I don't think that it's true that the experience listed is a complete given: I lived in a town outside Stuttgart when I was young and my mother had an extremely hard time of it along the lines of the article, where despite spending a lot of time trying to learn German the local government officials would refuse to even slow down their speech or use simpler language constructs to effectively communicate with a new learner of German. They were basically hostile and uncooperative because she was an immigrant even though she was visibly trying.

Compared to when I lived in Zurich essentially all government officials were willing to even just entirely speak English after briefly suggesting we speak German and only rolling their eyes slightly that I wasn't competently able to. Navigating the system there as a "first year resident" was zero problem by comparison.

I'm an American in a different (large) part of Germany (who also lived there before) and I had the opposite, I basically had to ask the foreigner office to speak German with me when i went early this year (they just defaulted to English to be inclusive - I'm not perfect in German but i can speak rapidly and clearly enough that it's never a bother). They were also largely non-German ethnically, but born and raised there, so maybe they had a larger degree of empathy.

I'm rather pale myself though and am there as an engineer, so maybe there's some bias or racism built in that you experienced which I wouldn't know that much about :|

Yeah government officials.. You don't wanna deal with them. Not even as a native german. Hasn't gotten better with the new refugees.

> Compared to when I lived in Zurich essentially all government officials were willing to even just entirely speak English after briefly suggesting we speak German and only rolling their eyes slightly that I wasn't competently able to. Navigating the system there as a "first year resident" was zero problem by comparison.

Switzerland has 4 official languages in a very small territory and even more dialects variations so there is that.

I once had a coworker who was from Switzerland, and his wife was from Lichtenstein. They told me their dialects are so different, that there are words and constructs that they each use that the other doesn't understand, even after being married for 10+ years.

She is also writing from an incredibly privileged point of view. Taking language courses for 500USD and more is not something most people can afford and is really the exception. There are many courses for foreigners, some are even free or subsidized by the government.

As someone who learned German, forgot it and re-learned it, it's also a terrible method to learn a foreign language, unless you're really motivated by speaking with other newbies.

The best approach with the most evidence for sucess is Comprehensible Input[-1], which requires nothing more than access to content you want to consume in the language of your choice

Ironically this was the most helpful youtube and twitch ever were for me, since I find mainstream German TV to be pretty bad (I find the same, or worse, with American TV to be fair)

German TV really is quite bad on average. You have publicly funded stations with an average viewer age around 60 and private TV stations producing scripted reality trash.

The author could have written about churros "I bought a churro, i didnt like it, not even the cinnamon flavor could change my mind"

Thanks, you saved me the trouble writing that. It's like Trip Advisor "They don't sell hot dogs".

California emigrants often think they are the most important person in the room in other US states too, especially in the US South. "I'm from KAH-LEE-FOOOR-NEEA!"

God forbid something isn't done like in California, even if much easier/rational.

> Bizarre. What a very California thing to write.

Harsh. And also misleading. I hope it comes as no surprise that some countries are easier to migrate to than others. In fact it has been measured.

    Title: Where Expats Struggle Most to Get Started

    https://www.internations.org/press/press-release/d-40346

    Quote from page: "The Expat Essentials Index reveals the 52 destinations that make life abroad easiest and those that make life most challenging for foreign residents. The index is based on data from the Expat Insider 2022 survey by InterNations, the world’s largest expat community with over 4.5 million members."

Wanta to guess which country those 4.5 million that expat survey ranked hardest to move to?