with cruise control air conditioning and radio all set to maximum.
It's a massive trend in Europe again and it will not end well for the expats.
And its fucking sad, because I used to see myself as part of "them". However, this inability to reflect about ones own failings has totally alienated me.
Modern generations are constantly on the move in a globalised world. It's not uncommon for that European to end up working in Asia nowadays, where their knowledge of other European languages is useless.
Your local businesses won't speak English, your baker, the cab drivers, the people working the public transport, at your local convenience store, the government officials, the deliverymen, your child's school-teacher, other parents at school, 90% of the people you will cross path with on the street, most written and recorded information about local events...
And why would I wanna speak with baker, cab driver, public transport workers, convenience store workers, deliverymen, etc.?
I don't speak to these people even back home, I just buy what I want in shop, put it on checkout and pay, only thing you need to learn is answer question about loyalty card or plastic bag and the way you wanna pay (by card), all you need to learn is two words "No" to plastic bag, show your loyalty card if you wanna use it and say "card" and show it so you can pay.
I can order taxi in the app, get in, say greeting and sit there until arrival.
Public transport workers are closed in their cabin and you should NOT speak to them.
Deliveryman will just call you he is on the way, if you are at home and to come downstairs and you just sign or pick up your package, sdo you just need to say "OK, I'm home" to phone.
Other parents in school not speaking English are honestly not worth speaking (similar with obese people since that shows a lot about them), because if you don't speak English it shows bigger ignorance than not being able to speak local obscure language as English speaking foreigner.
School teachers tend to be old, so yes, you could hit language barrier there and would have to deal with that with some English speaking parent.
90% people on the street won't speak English, but for sure majority of adults in productive age will at least in big cities where foreigners move (and in Scandinavia you could hit even that 90% probably).
Most written information online can be easily translated with built in translator.
Honestly only place where you need to speak local language is communication with gov officials since those often tend to be PITA/xenophobic projecting their own complexes since successful people won't work for gov, it's usually job for lazy people who don't mind lower pay and were most likely also lazy to learn English (but to be fair to them, many of them speak English as well).
The rest of the things you said only confirm you have no intention to integrate and to be a pleasant addition to the community you live in. Your comments about people who don't speak English, and your attitude towards local workers are pretty vile.
And who chose that percentage as some holy grail or something important? I'd say in big European cities at least 40-60% of people in productive age (18-60) will speak ay easy basic English, though not sure how is it relevant, even if only 1/3 of people in street spoke English it would be plenty.
> The rest of the things you said only confirm you have no intention to integrate and to be a pleasant addition to the community you live in.
The rest of the things have nothing really to do with integration since I behave same even in my home country, I don't see reason to wate my time with small talks and people doing their jobs, I have better things to do like spending time with my kids or rest. Not even sure what's pleasant addition and what's the community, those are foreign words for me, I am independent adult who doesn't feel urge to be part of some community as some young childless kid looking for their place in the word.
> Your comments about people who don't speak English, and your attitude towards local workers are pretty EFFICIENT/TIME SAVING.
FTFY
You are deliberately deciding to exclude yourself from it, which is likely to have bad consequences for you and your kids (since you won't be competent to help them).
But yes excluding myself from sheep in whatever community whatever language they speak whether my mother tongue, English or language I don't speak, is perfectly fine with me, I have no urge to belong somewhere to some category you can put me for your convenience and that's how I (will) raise my kids to be independend and have critical thinking instead just doing same as everyone else just because everyone (dumb) is doing it.
Not sure why would I be not competent to help my kids because I don't do same things like everyone else with need to belong to some community, they seem to be doing fine already in elementary school.
As an adult, you might (or might not) be able to mostly isolate yourself from your environment and its influence on you (probably not if you have to work). IMHO you are foolish to expect your kids to be able to do so (and it's not like it would be even a good idea to try !)
"Independent" doesn't mean "of the society", it means, on the contrary, adapted to it !
(No question that having critical thinking is good, but remember how it starts with trying to being critical of your own biases, a good portion of which stem from your own history : education, upbringing, culture...)
So stuff like tax forms or whatever will not be available in any other languages. You'll have to get a translator yourself.
That's what I wrote. But how often you deal with gov officials and various forms, on average once or twice a year? Is it worth learning whole new language to fill bunch of forms, which can be filled with help of friend within few minutes?
Btw. officials are not allowed LEGALLY communicate with you in other than official language (in letters, official forms). In spoken language it's their word against your word in case of argument, so there is no reason (other than being lazy) to not hold informal communication in English, if the official is nice/welcoming person (and it's actually required in some positions with foreigners, despite legal documents being only in local language).
Good luck with Spanish and French tax-related forms. In case of Spain, the documents are full of legalese jargon not even a native can grasp it at 100% without a gov website in an aside tab reading twice or trice the legal terms.
So you say one more reason not even bother trying to learn language for this reason, since you stand no chance if even native speaker can't understand it.
Also in many countries, teachers and hospital workers, amongst other professions, are government workers. You calling them usually lazy people is insulting and ignorant.
> you need to understand that you had the time, resources and intelligence to learn it to a very proficient degree.
English is taught on this level for decades already, so it would be odd if you were in productive age and didn't experience it.
> The parents you're calling obese and ignorant, they might be a bit like you in that they don't want to use their time to learn something they don't really have to and rather spend time with their children.
Nothing wrong with that, same as I find nothing wrong with me for not intending talk to them, while commenter I'm responding to thinks we should talk to each other.
> Also in many countries, teachers and hospital workers, amongst other professions, are government workers. You calling them usually lazy people is insulting and ignorant.
Gov official is someone working directly for gov, meaning (gov) bureaucrat. Teachers, hospital workers I would call state workers, certainly not gov "officials", but maybe my understanding in English is wrong.
Yeah, why would you ever want to speak to people who aren't important. Fucking serfs, they should stay in their place and silently serve you.
I agree, that kind of person's opinion on the country around them can safely be ignored, because it's based on ignorance.
> Yeah, why would you ever want to speak to people who aren't important. Fucking serfs, they should stay in their place and silently serve you
Seems like you are projecting some of your own issues into what I wrote, because I didn't write anything about "fucking serfs" or these people not being important.
I don't see reason why would I wanna speak with them while they are doing their job, same as I don't expect anyone speaking to me, when I am doing my job (unless your job is speaking to people in call centre). We can all speak happily together after work in our spare time (in which case they cease to be bakers, cab drivers, etc. and they are just people), during work time you should work instead wasting time on small talk, so I see nothing wrong with expecting people providing services for money to provide me service I am paying for without annoying small talk wasting everyone's time including them.
That people grossly underestimate how hard it is to learn languages, is why Duolingo is in business. And Berlitz, Pimsleur, and Rosetta Stone before them.
The guy didn't say he spoke _no_ Japanese. He said he spoke _little_ Japanese. And for an adult native English speaker, who probably could not get very good social immersion even if he wanted, that is not surprising. No, not even after 10 years.
Two of my friends were into Japanese culture in a big way when I was young in the 90s. Both watched a lot of anime, obviously. Both had excellent second language (English) grades and at least decent third language (French) grades, so it's safe to say both had above average talent for language acquisition. Both went to study Japanese at university. Both moved to Japan. Both struggled with the language.
There is a guy working for the BBC in Budapest, Hungary, who learned to speak Hungarian quite well in the past ~3 decades. That shows dedication and enthusiasm, because Hungarian is one of the most useless languages to learn (in terms of the number of people you can speak with). Compared to that, learning Japanese even on a basic level is a no brainer... if you happen to live there for a decade!
By comparison, they estimate Romanian, Swedish and Spanish take 24-30 weeks, or 600-750 class hours.
Ten years is not much to just "pick up" Japanese, unless you're an exceptional linguistic talent.
In summary: AchBerlin.jpg
Berlin has plenty of issues. But I don't think the points you raised here are meaningfully connected with people's language skills.
That willful ignorance to anything around you is typically not limited to learning the language, and I agree that it seems to be at the core of Berlin's identity. Berliners love it. I loathe it, and I'd prefer not to send money to Berlin each year so they can continue in their ways.
Blaming expats for the fact that Berlin's politicians are incompetent (which they are) makes no sense to me.
It will vary a lot by countries, because in some of them (i.e. northern european countries) everyone will be able to speak English so not only you have less incentive to learn the local language but it will be very difficult to practice because the local won't make the effort of speaking to you in their language until you're good enough (which you're not because you lack practice).
Speaking of Japan, as someone who lived there for a few years and reached a decent Japanese level, the English proficency of locals is not great so if you don't speak it you'll be stuck in your bubble of foreigners + Japanese people used to hang out with foreigners. I've seen a lot of foreigners not speaking Japanese after living several years in Japan, and most of them were wonderful people but they were like permanent visitors in the country they live which I thought was really too bad.
And that absolutely should be shamed, especially when you’re talking about a society like Japan that places high value on individuals acting in ways that make things easier for people around them and society at large.
I personally love learning languages and am that person that tries to learn a little bit and communicate wherever I go. I does seem to be a hot button issue here in the US. I think people have different expectations. You hear stories of immigrants from the early 20th century that would force their kids to only speak English so that they would get on well in society. It seems like a difficult topic here around heritage vs managing in a society, especially for kids.
When I go to Spain, I will always try to speak Spanish and if they reply in English (which they often do because I make mistakes and/or have an accent), I just keep replying in Spanish. That may be seen as "rude" or inefficient by some (although others probably appreciate the effort), but it's really the only way you can keep making progress. (Of course, if it really gets too complicated you can still switch - but usually people switch way before they've reached the end of their skills.)
Edit: Also, you can get by perfectly without knowing the local language in some cities on the continent, such as Berlin (Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo would be others). That is not true of Tokyo unless you're staying in an expat bubble. I spent 6 years in Beijing, and you had the expats who didn't know Chinese and all lived in one section of the city where you could get by on English alone, but that section most definitely did not represent the rest of China or provide a deep understanding of the country and its people.
I know many people like that too (also in Berlin), and they usually get stressed out whenever they have to deal with their landlord, or any government agency, etc. In addition, there are still areas even in Berlin where the baker or shopkeeper will not speak English well enough. Finding doctors could also prove more difficult, and so on. And what if you have children at some point and they go to school? Unless you can afford some fancy private school, everything will be in German.
Sure, you can get by without German for a while - especially if you have friends who can deal with certain things for you. But you'll just really be very dependent on others and their goodwill instead of being in charge of your own life.
I'm German, living in Berlin, and have wonderful friends who fit that description. They live full lives, and I couldn't care less about their German levels. They do enough good things with their time they put their energy into instead.
People should learn languages if they feel a reason to or if they enjoy it. Motivation probably makes it easier. Guilting people by default doesn't sit right with me.