I don’t usually comment on topics like this because there are so many biases and different perspectives involved. In the end, I believe only the person who has actually gone through the experience can truly understand it; otherwise, it often becomes just another judgment.
We are an ASEAN family earning more than €200k gross annually (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it—please keep reading before judging). We have lived here for more than six years, and you know what? I still haven’t obtained either permanent residence or German citizenship simply because I don’t have a B1 certificate. So first things first: regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here.
I was honestly devastated when the officer told me that I was not eligible for permanent residence. That was also the moment when I started to feel that maybe I don’t actually need permanent residence in this country after all.
Story 2: In an international working environment, German may not matter much at the IC level. But I’ve seen countless situations where Germans exchange a glance with each other, and suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting. Over time, I’ve learned that there are many unwritten rules behind the scenes, and when you speak their language, you start to understand them.
One bright thing is that maybe we’re still lucky. We bought our first home without fully understanding the laws, the government system, or the tax rules. We simply worked hard and played the game in a way that we believed would be sustainable in the long run. Whatever happens, we know there are still many other places we could go.
Our children speak German natively, but they are also willing to go the extra mile to speak our mother tongue at home.
If you ask me for one piece of advice for immigrants and emigrants in Germany, I’d say: life is short—play naked!
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.
My rule is that if you want to settle in the country, you ought to learn the local language and it doesn't really matter how much money you make in my opinion. I got to B2 and passed the test, but ultimately left Germany years ago. I don't intend to go back but I also don't regret learning the language.
FWIW, for Blue Card holders, after 27 months the language requirement drops to A1 and even if you don't have a Blue Card after five years you could also get an EU permanent residence without language requirement: https://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/visa-residence/living-...
Though I would recommend setting yourself a target of some small (≈10) number of new words to learn every day and practice them during your commute or so. B1 is achievable in under a year with consistent practice. The official word list has 2400 entries: https://www.goethe.de/pro/relaunch/prf/de/Goethe-Zertifikat_...
As a german living in spain, i feel your pain. While I do speak spanish around B1/B2 level, it took a lot of time and effort - probably the biggest effort in learning something after uni. People are often "you should speak the language if you life there" - yes, agreed. BUT: Hell, if you are a professional entrepreneur, you are already not working 40h week but way more. If in your day job you speak english anyway because it is international, you hardly practice it. Especially in the EU we are taught that we can move freely between nation states - but reality of learning a language takes years. I learned english at age 10, so am practicing for over 30 years now and still learning and anybody could spot that I am not a native speaker. Countries that rely on foreign labour and advertise agressively on skilled immigration (such as Germany does) should not have those strict language requirements. Especially since german itself is a very difficult language.
Genuinely happy to hear you're successful here! But, why would you expect there to be no drawback to not knowing the local language when moving to a foreign country?
You can get B1 with a bit of spare time. With kids, I understand it's a different situation; however, it took me about 2 years to get there, learning in my spare spare time (which after a certain point was just listening to audio books before bed). The compounding effect works.
BUUUUT, even with B2, it's just not enough for avoiding "the look", as you put it. I think you need flawless C1 or something, idk. Don't care anymore lol.
I don't have any skin in the game here for Germany specifically, but I would point out that B1 is an incredibly low bar to clear. With concentrated effort, you can reach that level in under a year, I know because I've done it. Given you have kids and are otherwise preoccupied, maybe a few years. At six years in, it's purely a matter of whether you yourself actually want it or not.
If you cannot be bothered with learning our language, and think that being rich somehow makes our country owe you its citizenship — then yeah, maybe Germany isn’t for you.
I am European, working in China for 12 years making multiples of the average salary, speak Chinese above B1 level and am not eligible for permanent residency yet.
First of all, if you want to become a resident somewhere you must learn the language. Not should.
Second, no country owes any foreign citizen residency there.
You're always going to be an outsider if you can't speak the language, no matter where you go in the world. B1 is a reasonable level, as it's the bare minimum for doing day-to-day tasks in the local language.
I honestly can't image planning to live in any country for the long term without learning the local language to at least this level.
Hey. I'm with you there. My German also kind of sucks, but I've had a very successful 15 years in Berlin. The best part is how easy it is to pick jobs from the neighboring countries, like France. You pay taxes here, you commute maybe once a month to Paris and enjoy the prices and quietness of Berlin. We are lucky with my partner, and bought finally our own apartment.
My partner, an American, is fluent with the language so it helps. My plan is to make a good amount of savings, take a year or so of sabbatical and finally learn the language. Until that, we go with bar Deutsch.
I know life as an immigrant, especially while having kids and professional careers can be tough.
That said, personally I'm thankful for Quebec having been the forcing function to learn French.
With no prior formation to reach "intermédiaire avancé" took me about 20 months of studying on the side with one lesson per week for most of that time; usually before or during work hours (partially was a group setting there).
I'm a German native speaker so I'm probably biased / ignorant about some major language hurdles but to me German must be the easier language to pick up for most as it's way more regular.
I think the trick is to make a deliberate choice / opening up to love language and people, speaking with as many native speakers as possible etc. It also really helped me to almost exclusively switch to consuming French news and most of other media.
I'm not a fan of dubbing in general but for learning, Hollywood movies in French have been mostly great same as with German translations. Maybe watch older movies, they used to put in an unreasonable amount of work into those especially.
Computer games I'm personally still playing mostly in French to this day and I know that German translations are usually done with a lot of heart as well.
Edit: do check out https://www.arte.tv/de/ if you haven't - one of our favourites for both French and German of course; probably one of, if not the best TV worldwide. Always especially palpable after having been on youtube for a while too long; just the opposite of engagement bait, wholesome and good journalism and more.
First, €200k gross annually is huge in Germany. You are high income! Do not read that as a (negative) judgement, but a lot of people on HN don't understand how much lower salaries are in central Europe compared to the US.
Your situation makes me think of Japan. Starting about 10 years ago, they introduced a special "fast path" to permanent residence for high income people. I am surprised that it has not triggered more debate in Japanese society. I think the numbers are so small that most people (and politicians) don't really care. The goal was to attract high income people to work and live in Japan... and pay taxes! Germany could consider a similar programme. However, for normies, I am still strongly in favour of language requirements in any nation when applying for permanent residence.
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> If you ask me for one piece of advice for immigrants and emigrants in Germany, I’d say: life is short—play naked!
"regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here."
What's the issue here? Is it me or is it absurd for someone to permanently move to a country and expect to integrate without knowing how how to speak the language?
Could you also add your thoughts on whether you think a B1 level is a sensible requirement for permanent residence in any country?
Because that's what the post seems to boil down to, but you haven't opined on it (other than refusing to learn B1, which implies the answer somewhat).
B1 by the way is considered doable for a consistent parttime learner in 9 months, and 1-2 years for someone doing weekend studying. That's an average.
For a studious family with higher educational background making 200k a year (this is significantly above average in Germany), you've got both the IQ and the capital for tutoring to do better than average.
Seems like a sensible, useful, necessary and practical bar to set for permanent residence, to me.
An observation from the side, is that this person already speaks 2 languages, and very probably more. They aren't dumb, I do question their logic, but the capacity to speak more than one tongue is in this person, witness their writing in English, and stating they come from an ASEAN background. That means at least one non-english language, and for many ASEAN economies, more than one.
eg Chinese both Manderin and Cantonese, Indonesian and Chinese, some Chinese and Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese, these are combinations I have met at work here in Australia aside from "and english"
I've had lifts from Uber drivers who speak 4 tongues fluently.
It's the same in the Netherlands (needing a minimum language level), I suspect it's 25+ years of right-leaning, anti-migration governments; as a compromise they said "foreigners can stay as long as they integrate into our society", and language is a big factor there. Or that is the claim anyway.
This doesn't apply to higher end jobs though, which are almost always international to begin with.
It's a good thing you can't get permanent residency, let alone citizenship! without speaking the local language. There are few countries in the world that hand out citizenship as cheaply as Germany.
My mate, learn German and be happy they don't ask for B2 or C1. If I move to China and want the nationality, it's absolutely normal that one expects me to speak Chinese.
As an Ausländer (who reached C1), I am surprised that you are not talking about the other actual and terrible problems the german society is facing: an aging population relying on immigrants to fill in the gaps, taxes everywhere without the advantages of a strong social system, a very expensive health system but with doctors almost prescribing you tea to fight cancer, crippling solitude inherent to the german culture which even spreads to immigrants -more than half of Berlin lives alone-, a housing market held by boomers and huge corporations (literally no houses below 200k€ in the whole country) which leaves you to rent your whole life to shelter your family, a pro-russia, pro-Afd east Germany vastly undevelopped and uneducated compared to the west. And also food, love, conversations. Germany often feels like the bad sides of northern Europe have been mixed with the bad sides of southern Europe.
And then the glass ceiling does not come at B1, but when you start to notice the difference in behaviour the Germans make between C1 and C2. If you want to pursue your whole career in this country, given how strong the german identity is, you will have to know every single subtlties of the language and culture if you are willing to compete for the next step in your career, for instance a management position.
Really, this country has been in a bad shape for at least five years now. Germany lived until now on its bounce after the reunification, the money poured by the Americans after the war and cheap russian gas. Now it feels like the bill other european countries always had to pay in the last decades has been finally handed to Germany.
B1 German is about 1 year of intensive studying from zero. With immersion and part-time commitment, I'd say ~3 years is a comfortable timeline to learn B1 German.
I am basing this off my personal experience of going from A1 -> A2 -> half-way through B1 (I dropped after I decided against studying in Germany, but my classmates continued the course). Given that German companies are known for excellent work-life balance, there should be enough spare time to learn German by the 5 year point.
All that being said, I imagine it's harder to learn a language when you have kids and family responsibilities.
In fairness, speaking the language is a reasonable bare minimum to obtain permanent residence and certainly a must citizenship in any countries.
AFAiK, in most European countries obtaining permanent residence requires at least 5 years of continued residence in the country so it is also a bad look in term of effort to integrate if a person still can't speak the language (maybe not perfectly but at least "good enough") after all that time.
I lived in Germany for seven years and by the end I was fluent. B1 is a very low bar to pass, I know because I've done it.
Sorry to say, but the rule is fair. If you want to be a permanent resident, put in a little bit of effort to integrate into the country that you would like to call home.
> suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting.
Are you sure you're not reading too much into that? I've witnessed plenty of times (in the USA) that agreements of a meeting were later 'forgotten' (no doubt often indeed due to poor memory). To the point that it was best to insist on a written record of a meeting.
Having B1 seems like a really lenient condition to get citizenship. I got B2 after 6 months of Erasmus, and I have B1 in Russian even though I never even stepped in the country.
Have you even tried to learn German, and if so what is so hard that you can't even get B1, although you stayed long enough to have kids speaking natively the language?
You can also take a Bildungsurlaub (educational leave, 5 days a year or 10 days every two years) and take a German course. For a two week course with private tutoring it's like 1k, which at your income level is not much. A lot of bureaucracy in Germany becomes a lot easier once you get over the B1 hump.
"So first things first: regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here."
You should look the other way around. The country is contributing to YOU. You are profitting from Germany.
Well I am an Indian who lived in US and worked for top companies for 10 years and left back to my home country as I did not want to be beholden to the Green card waiting time or take some unethical pathways (I see a lot of abuse of O1 now). I find coworkers from smaller and friendlier countries sail through and become Americans.
The point is that immigration can never really become a true meritocracy and even I recognised the privileges I had to reach to US in the first place. The country's ethos, ideas are grandfathered into the law alongwith numerous loopholes or sneaky ways. There is never a social compact where I did X , I deserve Y coming true. I suspect globally we are at the tail end of this type of immigration from Global South to Global North as well
Honestly, that even highly educated people are complaining about a host country attaching bare minimums to handing out its citizenry (I.e. the right to vote, welfare) is all the more reason to attach them in the first place.
> (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it ....
sorry to nitpick on this, but the story did not expand on this despite the pronouncement that there is a reason. Maybe it was subtle, but then let it be subtle.
There is yet another angle that people don't like to discuss because it is uncomfortable. Every European nation state is built around ethnicity as the bedrock of society. This makes it nigh on impossible to integrate fully in these countries.
The way this manifests is different in each country, but the fundamental reason is the same. In the german case, take the words of Messut Ozil, the former footballer - when the German team wins, he is German. Lose, and he is the immigrant. He is ethnically Turkish, i.e. not ethnically German.
The same will apply to your kids as well.
I want to be clear, not every German person is a frothing racist, i would argue that the racists are a minority. It is, however, important to note that the reactions of the individual and the reactions of society can be different, sometimes polar opposites.
In sharp contrast to this are the US and Canada, where there is no shared definition of "white" even though the majority of their populations are ethnically European. In that case, "European" spans everything from Irish and Greek, to French and Austrian. Less than a hundred years back, Irish people were not seen as white. Today, that idea is laughable. The fundamental difference between the US and Canada on one side and German or european society on the other is that the old world is built around exclusion, while the new world is built around inclusion.
This is one important reason why skilled immigrants leave europe, and is also why i left.
> Story 2: In an international working environment, German may not matter much at the IC level. But I’ve seen countless situations where Germans exchange a glance with each other, and suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting. Over time, I’ve learned that there are many unwritten rules behind the scenes, and when you speak their language, you start to understand them.
I mean, how many CEOs of major German companies are non-German? The country does seem much more insular than the Anglosphere.
I've been here for a decade, and sadly I feel the issue is upward mobility for skilled workers. Unless you're working for an intl company, with ex-pats in positions of leadership, your chances of "getting ahead" are going to be limited, especially when you're competing against natives.
The reason is sadly, the culture is very reserved and cautious, so as an "outsider" it's going to take A LONG time before you can be trusted in a senior/leadership position (no matter how good your German language skills are).
The good part, from my experience the people here are great, friendly, and yeh it takes time to get to know them but it pays off in the long run. But professionally... it's complicated.
So while people come here, work and stay for a few years, they're going to leave when they realise that despite their best efforts, they need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).
And this sadly affects applications for jobs (a photo is pretty much required which would be considered illegal in other countries like the UK), apply for apartments (which country is your last name from... automatic rejection), just to mention a few key cases that really affect immigration.
i've lived+worked in 4 different countries on 3 continents and i think you always have to expect to adjust to the culture, it's not going to change for you, nor should it. But if you want to progress professionally (and Germany NEEDS tech-imports, the tech culture here is a disaster, it's embarrassing) you're going to have to promote these people into high positions, not just view them as "cheaper labour".
> hey need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).
Staying in a position for a long part of one's life is a very common situation for many Germans, too. The whole concept of that you must have a career seems to be deeply ingrained in US mentality.
So, I have a strong feeling that a lot of immigrants who feel they hit a glass ceiling are rather used to the USA understanding how a career works, and think because they are not promoted, they are discriminated against, when in reality it's rather that a promotion to a completely new role/title is much more uncommon in Germany than in the USA.
One thing I will point out is that some of this partially due to coming to Germany with a US passport. Specifically, banks in Europe are increasingly weary of allowing US passport holders to open full account due to the international reach of the IRS and the additional bourdons it creates for banks. A US citizen living abroad still has a responsibilities with regard to reporting financial activities to the IRS. This is an extra liability and risk for foreign banks so in many cases they chose to simply not deal with Americans.
I was born in Germany and have a German passport. When I was a teen my family moved to the US and and have since also gotten my American citizenship. I have been considering moving back. I talked to my aunt who lives in Switzerland who told me not to bother trying to open a Swiss account it’s virtually impossible as long as you have a US passport. Germany is slightly better but at most there are 2-3 (mainly online only) banks where you might be able to get a basic (ie bare bones) account.
The IRS has the ability to compel foreign banks to freeze assets of US citizens living abroad or at least to make it a paperwork nightmare for them. I can understand why a company might not want to promote an individual to senior positions if banks are weary of dealing with them.
I think this is the biggest factor. Ambitious people who want to become rich do not have any opportunities in Germany. It is good for people who are content with a middling but comfortable life. That's why most ambitious people leave.
One thought I hate reading this is: do you need upward mobility?
It's a serious question because in an ideal (IMHO) society, people can have full and satisfying lives with security and family without becoming a CEO. In the US, for example, there's an obsession with "getting ahead" but, by definition, only so many people can get ahead. And why do they want to? Because, at least in part, a basic job in insufficient to make ends meet in most cases now. This is a form of coercion.
This is orthogonal to the issue of German social inclusion and forms of xenophobia (eg in the housing applications you mention).
Personally I'd rather in a society where everyone's needs are met and it's not a race against a rising tide where only 20% of the population are above it.
That sounds similar to what you experience in the US especially as a first gen immigrant. I see a glass ceiling (for the lack of a better word) here. Most of the leadership positions are occupied by US-born (mostly Caucasian) and/or to some degree, Indian immigrants. Sometimes, I truly wonder how/why this person got into the leadership role because it's fairly obvious that s/he lacks the essential qualities required for it. The only explanation is the politicking (typical in the corporate world) and somehow being able to impress others by talking fast and/or smooth (while giving false promises and failing upward).
All of this to say that your observation in Germany doesn't sound that different from mine in the US (been here for over 20+ years; been in a manager/director role in data for almost a decade).
You are right I think - but this is the case for everywhere besides startups in the US
Try going to Singapore, Japan, the UK, Netherlands, god forbid France, Germany, Latin America.
Try going into engineering in major US companies - you know how hiring works and who is prioritized over whom.
If you are not local or you are not part of the inner circle of management the glass ceiling is there.
Some would say that it's just empirical evidence and they never had this problem. I would call them lucky.
Just to add, the experience can be quite different between Bundesland (for example the tech culture in Berlin can be really decent IMHO). And the Bewerbungsfoto is technically not allowed to be required (but often expected in practice, though I personally don’t remember sending one).
Overall that comment sounds quite true based on my experience. I had a way better time contracting for foreign companies from Germany
> a photo is pretty much required which would be considered illegal in other countries like the UK
I work since over 15 years as SWE and have been job hopping most of the time. Only during one job hunt I put a (professional) photo on my CV. While a photo on the CV is obviously not illegal, employers aren't allowed to demand it since 2 decades. But I agree there is a bias.
While I'm fully German so to say, I have a foreign last name literally from centuries ago. For most of the time this was never an issue, at best a conversation starter. But companies where the daily language is German (hint: these companies usually suck) I definitely had weird situations before. Also with some recruiters, especially from the UK.
The problem is, management requires stronger language skills than engineering.
While an engineer can usually get by with good English, a manager in a German company with German clients and German bosses also requires excellent command of German. I would think that this would equally apply to any other country and their native language.
Perhaps Germany is a bit unusual in that it fosters a strong small-company culture, with few levels of management. There is no "engineering ladder" in a company with only a single layer of management between engineers and CEO.
I migrated to Germany 10+ years ago and I'm still here. Based on my limited experience, there are two big issues.
First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on. If you're a fresh immigrant who cannot find a job in an economic crisis (aka "most of them") you may very well wonder why staying here alone when you could be just as unemployed near your family.
Second: I won't say that Germany is xenophobic (not even all AfD voters) but I will say it's unfriendly. Work example: I've worked in multiple places in German without language issues, and yet many jobs automatically disqualify me because they ask for "minimum C2", a rank I don't have and one that many native Germans wouldn't achieve either. Add less chances to make a social circle, inflexibility, not great weather, and a government that's constantly calling you lazy and entitled, and that's how you get depressed.
The sad part is, Germany has all the pieces to be a great place to live that, for some reason, has decided to dismantle them all one by one.
>First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on.
Any minute now those millions of doctors, lawyers, and engineers from the MENA countries that flooded Germany the past decade will fix all that! Any minute!
It has been my experience that many jobs which say "Must have C1 German" or something like that just mean "You need to be able to speak with us in German at work" and if you can speak at B2 level, that's perfectly fine. I had B1 level German and got job offers from places with such requirements because I can speak pretty well with my German colleagues who dont know any english, and I can use a mix when speaking about complicated things with my other colleagues.
The issues you see now in Germany are the direct consequence of the Merkel era conservative government and its austerity policy. They really wanted to get the deficit down at all cost. And all cost included any sort of needed maintenance on public infrastructure.
Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citizen married to a German man. However, she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one. By contrast, when I became an American citizen, my American friends (white and hispanic) insisted that they attend the naturalization ceremony.
> she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one
As a native German, I actually have difficulties with concepts like "identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]" or "naturalization". I really would say these are concepts that US-Americans (or people who were "shaped" by US mentality) seem to deeply care about, but Germans very typically don't.
So, my opinion/advice is: she should simply abandon such concepts ("identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]", "naturalization") that, as a native German, are simply far away from the mentality that I observe in daily life.
Don't forget that a unified Germany was a concept that only involved in the 19th century, so "Germany" is more of a somewhat "synthetic" unification of various historical, and very different, federal states where the unifying element is rather what is now considered to be a shared language, ethicity, culture and history.
With this in mind, the advice should be obvious:
This woman should concentrate on getting really good in German, and learn about the more than 1000 years of (what is now German) culture and history, and additionally learn about the laws and rules to survive daily life. Otherwise, she should live her life.
What she should not do, is caring about what "identifying as" or "feeling like a" German means - she should put this out of her mind, since modern Germany is a very synthetic unification of what were historically very different sovereign nations that share what is now considered to be a common language, ethicity, culture and history.
I'm German. Very rarely is the issue that people will in principle treat her as foreign, there's sometimes still the stereotype that you "can never be German" but in most places in the country that's not my experience.
However what is important is that you need to elbow your way in. There's a saying "nur sprechenden Menschen kann geholfen werden*. (only people who speak up can be helped). If you think someone's gonna carry you in that's not gonna happen. That's the biggest mistake I see immigrants make. It's a private and personal culture but people respect someone from the outside who shows initiative, and nobody is easily offended by someone being assertive, that's seen as a good thing.
It's not the kind of place where you can just wait and people will read what you want off your face. Doesn't even work for Germans, if you feel left out, you'll have to stand up and say you want to be in.
As an American, to me it's always felt like non-white Americans are never really accepted as "full" Americans by people as a whole. If a German guy moves to America and gets citizenship, he might be known as that German American guy, sure. But if he has kids, they'll just be called American. Over 100 years ago, some Chinese people moved to America. Those people had kids. Those kids had kids. Those kids had kids. Some of those kids also had kids. But what are those 5th or 6th generation Americans called? Asian Americans or even Chinese Americans, even if they've never been outside of the US and nobody in their family several generations up the line has either. And people who were forcefully brought to America 300 years ago still have their descendants being called "African American" instead of simply "American."
I say this as someone who myself emigrated from America. Nobody calls me "that American guy." I'm just "that guy".
It is an interesting divide. "German" is both an ethnicity and a citizenship, and it's possible to become one but not the other. "American" on the other hand is purely a citizenship, and so it is possible to become an American after immigrating.
My prejudice is that there are only a few countries in the world (US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, possibly others I don't have experience with) where coming as an immigrant they take you in and you can be considered from that country.
Relative to South America, Germany is going to feel very unfriendly. I think it's a matter of perspective. Also, countries that are very homogeneous (ie everyone looks the same) are probably going to have some ethnic ideas built in their idea of citizenship so your citizenship will be question if you don't look like them or behave like them. South America and Germany are very different regions culturally sitting at opposite ends of most cultural traits so her experience isn't surprising.
As someone who lived in the US briefly, I found Americans are just a lot more hospitable to foreigners, than Germans and most other Europeans in general.
Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you into those clubs, you just got a piece of paper, not the culture and belonging the locals with ancestry there have.
It's not something you can learn as an adult living in a big international city with lots of expats and international companies, it's something you get from growing up there surrounded by that culture and ethnic ingroup created by your ancestors.
The equivalent for americans would probably be those whose ancestors were there before the civil war but that's a smaller % of the population today vs the more recent immigrants compared to Europe. Sure, there's as much immigration to Europe as well, per-capita as in the US, but a lot of it is undesired and the native Europeans have various cultural and bureaucratic glass ceilings to keep working class immigrants in the least desirable jobs, while they kept the more desirable governmental, academic and managerial jobs.
Not knocking them for it, they're free to run their societies the way they see fit, but then they also shouldn't be surprised when, unlike in the US, the second or third generation migrants growing up in the ghettos who are full citizens now, decide to blow themselves up, shoot up a cafe or drive a truck through a crowd, because of how unaccepted and held down they feel by the native European society.
The issue I see seems to be on how US and EU treat integration of migrants. In the US you ge equal opportunities and freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone, while in the EU you get endless strict rules and welfare which not only don't compensate the glass ceilings and isolation, it also pisses off the locals to see their high taxes going to foreigners who don't integrate. The other reason might be that migration to the US is more from Canada and latin america which is culturally similar to the US, while EU migration is mostly from africa and middle east which are very different culturally.
I‘m German, but I no longer live in Germany, so I can’t relate to the experience of immigrating to Germany.
I think a big part of the issue is a certain German presumptuousness.
There’s a general sense that Germany is a prosperous, influential country. The reason for that must be that things are done correctly in Germany.
I think this is an inherited attitude that doesn’t really correspond to reality anymore as systems are crumbling and a trip to many other European countries (including those Germans grew up to view as a barbaric hinterland or as holiday destinations) shows them that even small towns can have fast mobile internet, that you can pay by card at market vendors, and that the government can use computers.
I spent a day or so traveling through Germany with my parents a few weeks ago as part of a (much longer) trip and a common refrain during that day was, "So much for German efficiency." Frankfurt's airport was a tiring and frustrating experience, with long delays on the tarmac, at baggage claim, at the check-in counter, etc. One rest stop on the highway was half way dismantled, with restrooms filthy enough that everybody who got a look at them turned right around and went back to their cars. And so on. I was surprised, having expected that things would be generally more functional than in the States. (I will say that the roads were in a much better state of repair.)
When I (German) was on vacation in the Netherlands, I found it dystopic that you could often not pay cash, but had to use card. This "I don't want to be tracked" mentality is deeply ingrained into the feeling of many Germans.
So, I would rather call this not a bug, but a feature.
The "doing things correctly" mentality is the root of so many problems. Bureaucracy, "German engineering" (overengineering), cargo-culting, CYA, error culture, ...
Berlin is one the cheapest capital cities in Europe. As such it attracts a huge amount of immigrants. That low cost is reflected in the pay. An experienced full stack developer would be fortunate to get 90-95k euro annually. That is plenty of money if you intend to stay in Berlin, but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country. Also, housing is a huge problem there and it can take 6 months to find even a basic flat. I am an American developer that lived there for many years and my co-workers were usually Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian, Russian, Lebanese, and now Indian. It was rare to find an actual German coder.
I had a hard time with German work expectations and management style. Also, their engineering approach is thorough but incredibly slow and over-built. The environment is hierarchy and credential based with little room for individual initiative or creative problem solving. I was used to improvising, experimenting, and thinking outside the box. It was not a good fit.
90-95k would be impossibly high in Belgium, which is but a stone's throw away from Germany. If that isn't enough money to save, you're doing something very wrong, or your idea of a cheap city might differ from mine.
As an outsider, but hailing from Germany's eastern neighbor and one of the largest sources of immigrants:
Overall sentiment is that the juice ain't worth the squeeze any more.
Back when my country became a full member of Schengen(2008) the ratio of GDP per capita between Germany and us was around 3.3x - salaries were roughly proportionally higher, so just about any job was worth moving there and potentially going through the hoops required to establish a permanent residence.
Earlier, especially throughout the 90s that ratio didn't go below 5, so a sizeable number of people attempted to move to Germany by any means possible.
Currently it hovers at around 2.1x and most of the discrepancy in salaries is focused on the trades.
A specialist from Poland typically doesn't have access to higher tier salaries, so they don't really enjoy a different quality of life than at home, so they have no reason to move.
I lived there for around 6 months like 15 years ago so perhaps it's changed a lot since then.
But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.
I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.
It didn't seem like an especially friendly place and there were so many rules about everything too, like just being able to take the rubbish or recycling out you had specific days and times.
This is funny because when I moved from the USA to UK I was caught off guard by "Sunday trading laws"[0] and even where not legally prohibited, it seems like most retailers other than vape stores or corner shops close at 5:30 or 6 pm, Since covid, we have to book an appointment in advance to go to the tip.
I think things have improved a little bit over the past few years – one large retail park near us advertises "late opening" (7 pm! ha!) on Thursdays — but it's still difficult to run errands during the week. I don't understand why it makes sense economically to only have your store open when no one with a 9-5 job can shop there.
I'm from Switzerland and live in Germany and I think it is very relaxed. Too relaxed for my liking to be honest. Sometimes the bins are still out in the evening??? What kind of anarchy is this ;-)
Really, it's just what you are accustomed with.
Stores closing on Sunday is a good thing I think, it makes it easier for families to have a day together and kind of resets the week. On Saturdays they are also open until 8pm, some even until 10pm or so.
>I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.
You need to yell "Moin" very loudly. If you are in Southern Germany, you need to yell "MOIN" twice as loud to establish dominance.
Supermarket opening times are definitely not that restrictive (these days, but I don't recall it ever being like you mentioned & I moved to Berlin in 2013). The ones near me are usually open early morning till late evening (8-10pm), monday to saturday.
Have you visited London recently? Particularly east. It's got the unfriendliness but also complete total breakdown of the social contract and social decency
Music and video calls without headphones on all transport all the time. Shoes and socks off on train seats. Zombies barging into you constantly. Nobody letting people off the train.
Throwing rubbish on the ground. Leaving it on trains and buses.
Vaping on the tube
Pushing through the barriers at stations is normalised
Everyone does whatever the hell they like everywhere all the time. Constant antisocial behaviour. It's hell. An absolute epicenter of selfishness
I dream of a rule based society like Germany or UK of years ago
Edit: am a Brit but wouldn't live in London for love nor money. Obviously a lot of those issues aren't just in London. This isn't "foreigner repeating right wing talking points" people love trying here
>But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.
If it were the Anglosphere that had very restrictive laws about store hours/days of operation, and Germany/Austria with pretty much unlimited hours, this would be the #1 topic brought up in any online discussion whatsoever about the US/UK/etc. But because of DACH's smaller cultural visibility, it isn't brought up nearly so often in actuality.
I think there is also a chicken-egg problem in almost every country that doesn't use English as official language:
If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study --> to live there you need a job --> back to start
Different counties have different tolerances regarding how quick you pick up the local language. For Germany and France this tolerance is almost 0, for Netherlands it's much higher.
Anecdotally I've noticed that among the coworkers I've had from other countries, the ones who manage to learn danish and stay, have generally been in areas with lower density of foreign workers.
My theory is that in areas with lower densities of foreign nationals, you'd benefit more socially form learning the local language.
In Germany, if you are an non-software Engineer, you MUST have an excellent level of the language. I have not seen a single Engineering position that doesn't require C1.
> If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study
I disagree: for many jobs, it is expected that you have a decent level of English, but at least in Germany, you are often not immersed a lot in English. So you have to get decent in English with barely any immersion.
I thus have a feeling that because many Germans had to learn hard to get somewhat decent in English on their own, they have the same expectation on immigrants to learn really hard on their own to get good in German fast (without demanding immersion).
The same problem also exists in countries that use English as their first language. If you don't speak passable english, you will have a hard time integrating or finding an engineering job.
As someone who moved from the U.S to Germany and has been here for ~15 months, I figured I would drop a few comments while I'm running a NixOS rebuild.
Let me start with the wonderful things: Public transportation is nice, at least compared to the U.S. I like the shared sense of responsibility that Germans have with things like recycling. The directness is quite nice, in the U.S I often had to question if someone was being genuine or not, and that is not really a problem here. If you're into various hobbies, clubs, etc., Germany has really incredible communities and clubs for so many things, and they're very organized about this, it's quite nice. The nature is great, and I've really enjoyed exploring different areas.
As for the negatives, it's clear in Germany that you're looking at buying into their system, for life so to speak. You don't find yourself getting equity, trading stocks, buying a home, etc. You generally are expected to work, keep your head down, and hopefully acquire an apartment where the rent won't increase while you support the social system (for the record, I am more than okay with paying my share, but I was shocked at the difference in take home pay, and particularly how it feels compared to the U.S). Buying a home is likely not going to be in the cards for most, and there is so much paperwork, painful and expensive driving courses, and strange decisions as well with starting your own business. I have for instance a few projects where I could be taking revenue, but I specifically am not as it would make my visa situation more complicated, and am instead waiting for a year or two.
Germany is really not a convenience culture, I consistently find myself exhausted. This might sound stupid, but in the U.S, I can simply hop in a car and grab a reasonably healthy Chipotle bowl or similar, get enough protein and vegetables, etc. In Germany, there really are not so many places for quick food to grab, in general the food is actually quite poor, I don't find myself eating out at all.
Additionally, the language is brutal, it's hard to explain just how exhausting it is to learn while you're working full time. I have probably spent ~600 hours practicing yet I am still only about an A2 speaking level, with my understanding generally being a bit higher.
All in all, I'm happy I made the switch, it's been incredibly rewarding, but it truly is exhausting. I can see how this would add up, and I often think about how easy my life might be in the United States, and I miss this easy, casual life that's been replaced for something that really expects and demands so much from me, every single day and interaction.
Germans tend to differentiate between getting takeout (something like kebab/pizza/asia box to go or delivered home) or eating out (going to a restaurant and eating there).
But I'd argue for most people getting into the car to get takeout is not very common.
> In Germany, there really are not so many places for quick food to grab, in general the food is actually quite poor, I don't find myself eating out at all.
That is wildly false. First of all the availability of eating out options is directly influenced by where you are (e.g. in Berlin there is incredible variety of cuisines, price ranges and healthiness), and secondly almost every food or grocery you buy in Germany is of higher quality than the US equivalent.
I remember my shock when every single food item I bought in the US had sugar in it.
I can add my anecdote to the language barrier points.
At work we speak English, everybody speak English all the time, all docs are in English, all meetings are in English. There's an occasional German email every now and then but people will switch.
When we go to a "team building" retreat, all the same teammates that happily chatted with us expats in English just switch to German 100%, full stop. You can come and stand at the edge of a group chatting in German and they will look at you and continue, knowing you stand there not understanding, without batting an eye.
Excellent anecdote. I'm not sure if you're making a judgement about their behavior at the team event.
I'm an English native speaker, new in Germany, and learning German. I personally find it really annoying and awkward when other foreigners come into German social situations and expect or push them to speak English.
- What right do I have as the foreigner to intrude and get them to speak English?
- Social life in another language has it's own shared culture, jokes, and social cues. It's not fair or realistic to make people give that all up because some foreigner walked near the circle.
- It's my problem that I'm not yet fluent. It's not their problem that they're not speaking English.
- Some people are shy about their English skills, and they do not want to be pushed to speak English in front of others, in a group social setting.
- If you want exposure and practice, these are the golden opportunities! Take a humble learners position. Be quiet, understand as much as you can, and say what little bits you can, in German, not in English. Then study, study, study as much as you can in your time alone.
I hear fellow foreigners bemoaning the fact that they can't speak German yet, but these same people will inadvertently push English into every social situation they walk into. This just doesn't work. If you want to learn the language of the land, you have to let them speak it.
I find Germans are incredibly friendly and welcoming, especially when you come in humbly, trying to learn, and don't push everyone to speak English.
I've been there, same as in Quebec for French but I would see it as a learning opportunity to practice.
In Austria I've always made an effort to stay inclusively in English in these settings but it's probably normal to fall back to default language in most countries and cultures especially when the context is not about the work per se.
This. And don't forget the occasional refinement meetings during which you think you're making a group decision but your manager and the other senior (both German, speaking German, having spoken in private without your awareness) already decided on many things, even though they acknowledge that you're the more experienced person in the room. So you're treated as a rubber stamp and three months in when you have an objection because clearly you're walking into a sunken cost, will be shown ADRs (in Denglish) basically where everything's already decided in their favour.
I'm from a "southern" country and I lived in Germany for 10 years. My kids were born there.
Last year we decided to move to my home country because of "too many things" but also fed up of feeling an immigrant.
Few months ago I met a German family living around here in a coastal area. I asked them why they moved here and they answered me straight to my face "Because in Germany there are too many immigrants". I think the joke tells itself.
I would hardly call it "world class". Most of the world is much harsher place to migrants than any EU member country. Privileged, well paid expats may be treated nicely in most of the world, but that does not apply to refugees and people who move for low-paid manual labor.
I moved to Germany 15 years ago from Scandinavia. Integrating here is really tough. The bureaucratic systems are very opaque and small mistakes in paperwork can cause a lot of problems...
I mean... yes discrimination doesn't feel nice... but it's not as if people who come to Germany where forced to do so by the germans.
I'm not from Germany, but the vibes in some of the high-muslim density parts of Germany I've been to have likewise felt unwelcome, unsafe and hostile (towards me as a scandinavian).
So it feel a bit more complicated than "germans are racist, BAD".
Anecdotally I've heard that it's hard for any other nationality to do business in germany, simply because they prefer to do business with other germans. It's their country, we just need to accept those cultural differences, and their right to do as they please in their own country.
There's plenty of countries whose laws or attitudes I don't agree with, and that I just don't visit or have any ambition of staying in. China, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Chad are a few examples.
I like Germany, studied German a bit in college, etc but when my family and I decided to move somewhere that suited us because we could work from anywhere Germany really failed to impress. We ended up in the Netherlands which offers a a lot of the perks people associate with Germany (perhaps wrongly, good trains were one of the things we wanted) without as many of the downsides.
It's interesting how quickly any discussion about immigrant/expat life in Germany becomes about language. That has to account for something.
After my tenure of 11 years in the country, my impression is that there is a deeper sense of "us" v/s "them"; the language is the most PC way to express it.
If you're in the category of "us" you don't complain about the taxes or things being closed on Sundays, because you're supposed to "understand" that there's a welfare state (which has been a myth for a while now and cracks are showing up since covid). If you're in the "us", you don't claim bureaucracy is treacherous, because the language should have equipped you to fight it. You might be in the "us", if you believe with every bit of your being that rules and regulations is the best way to ensure everyone behaves properly and everything works efficiently.
If you dare challenge (m)any of these and you don't speak German good enough, it's the language. If you speak the language, then you're not "integrated". Maybe that's immigration everywhere, but I feel in Germany, there is a rather narrow band you get to be in "acceptably".
1. Defensiveness; one could describe it as "Stockholm syndrome"
2. What outsiders don't understand about the language thing is that it's not about how much German you need to get along in daily life. That's a similar challenge everywhere in the world.
The crux is that in Germany, correct use of the language is a social status thing, more so than in other places.
Any person, whether German or foreigner, who appears to have difficulty with the language, is easily looked down upon.
I have like a dozen different german friends, and it's nothing like you say: everyone in the country curses the bureaucracy, every sunday is like "oh let's quickly get something from the shops oh no wait it's sunday uuuugh"
The taxes seem largely fine relative to the cost of living there, with people living in poorer regions at an advantage even due to the Freibetrag.
All this discussion makes me wonder - is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy? Assuming the immigrant makes every effort to integrate (learning the language, respecting local people/customs etc).
It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media? I don't know for sure.
I know the US gets a lot of flak due to the current administration's policies and actions. Despite that it is still the best country for immigrants with the caveat 'Assuming the immigrant makes every effort to integrate (learning the language, respecting local people/customs etc)'
Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the language and customs.
> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general
Not the concept itself, but the insane numbers. Even South Africa is having "anti-migrant" protests (by the _black_ population; important detail, due to history).
Having 1-2% of your population come in as migrants* is pretty nuts; no negative migration afterwards; number only goes up. I cannot see how this is going to end well in the long run.
*: This is for the Netherlands, for the last 5 years since 2024 (that's the latest numbers I got from our Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)). That is _just_ economic migration. It's insane. I made some visualizations: https://tbataafschebroederschap.nl/projects/autochtoonse-ned...
Lots of people want to migrate from one country to another, so they clearly think their own lives would be improved (bar a few doing it altruistically).
As for including the locals lives, how? You might be bringing skills they need, or money. Do you mean purely socially? That is very subjective.
I think the media exaggerate the hostility. IMO most of the hostility here in the UK is aimed at 1) illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and 2) Muslims. There is also rising hostility to Jews, but usually from an entirely different group to those hostile to Muslims.
> is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy?
The United States.
> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media?
The world is turning hostile to immigration because the media (and social media sites) highlight and repeat the bad anecdotes, while barely mentioning the actual data showing positive outcomes.
For better their lives as well as the locals' life I think it is most of them. For feeling rewarded or fulfilled for doing that, I think depends on both the person and the country, but probably quite rare.
I tried two countries so far (>5 year in both) and there were pluses and minuses in each. Which are different to the pluses and minuses in my home country.
I think that one will (generally) evolve and adopt some habits of the country you immigrated too, while giving up some habits you had before. The result? You might be a more complete person (because you become aware of the habits, and can choose to some extent) but on the other hand you will not belong anywhere any-more (you will not adopt some stupid habits of the new country, but you did gave up some stupid habits that you had).
> is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy?
Not really anymore. All the good ponds have all been fished out by now.
Housing is in short supply in every livable city in the western world and the job market is tight right now, so if you move there now, you're one, increasing labor competition for the locals, and two, rising housing prices for the locals. THe only locals happy with this arrangement are the corporation hiring you and the landlord taking your money.
The world has min-maxed itself into oblivion that it's already reached saturation point. We're way passed the balance point, everything is fucked, there's no magic place on the planet where things are nice for everyone.
Get born outside the western world and migrate to Europe as a skilled worker and your live increases significantly as well as that it your family. Same goes for the society you live in.
> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media? I don't know for sure.
I view it as growing pains. We inhabit a highly interdependent and interconnected world now, the economy is extremely global. Nation states as the primary governance model simply don't make sense anymore, and the world needs to adjust and find a new political organizing principle. The modern concept of nation state is itself a historical concept, it really arose approx. 18th cen. has worked ok for a while and now we need some new governance concept that is a better fit for our highly interconnected and global world.
What we are seeing now are reactions against what in my view is the inevitable decline of nation based organization and the formation of something else. The "old system" is acting out in an attempt to save itself, in a refusal to evolve. People don't like change. The writing is on the wall though. The degree to which every nation is now completely entangled with every other makes nations themselves as an operational concept inefficient and untenable.
Why don’t people migrate to developing countries instead to help them directly. This form of migration makes it appear that Western countries are better.
There is a big problem with mass migration and people entering a country with antithetical values and beliefs.
We aren't really talking about this loneliness epidemic that is not contained to any one particular country. I can imagine how difficult it is to move to a new place now, no matter where it is, and especially in the future if the trend continues.
That really depends on what country are they coming from, and how established they are in life. As an extreme example, someone from Sudan would benefit by moving out, if only by being in a stable place that's not being ravaged by civil war.
Immigration does generally improve the economy, but it doesn't happen overnight, and this is an incredibly easy anxiety to exploit for short-term political gain.
There's been a lot of pressure to break the EU for quite some time, and now even the US is also aiming for this.
It's a lot of misinformation and funding from too many countries, for a long time.
What's impressive is how much this tension had actually been holding on, which goes to show that education actually plays an important role when dealing with misinformation.
1. A "meta-problem": While many Germans agree that things are bad, people favour completely opposite solutions.
My meta-solution to that would be decentralisation and letting more things be decided locally, but unfortunately Germans are united in favouring centralisation these days.
2. There's a strong superposition of "things are bad" and "we are still the best"; a high degree of defensiveness and stubbornness. This was accurately described as "presumptuousness" in another comment.
Anecdotal and more for unskilled than skilled workers, but having traveled to Germany a bunch, I found that taxi drivers and delivery drivers seem pretty unhappy there. They mention not feeling accepted, feeling constantly looked down upon, etc. There's a bit of that in every country, but generally, the immigrants I've found in Germany seem a lot less happy than the ones I've met in other countries.
Various combinations of "they didn't know", "still better than the place they left", "their experience wasn't that bad", and "needed for their resume".
I have friends who moved to Germany, so although I haven't been or experienced immigrating there myself, it's been in the conversation amongst my circles.
What I hear about it is that it can feel closed and lonely. Germans are not necesarily mean, but they won't fully assimilate you into their circles easily, especially if you're not European. I also hear dating can be tough if you're not German or European. It's an important factor for choosing to stay somewhere permanently if you move there in your early 20s, like my friend did.
This is a very sensitive topic. I think anyone moving to a different country has to learn the native language. That's the biggest barrier for proper integration and to feel fully at home in a new country. Whenever something is broken, needs help or in an emergency one cannot expect to have an English speaking person on the other-side.
That being said, German is not an easy language to learn. In my experience, native German speakers are quite patient and help you with practice compared to let's say French, still it would take ages to be fluent in German unless you're studying the language full time. However, if you're a skilled worker you would be working in an environment where English is used and the amount of time you'd get to learn German would be way less.
In that aspect I think Anglosphere is way more attractive for migrants to settle down and it's natural people would come to Germany, work, save some money, travel around Europe and move on to US, UK, Australia, etc. to settle down.
The situation is kind of similar in my country (France).
My partner and I lived together in Czech Republic for 7 years where I was working as a scientist (EU to EU, pretty much no paperwork involved). She is american and obtained a "partner of EU citizen" long stay permit. We decided to move back to France and now we have to deal with bureaucracy and it is exhausting.
There are many paths by which an non-EU citizen can get residency in europe and it includes:
- Student visa (9 months, needs to apply long in advance)
- Entrepreneur (need to pitch a business, needs 30k€ of savings)
- Refugee
- Married (the easiest one)
- Family member of EU citizen (only applies when the EU citizen is not native to the country you apply to)
- Family member of native citizen
We had to apply to the last one, because we only have a civil union (it's a french thing called PACS and it's not recognized as a "proper" union for permits).
We also needed to prove that we had lived together for more than a year (which we also had to do in Czech Republic) so that she could get her one year permit. The fees are opaque (the website says 350€ of tax + 100 € of processing fee but the final bill was 650€). Any document must be translated (cost us around 1000€) and official documents must be verified by apostille (which we learned when we celebrated our civil union in at the french embassy in Czech Republic).
At the end of her permit, she will need to validate an A2 level of profciency in french to apply for a multi year permit (2 to 4 years). Once she has lived 5 years here, she can apply for a permanent residency if she has a B2 level, pass a civil exam and show proofs of involvement in civic life.
All of this to say that the requirements to immigrate in Europe require either a lot of money or a lot of dedication. This really changed my view on the whole "Europe has free border, anybody can get in to steal our job" rhetoric.
One of the reasons is that Germany is not a friendly country for non-german speakers (and/or if you dont have the right profile); I've worked for a while in both Berlin and Munich. In berlin you get away with english, except anything official - from opening a bank account to any interaction with the city council or government services. They will go out of your way to make you feel unwelcome if you are not a fluent german speaker. In Munich is even worse - in many "non-immigrant neighbourhoods" they wont even acknowledge you if you speak english (eg. In the supermarket), though often they understand it perfectly.
Learning german is not easy, but it is absolutely essential if you want to call it home; Id suggest anyone planning a move to start learning beforehand - the idea that you will "wing it by talking to people" is not enough.
Lol. Honestly, I love Munich, but I totally understand why certain movements galvanized there :p its easy to be on a high horse on a rich land - if something is not right, must be someone else's fault.
My partner and I went to Germany and then left. We found that while they are desperate for skilled labor, they do essentially nothing to accommodate once people have come. Every step of the immigration process felt like another grift. Our Auslanderbörde appointment was borderline hostile, and our lawyer was a certified buffoon. Then daily life was beset with petty corruption. We couldn’t get an appointment at the burgeramt to register until we paid a fixer to go in on our behalf. Germany was full of petty annoyances and indignities that made it clear they want immigrants, but will not put in the effort to retain them. The U.S. is lately no friend to even skilled immigrants, but public government services are at least available in most major European and Asian languages. Go to the Netherlands instead. That’s what we would have done, if we had it to do over again.
This feels rather naive in taking all the complaints at face value. The truth will be much more nuanced, and ultimately countries should be more welcoming to the genuine whilst far more discerning with the deceitful
This reminds me that I got fired from a German company (operating in DK) because I asked too many questions and would not stop complaining about the software architecture which was terrible.
The company culture was clashing with the Danish culture that I was used to and also I didn't give a fuck.
Small companies are usually flat, but my experience is that larger companies turn into departments/teams until someone realizes that more leadership on paper doesn't add any value.
It's interesting that the B1 language requirement is discussed here mostly in terms of fairness. Is it reasonable or not, to require an immigrant to speak the language of the country they're immigrating to?
Whether it's fair or not is trumped by how _easy_ it is. You can get a B1 German certification in a matter of months with SRS and cheap tutors online.
This is a B1 English question:
“This is a nice bathroom.” “Yes. It’s the one _ we’ve just redecorated.”
a) when b) who c) which
If German people move to African or Eastern countries, how long till they can get full citizenship rights? My understanding is never in most of these countries.
When people came to the country to work then retire somewhere else, isn’t it not a net benefit for Germany? Less burden on the social net, healthcare system etc.
Why? Simple: visit a restaurant, especially one by the highway with truckers, in southern Germany, with your girlfriend/wife. But one in a town will do, just speak English, or French. It will be entirely clear after that.
Hell, I doubt you'll make it past the restaurant's door before it becomes clear.
They got millennials from post-Communist countries after all transition periods for new EU members have passed sometime around 2011. Were already lucky because they didn't open the market straight away in 2004 like Ireland, UK, and Sweden. Germans were overconfident because their largest demographic boom was in their 40s back then.
Treated that immigration wave like shit. They left.
Germans worked really hard for every single nasty thing which is about to happen to them.
Emigrating is hard. Expect language issue, culture issue, bureaucracy issues. Other countries are not your country but with a different language, living somewhere is not the same as visiting as a tourist.
Emigrating is a generational project, you will forever be a foreigner, your children will be immanent children and only your grandchildren will be true locals.
This is not a government issue, right wing issue, racism, or what not its just a fact of life. Be prepared for it when making the decision.
Germany is literally disappearing as a nation (too low a replacement rate and other problems). Pretty awful situation. Here's Peter Zeihan's assessment of Germany's future (or lack thereof):
They joined verein but didn't notice it's two years contract with auto renewal, cancellation three months in advance by letter. Left the country after receiving Mahnbescheid. Have fun in this asshole-verein.
I've been living in Berlin for about seventeen years. My German isn't great but usable in an emergency. I get by with it. Most work related stuff is English.
Bureaucracy is an annoyance in this country. But the flip side is that if you persist, you'll manage. It's also not something that's necessarily a lot better in other big countries. But Germany could do a lot better by just moving a lot of the key processes online, cutting down on asking for the same information over and over again via paper forms, and speeding up decision processes. That's slowly happening.
With AI translations, doing things in German (or any language) is a lot easier these days for foreigners. Also making sense of the complex processes with AI is helpful. Insistence that everybody should learn German is understandable from a nationalistic point of view. But you get quite far without that. Easier than ever now. Germany could be a bit more accommodating for this.
And the reality in factories, on construction sites, etc. is that you hear a lot of other languages being spoken. Lots of eastern Europeans active in the construction industry, for example. And lots of nurses and doctors from abroad are active in their hospitals. Packages are being delivered by people from India and Pakistan. And of course German companies that sell to foreign companies have to deal with the notion that their customers mostly won't be speaking German. Germany is already a lot more international than it might like to admit.
But it's undeniably true that you need to speak German in order to interact with especially older Germans and their companies. They simply don't speak anything else. Kind of weird because many of them are super dependent on import/export markets and yet they are mortally afraid of having to be in a meeting with non German speakers. I've experienced this several times. However, the baby boom generation is retiring and younger generations are already much more internationally focused. Most younger college educated people here speak English at this point. It's not that much of a problem as it used to be.
And even talking to people is getting easier now that we have AI translations and transcriptions. I've worked my way through a few meetings in Denglish. Ugly, but it works and if you have a shared business goal, people get more flexible.
Germany has been in and out of a recession for several years now and it's working population is on track to shrink and things like its pension and healthcare system are becoming a problem financially. It will need to work smarter to get out of that and that probably is going to require working with people that won't be speaking German from outside of Germany. Easy fix for that recession is just embracing the future. Many of Germany's problems are of its own making and very fixable.
I am the son of a (Cuban) immigrant and a German woman. Once, the police asked me if I spoke German, probably because my hair is dark and my eyes are brown. Germany has a bias against “southerners”—the darker your skin, the worse it is. If your skin is light and your eyes are light-colored, you won’t even be perceived as an immigrant as long as you keep your mouth shut. But if you look southern or Asian, you’ll always be a “Kanake” or “Fitschi,” even if in every other respect you’re more German than most Germans.
Racism here isn’t so severe that it leaves you with bruises, but you notice it in the little things. For example, this year I was looking for a new apartment with my partner, and when I first made contact, I used her German last name instead of my foreign one—just to be on the safe side. Whenever I do have to deal with the police—for example, because of a traffic accident or something similar—it seems like who gets blamed depends on skin color. If some guy named Hans Müller cuts me off, the police are still on his side. If I cut off someone named Achmed, strangely enough, they’re on my side. The last startup I worked for as a developer really played up its left-liberal, progressive image. Even so, the bosses were blond and blue-eyed, and the janitors were Black Africans. I could fill an entire book with impressions like these.
All the bureaucratic hurdles mentioned in the article are probably intentional. The aim is to make it difficult for foreigners to come here and stay, because these people are not wanted here. In recent years, even politicians deep within the left-liberal spectrum have touted the fact that the so-called migration problem has been brought under control. In other words, they have adopted the right-wing premise that migration itself is a problem, rather than the way migrants are treated and integrated.
The tragedy is that we’re running out of people of working age. We’re having too few children and are turning into an aging society. Over the next twenty years, this will hit us like a bus driving toward a cliff, while none of the passengers see the impending disaster. Immigration could be our salvation, but we just don’t want brown people.
At the same time, German society is tearing itself apart through policies that lack solidarity. Life is meant to be made as difficult and harsh as possible for people with average incomes. The last remnants of the welfare state are being gradually dismantled over successive legislative terms. Everything is being ruined by austerity measures. There is no longer any awareness that collective investments in education and public infrastructure are, in fact, investments that will yield a real return later on—for example, in the form of well-educated people, transportation networks that allow goods to be transported smoothly, or nationwide internet access when you need it. Instead, everything must be milked dry by the private sector, or it’s simply left to rot (or both).
Another comment here mentions that sclerotic forces are at work in Germany. I think that’s an apt description. It frustrates me immensely that society can’t pull itself together to take bold steps toward shaping a positive future. Instead, we have to watch as the country slowly withers away, while one idiot after another takes the reins of government to orchestrate the next round of bloodletting.
It's gotten to the point where I've now lost faith in democracy. Things aren't getting better—they're just getting worse and worse. And all I can do is try to position myself in my personal life in such a way that I can hopefully protect myself and a few people around me from the worst damage caused by this decline.
You are (as am I) in the 30% of Germans (40% in major cities) with a Migrationshintergrund.
At that point, it barely makes sense to call that a minority, it's just normalcy. If you find yourself in a pocket of unusual backwardness where it feels otherwise, you should probably leave.
I pass as German based on looks, but my name is weird and my wife doesn't look or sound German at all. I don't think her or I have ever noticed any adverse consequences from that.
If your German is good, you can just act and feel like you belong here and no one will challenge that.
The people saying they're having trouble getting by with just English though are weird to me. What did they expect? Different countries are different, that's sort of the point.
I do actually agree that Germany isn't the best country when you're looking for economic opportunity, but that isn't really what people are optimizing for here. You might disagree with this, but it's mostly not directed against immigrants.
Regarding your political points: Ironically, they sound very German to me. Yours is a standard left of center critique in German politics. The countries that have a long history of being targets for immigration largely don't work that way, probably because extensive social safety nets are bad for the acceptance of recent immigrants by locals.
> It's gotten to the point where I've now lost faith in democracy. Things aren't getting better...
"it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" - unknown, often attributed to Churchill
Rah-rah democracy advocates, and patriots of countries which imagine themselves democratic, often attribute all sort of mythical virtues to democracy.
But the reality is no more than "statistically less bad than the alternatives".
These days, the by-far worst problem for most supposed democracies is the excessive financialization of wealth. A century ago, the personal fortunes of most better-off people were tied to the overall fortunes of the country, the province, the city, and the neighborhood in which they lived - giving them huge incentives to care about those collective fortunes. Vs. now, the prevailing attitude seems far closer to "when this place goes to shit, I'll just pack up and leave".
I think that the financialization of wealth is a problem of education not of the political system. People just do not understand how that is a problem and how it affects them.
For me the best thing in a democracy is the fact that is supposed to have some dynamics. I am more afraid of a fixed set of people taking continuously worse and worse decisions. Many dictatorships started with the dictators managing fine the country, and people being fine to give them more and more power. Then, in something like 10 or 20 years things go to shit, but there is no "mechanism" to replace them.
It’s a good recipe for consensus. I find it easier to reluctantly submit to the will of the majority than I would to the will of a minority. There are certainly a few opponents of democracy who feel exactly the opposite, but most people probably feel the same way I do. That is precisely where the stabilizing effect of democracy lies: it makes people compliant. But it is a misconception that democratic decisions are intrinsically better than others in terms of substance. A majority can pass nonsense just as easily as a minority can make wise decisions. What’s important in a democracy is that people truly believe that the will of the majority prevails—or, even more importantly, the common good. If they lose that belief, a democratic society slowly dies.
Wow, lots of generalisations are being made in the comments. I'm German and have lived in the south-west for most of my life. I hope it goes without saying that Germany is a big country, both by space and population. We have some very dense urban areas (Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin come to mind) but also very open "arsch der welt" hinterlands with villages of 100 people or fewer. This creates huge diversity in standard of living conditions as well as life experiences (and expectations). Some places are better than others, this isn't unusual. Thus, many experiences that people have written about can't be applied with any certainty to large swaths of the populace.
Regarding the DW article, yes language is a constraint and does cause issues with finding/keeping a job and integrating into one's area. Believe it or not, this can also affect us locals too [1]. The bureaucracy is often _difficult_ and people behind the counter can be unhelpful.
We definitely suffer from institutional inflexibility, leading to absurd situations, for example with our population of economically active refugees who will probably be forced to leave, which will lead to an even bigger job market deficit and possible economic decline [2], or how we blunder large scale projects like Stuttgart 21 (or 35 or 70?!?!)[3]. The German concept of identity and unity is also very complex [4,5], and sadly this reflects somewhat on our interaction with migrants. Couple this with complex domestic and international economic and political issues [6,7], and we now have a situation that is far from ideal for people coming here to work and build a life.
All this can be difficult to deal with for you who are planning to come here or those who already live here, and I really wish that weren't the case. Please don't be discouraged, we want and need you, for more than just helping to prop up our economy and welfare state (by the way, thank you!). I believe that the diversity of experiences and ideas you bring is a boon to our future.
So, I have lived in Frankfurt for a couple of years now, and after talking with so many other expats, I think I have come up with a solid reason why this happens and why I am also thinking about leaving Germany. My TLDR is that Germany makes it really hard to settle down. When you are a skilled worker and you decide to come to Germany, you feel that things in your home country are holding you back, so you move here to step up, to upgrade, to move forward. And that is not what you find here.
- You drove in your previous country? Good luck getting your driver's license in Germany (I know people living in the Netherlands and Italy who have been driving since their first month there), and good luck paying so much for parking. And then, you might say: "but use public transportation". And I reply, good luck going for a dinner with your gf when it 0 degrees outside and raining to get the metro that has less availability (because it is evening already) or they are doing some maintenance in the line. In my experience here, public transportation is only good when is working hours. In Frankfurt, after working hours they reduce itinerary of a metro and during weekends - hahahaha - you would cry with me.
- You want to buy a house? Good luck finding a bank that wants to finance you without a credit history in Germany (a friend already bought a house in the Netherlands, btw). Want to rent a place? Good luck finding someone to rent their house to someone who just arrived in Germany.
- Do you have doubts or problems with bureaucracy? So cute... good luck with that too. Workers in public service do not speak English, and those who do don't want to speak English with you (and that is with me living in Frankfurt - one of the most international cities in Germany). Not even in the Ausländerbehörde do they speak English. (I am ok if the waitress in the cafeteria doesn't speak it, but not in the Ausländerbehörde).
- Then you think: "ok, let's learn the language...". Germany is the most expensive country to learn its own language that I've ever seen. I studied in France and they were teaching French for free there. All the free/cheap German courses here are not for skilled workers, because with a skilled worker's wage, you are above the threshold for social benefits and all the cheap alternatives are out of the question. Then, you might say: "but you can learn online". Fair point, but how do you expect people to connect with your country by learning online? For me, it was way cheaper to pay a professional teacher in my home country online to have individual classes than to attend a German class here.
- You have a problem in your house? Good luck waiting years for it to be "solved". I have full experience with this: we had an issue with the roof of the building and it literally took them more than 2 years to solve it. Because the roof belongs to the building and not the apartment, it is not the landlord's responsibility, and you need to find out who is responsible for it, etc.
And, on top of all this, Germany is not a cheap country to live in, and the infrastructure is far from ideal: trains are always late and expensive, and you cannot rely on DB anymore. Internet is super expensive and slow (we have a bunch of data centers in Frankfurt, but you have no fiber connection in the houses here). Energy is stupidly expensive now (due to German politicians eating shit for breakfast).
So... overall, I think skilled workers think about leaving after some years because small issues stack up, and in the end, you are not able to build a life here. And I don't even want to get into the topic of making friends here, maybe in another post.
I'm a Canadian/German dual; a praire, hockey-playing, hard-O Canadian at that.
There is nothing German about me, apart from some family myths.
Every 8 or 9 years my passport renewal at the German embassy plays out like that scene in Inglorious Basterds, where Brad Pitt's character Aldo Rain tries to pose as Italian stunt-man Enzo Gorlami.
Hi everyone
I don’t usually comment on topics like this because there are so many biases and different perspectives involved. In the end, I believe only the person who has actually gone through the experience can truly understand it; otherwise, it often becomes just another judgment.
We are an ASEAN family earning more than €200k gross annually (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it—please keep reading before judging). We have lived here for more than six years, and you know what? I still haven’t obtained either permanent residence or German citizenship simply because I don’t have a B1 certificate. So first things first: regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here.
I was honestly devastated when the officer told me that I was not eligible for permanent residence. That was also the moment when I started to feel that maybe I don’t actually need permanent residence in this country after all.
Story 2: In an international working environment, German may not matter much at the IC level. But I’ve seen countless situations where Germans exchange a glance with each other, and suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting. Over time, I’ve learned that there are many unwritten rules behind the scenes, and when you speak their language, you start to understand them.
One bright thing is that maybe we’re still lucky. We bought our first home without fully understanding the laws, the government system, or the tax rules. We simply worked hard and played the game in a way that we believed would be sustainable in the long run. Whatever happens, we know there are still many other places we could go.
Our children speak German natively, but they are also willing to go the extra mile to speak our mother tongue at home.
If you ask me for one piece of advice for immigrants and emigrants in Germany, I’d say: life is short—play naked!
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...
My rule is that if you want to settle in the country, you ought to learn the local language and it doesn't really matter how much money you make in my opinion. I got to B2 and passed the test, but ultimately left Germany years ago. I don't intend to go back but I also don't regret learning the language.
FWIW, for Blue Card holders, after 27 months the language requirement drops to A1 and even if you don't have a Blue Card after five years you could also get an EU permanent residence without language requirement: https://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/visa-residence/living-...
Though I would recommend setting yourself a target of some small (≈10) number of new words to learn every day and practice them during your commute or so. B1 is achievable in under a year with consistent practice. The official word list has 2400 entries: https://www.goethe.de/pro/relaunch/prf/de/Goethe-Zertifikat_...
As a german living in spain, i feel your pain. While I do speak spanish around B1/B2 level, it took a lot of time and effort - probably the biggest effort in learning something after uni. People are often "you should speak the language if you life there" - yes, agreed. BUT: Hell, if you are a professional entrepreneur, you are already not working 40h week but way more. If in your day job you speak english anyway because it is international, you hardly practice it. Especially in the EU we are taught that we can move freely between nation states - but reality of learning a language takes years. I learned english at age 10, so am practicing for over 30 years now and still learning and anybody could spot that I am not a native speaker. Countries that rely on foreign labour and advertise agressively on skilled immigration (such as Germany does) should not have those strict language requirements. Especially since german itself is a very difficult language.
So your complaint is you wanted permanent residence in Germany but did not want to learn to speak German?
Genuinely happy to hear you're successful here! But, why would you expect there to be no drawback to not knowing the local language when moving to a foreign country?
You can get B1 with a bit of spare time. With kids, I understand it's a different situation; however, it took me about 2 years to get there, learning in my spare spare time (which after a certain point was just listening to audio books before bed). The compounding effect works.
BUUUUT, even with B2, it's just not enough for avoiding "the look", as you put it. I think you need flawless C1 or something, idk. Don't care anymore lol.
I don't have any skin in the game here for Germany specifically, but I would point out that B1 is an incredibly low bar to clear. With concentrated effort, you can reach that level in under a year, I know because I've done it. Given you have kids and are otherwise preoccupied, maybe a few years. At six years in, it's purely a matter of whether you yourself actually want it or not.
If you cannot be bothered with learning our language, and think that being rich somehow makes our country owe you its citizenship — then yeah, maybe Germany isn’t for you.
I am European, working in China for 12 years making multiples of the average salary, speak Chinese above B1 level and am not eligible for permanent residency yet.
First of all, if you want to become a resident somewhere you must learn the language. Not should.
Second, no country owes any foreign citizen residency there.
You're always going to be an outsider if you can't speak the language, no matter where you go in the world. B1 is a reasonable level, as it's the bare minimum for doing day-to-day tasks in the local language.
I honestly can't image planning to live in any country for the long term without learning the local language to at least this level.
Hey. I'm with you there. My German also kind of sucks, but I've had a very successful 15 years in Berlin. The best part is how easy it is to pick jobs from the neighboring countries, like France. You pay taxes here, you commute maybe once a month to Paris and enjoy the prices and quietness of Berlin. We are lucky with my partner, and bought finally our own apartment.
My partner, an American, is fluent with the language so it helps. My plan is to make a good amount of savings, take a year or so of sabbatical and finally learn the language. Until that, we go with bar Deutsch.
I know life as an immigrant, especially while having kids and professional careers can be tough.
That said, personally I'm thankful for Quebec having been the forcing function to learn French.
With no prior formation to reach "intermédiaire avancé" took me about 20 months of studying on the side with one lesson per week for most of that time; usually before or during work hours (partially was a group setting there).
I'm a German native speaker so I'm probably biased / ignorant about some major language hurdles but to me German must be the easier language to pick up for most as it's way more regular.
I think the trick is to make a deliberate choice / opening up to love language and people, speaking with as many native speakers as possible etc. It also really helped me to almost exclusively switch to consuming French news and most of other media.
I'm not a fan of dubbing in general but for learning, Hollywood movies in French have been mostly great same as with German translations. Maybe watch older movies, they used to put in an unreasonable amount of work into those especially.
Computer games I'm personally still playing mostly in French to this day and I know that German translations are usually done with a lot of heart as well.
Edit: do check out https://www.arte.tv/de/ if you haven't - one of our favourites for both French and German of course; probably one of, if not the best TV worldwide. Always especially palpable after having been on youtube for a while too long; just the opposite of engagement bait, wholesome and good journalism and more.
First, €200k gross annually is huge in Germany. You are high income! Do not read that as a (negative) judgement, but a lot of people on HN don't understand how much lower salaries are in central Europe compared to the US.
Your situation makes me think of Japan. Starting about 10 years ago, they introduced a special "fast path" to permanent residence for high income people. I am surprised that it has not triggered more debate in Japanese society. I think the numbers are so small that most people (and politicians) don't really care. The goal was to attract high income people to work and live in Japan... and pay taxes! Germany could consider a similar programme. However, for normies, I am still strongly in favour of language requirements in any nation when applying for permanent residence.
Last:
I don't understand. What does "play naked" mean?"regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here."
What's the issue here? Is it me or is it absurd for someone to permanently move to a country and expect to integrate without knowing how how to speak the language?
How do you live 6 years in a country without reaching B1?
Could you also add your thoughts on whether you think a B1 level is a sensible requirement for permanent residence in any country?
Because that's what the post seems to boil down to, but you haven't opined on it (other than refusing to learn B1, which implies the answer somewhat).
B1 by the way is considered doable for a consistent parttime learner in 9 months, and 1-2 years for someone doing weekend studying. That's an average.
For a studious family with higher educational background making 200k a year (this is significantly above average in Germany), you've got both the IQ and the capital for tutoring to do better than average.
Seems like a sensible, useful, necessary and practical bar to set for permanent residence, to me.
An observation from the side, is that this person already speaks 2 languages, and very probably more. They aren't dumb, I do question their logic, but the capacity to speak more than one tongue is in this person, witness their writing in English, and stating they come from an ASEAN background. That means at least one non-english language, and for many ASEAN economies, more than one.
eg Chinese both Manderin and Cantonese, Indonesian and Chinese, some Chinese and Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese, these are combinations I have met at work here in Australia aside from "and english"
I've had lifts from Uber drivers who speak 4 tongues fluently.
> German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here.
Well yeah, learning the local language is a requirement for a lot of countries on the path to citizenship.
It's the same in the Netherlands (needing a minimum language level), I suspect it's 25+ years of right-leaning, anti-migration governments; as a compromise they said "foreigners can stay as long as they integrate into our society", and language is a big factor there. Or that is the claim anyway.
This doesn't apply to higher end jobs though, which are almost always international to begin with.
It's a good thing you can't get permanent residency, let alone citizenship! without speaking the local language. There are few countries in the world that hand out citizenship as cheaply as Germany.
My mate, learn German and be happy they don't ask for B2 or C1. If I move to China and want the nationality, it's absolutely normal that one expects me to speak Chinese.
As an Ausländer (who reached C1), I am surprised that you are not talking about the other actual and terrible problems the german society is facing: an aging population relying on immigrants to fill in the gaps, taxes everywhere without the advantages of a strong social system, a very expensive health system but with doctors almost prescribing you tea to fight cancer, crippling solitude inherent to the german culture which even spreads to immigrants -more than half of Berlin lives alone-, a housing market held by boomers and huge corporations (literally no houses below 200k€ in the whole country) which leaves you to rent your whole life to shelter your family, a pro-russia, pro-Afd east Germany vastly undevelopped and uneducated compared to the west. And also food, love, conversations. Germany often feels like the bad sides of northern Europe have been mixed with the bad sides of southern Europe.
And then the glass ceiling does not come at B1, but when you start to notice the difference in behaviour the Germans make between C1 and C2. If you want to pursue your whole career in this country, given how strong the german identity is, you will have to know every single subtlties of the language and culture if you are willing to compete for the next step in your career, for instance a management position.
Really, this country has been in a bad shape for at least five years now. Germany lived until now on its bounce after the reunification, the money poured by the Americans after the war and cheap russian gas. Now it feels like the bill other european countries always had to pay in the last decades has been finally handed to Germany.
B1 German is about 1 year of intensive studying from zero. With immersion and part-time commitment, I'd say ~3 years is a comfortable timeline to learn B1 German.
I am basing this off my personal experience of going from A1 -> A2 -> half-way through B1 (I dropped after I decided against studying in Germany, but my classmates continued the course). Given that German companies are known for excellent work-life balance, there should be enough spare time to learn German by the 5 year point.
All that being said, I imagine it's harder to learn a language when you have kids and family responsibilities.
In fairness, speaking the language is a reasonable bare minimum to obtain permanent residence and certainly a must citizenship in any countries.
AFAiK, in most European countries obtaining permanent residence requires at least 5 years of continued residence in the country so it is also a bad look in term of effort to integrate if a person still can't speak the language (maybe not perfectly but at least "good enough") after all that time.
> I’ve learned that there are many unwritten rules behind the scenes, and when you speak their language, you start to understand them.
That is true of every country.
I lived in Germany for seven years and by the end I was fluent. B1 is a very low bar to pass, I know because I've done it.
Sorry to say, but the rule is fair. If you want to be a permanent resident, put in a little bit of effort to integrate into the country that you would like to call home.
> suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting.
Are you sure you're not reading too much into that? I've witnessed plenty of times (in the USA) that agreements of a meeting were later 'forgotten' (no doubt often indeed due to poor memory). To the point that it was best to insist on a written record of a meeting.
Having B1 seems like a really lenient condition to get citizenship. I got B2 after 6 months of Erasmus, and I have B1 in Russian even though I never even stepped in the country.
Have you even tried to learn German, and if so what is so hard that you can't even get B1, although you stayed long enough to have kids speaking natively the language?
> We bought our first home without fully understanding the laws, the government system, or the tax rules.
That's bizarre. In Germany about half the population rents their primary dwelling; many life-long. There's really no rush to buy real estate here.
(not that anybody would fully understand the tax rules)
You can also take a Bildungsurlaub (educational leave, 5 days a year or 10 days every two years) and take a German course. For a two week course with private tutoring it's like 1k, which at your income level is not much. A lot of bureaucracy in Germany becomes a lot easier once you get over the B1 hump.
"So first things first: regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here."
You should look the other way around. The country is contributing to YOU. You are profitting from Germany.
Well I am an Indian who lived in US and worked for top companies for 10 years and left back to my home country as I did not want to be beholden to the Green card waiting time or take some unethical pathways (I see a lot of abuse of O1 now). I find coworkers from smaller and friendlier countries sail through and become Americans.
The point is that immigration can never really become a true meritocracy and even I recognised the privileges I had to reach to US in the first place. The country's ethos, ideas are grandfathered into the law alongwith numerous loopholes or sneaky ways. There is never a social compact where I did X , I deserve Y coming true. I suspect globally we are at the tail end of this type of immigration from Global South to Global North as well
What other country looks appealing?
I get the whole “speak the native language” but seems like the appealing countries speak a language most of the world doesn’t care about.
The number of countries with English as the main/official language that are desirable and open to immigrants seems really small.
Honestly, that even highly educated people are complaining about a host country attaching bare minimums to handing out its citizenry (I.e. the right to vote, welfare) is all the more reason to attach them in the first place.
B1 in any language is a low standard. It being a major hurdle seems unlikely.
> (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it ....
sorry to nitpick on this, but the story did not expand on this despite the pronouncement that there is a reason. Maybe it was subtle, but then let it be subtle.
Are you just using LLM to process your text or are you a LLM itself?
> life is short—play naked!
Such a concise way of saying what I've been thinking for a long time.
There is yet another angle that people don't like to discuss because it is uncomfortable. Every European nation state is built around ethnicity as the bedrock of society. This makes it nigh on impossible to integrate fully in these countries.
The way this manifests is different in each country, but the fundamental reason is the same. In the german case, take the words of Messut Ozil, the former footballer - when the German team wins, he is German. Lose, and he is the immigrant. He is ethnically Turkish, i.e. not ethnically German.
The same will apply to your kids as well.
I want to be clear, not every German person is a frothing racist, i would argue that the racists are a minority. It is, however, important to note that the reactions of the individual and the reactions of society can be different, sometimes polar opposites.
In sharp contrast to this are the US and Canada, where there is no shared definition of "white" even though the majority of their populations are ethnically European. In that case, "European" spans everything from Irish and Greek, to French and Austrian. Less than a hundred years back, Irish people were not seen as white. Today, that idea is laughable. The fundamental difference between the US and Canada on one side and German or european society on the other is that the old world is built around exclusion, while the new world is built around inclusion.
This is one important reason why skilled immigrants leave europe, and is also why i left.
I thought if you have a blue card A1 is suffice?
> Story 2: In an international working environment, German may not matter much at the IC level. But I’ve seen countless situations where Germans exchange a glance with each other, and suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting. Over time, I’ve learned that there are many unwritten rules behind the scenes, and when you speak their language, you start to understand them.
I mean, how many CEOs of major German companies are non-German? The country does seem much more insular than the Anglosphere.
Germany is only another economic–region–state under the EU.
How dare they require you speak the local savages' hard language after you've already been working for a multinational corporation for six years.
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I've been here for a decade, and sadly I feel the issue is upward mobility for skilled workers. Unless you're working for an intl company, with ex-pats in positions of leadership, your chances of "getting ahead" are going to be limited, especially when you're competing against natives.
The reason is sadly, the culture is very reserved and cautious, so as an "outsider" it's going to take A LONG time before you can be trusted in a senior/leadership position (no matter how good your German language skills are).
The good part, from my experience the people here are great, friendly, and yeh it takes time to get to know them but it pays off in the long run. But professionally... it's complicated.
So while people come here, work and stay for a few years, they're going to leave when they realise that despite their best efforts, they need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).
And this sadly affects applications for jobs (a photo is pretty much required which would be considered illegal in other countries like the UK), apply for apartments (which country is your last name from... automatic rejection), just to mention a few key cases that really affect immigration.
i've lived+worked in 4 different countries on 3 continents and i think you always have to expect to adjust to the culture, it's not going to change for you, nor should it. But if you want to progress professionally (and Germany NEEDS tech-imports, the tech culture here is a disaster, it's embarrassing) you're going to have to promote these people into high positions, not just view them as "cheaper labour".
> hey need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).
Staying in a position for a long part of one's life is a very common situation for many Germans, too. The whole concept of that you must have a career seems to be deeply ingrained in US mentality.
So, I have a strong feeling that a lot of immigrants who feel they hit a glass ceiling are rather used to the USA understanding how a career works, and think because they are not promoted, they are discriminated against, when in reality it's rather that a promotion to a completely new role/title is much more uncommon in Germany than in the USA.
One thing I will point out is that some of this partially due to coming to Germany with a US passport. Specifically, banks in Europe are increasingly weary of allowing US passport holders to open full account due to the international reach of the IRS and the additional bourdons it creates for banks. A US citizen living abroad still has a responsibilities with regard to reporting financial activities to the IRS. This is an extra liability and risk for foreign banks so in many cases they chose to simply not deal with Americans.
I was born in Germany and have a German passport. When I was a teen my family moved to the US and and have since also gotten my American citizenship. I have been considering moving back. I talked to my aunt who lives in Switzerland who told me not to bother trying to open a Swiss account it’s virtually impossible as long as you have a US passport. Germany is slightly better but at most there are 2-3 (mainly online only) banks where you might be able to get a basic (ie bare bones) account.
The IRS has the ability to compel foreign banks to freeze assets of US citizens living abroad or at least to make it a paperwork nightmare for them. I can understand why a company might not want to promote an individual to senior positions if banks are weary of dealing with them.
I think this is the biggest factor. Ambitious people who want to become rich do not have any opportunities in Germany. It is good for people who are content with a middling but comfortable life. That's why most ambitious people leave.
One thought I hate reading this is: do you need upward mobility?
It's a serious question because in an ideal (IMHO) society, people can have full and satisfying lives with security and family without becoming a CEO. In the US, for example, there's an obsession with "getting ahead" but, by definition, only so many people can get ahead. And why do they want to? Because, at least in part, a basic job in insufficient to make ends meet in most cases now. This is a form of coercion.
This is orthogonal to the issue of German social inclusion and forms of xenophobia (eg in the housing applications you mention).
Personally I'd rather in a society where everyone's needs are met and it's not a race against a rising tide where only 20% of the population are above it.
That sounds similar to what you experience in the US especially as a first gen immigrant. I see a glass ceiling (for the lack of a better word) here. Most of the leadership positions are occupied by US-born (mostly Caucasian) and/or to some degree, Indian immigrants. Sometimes, I truly wonder how/why this person got into the leadership role because it's fairly obvious that s/he lacks the essential qualities required for it. The only explanation is the politicking (typical in the corporate world) and somehow being able to impress others by talking fast and/or smooth (while giving false promises and failing upward).
All of this to say that your observation in Germany doesn't sound that different from mine in the US (been here for over 20+ years; been in a manager/director role in data for almost a decade).
You are right I think - but this is the case for everywhere besides startups in the US
Try going to Singapore, Japan, the UK, Netherlands, god forbid France, Germany, Latin America. Try going into engineering in major US companies - you know how hiring works and who is prioritized over whom.
If you are not local or you are not part of the inner circle of management the glass ceiling is there.
Some would say that it's just empirical evidence and they never had this problem. I would call them lucky.
Just to add, the experience can be quite different between Bundesland (for example the tech culture in Berlin can be really decent IMHO). And the Bewerbungsfoto is technically not allowed to be required (but often expected in practice, though I personally don’t remember sending one).
Overall that comment sounds quite true based on my experience. I had a way better time contracting for foreign companies from Germany
> a photo is pretty much required which would be considered illegal in other countries like the UK
I work since over 15 years as SWE and have been job hopping most of the time. Only during one job hunt I put a (professional) photo on my CV. While a photo on the CV is obviously not illegal, employers aren't allowed to demand it since 2 decades. But I agree there is a bias.
While I'm fully German so to say, I have a foreign last name literally from centuries ago. For most of the time this was never an issue, at best a conversation starter. But companies where the daily language is German (hint: these companies usually suck) I definitely had weird situations before. Also with some recruiters, especially from the UK.
That resonates a lot with my experience in Netherlands. It's way friendlier for expats but the barrier is there
The problem is, management requires stronger language skills than engineering.
While an engineer can usually get by with good English, a manager in a German company with German clients and German bosses also requires excellent command of German. I would think that this would equally apply to any other country and their native language.
Perhaps Germany is a bit unusual in that it fosters a strong small-company culture, with few levels of management. There is no "engineering ladder" in a company with only a single layer of management between engineers and CEO.
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I migrated to Germany 10+ years ago and I'm still here. Based on my limited experience, there are two big issues.
First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on. If you're a fresh immigrant who cannot find a job in an economic crisis (aka "most of them") you may very well wonder why staying here alone when you could be just as unemployed near your family.
Second: I won't say that Germany is xenophobic (not even all AfD voters) but I will say it's unfriendly. Work example: I've worked in multiple places in German without language issues, and yet many jobs automatically disqualify me because they ask for "minimum C2", a rank I don't have and one that many native Germans wouldn't achieve either. Add less chances to make a social circle, inflexibility, not great weather, and a government that's constantly calling you lazy and entitled, and that's how you get depressed.
The sad part is, Germany has all the pieces to be a great place to live that, for some reason, has decided to dismantle them all one by one.
> First, things are bad
As a German, it sounds like you integrated well.
>First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on.
Any minute now those millions of doctors, lawyers, and engineers from the MENA countries that flooded Germany the past decade will fix all that! Any minute!
there is no certificate higher than C2, so "minimum" C2 is ridicerlus, ackchyually...
I assume.thats your point here, but to bystanders: C2 is nearly native speaker language proficiency, nuanced, precise, eloquent.
if language production is the job, or impeccable understanding is a must have, like as a psychotherapist, then C2 is a reasonable requirement.
in contrast you can study in german language at a German university with C1 proficiency already.
There are sclerotic forces at work in Germany.
I sometimes wonder if the digestion of East-Germany hasn't somehow hurt a post-war rejuvenated Western&Southern German spirit.
Maybe it's just post-traumatic-stress from the Russian occupation still lingering: 1989 is not that far, generations-wise.
There is hope still... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT7MCko43YqeZ1x55O1DRtw
It has been my experience that many jobs which say "Must have C1 German" or something like that just mean "You need to be able to speak with us in German at work" and if you can speak at B2 level, that's perfectly fine. I had B1 level German and got job offers from places with such requirements because I can speak pretty well with my German colleagues who dont know any english, and I can use a mix when speaking about complicated things with my other colleagues.
The issues you see now in Germany are the direct consequence of the Merkel era conservative government and its austerity policy. They really wanted to get the deficit down at all cost. And all cost included any sort of needed maintenance on public infrastructure.
What has kept you from achieving C2, you’ve been there for 10y+
This is one of the most accurate descriptions I’ve seen here. Germany is a country with immense potential. All one can say is “what a shame”.
Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citizen married to a German man. However, she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one. By contrast, when I became an American citizen, my American friends (white and hispanic) insisted that they attend the naturalization ceremony.
> she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one
As a native German, I actually have difficulties with concepts like "identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]" or "naturalization". I really would say these are concepts that US-Americans (or people who were "shaped" by US mentality) seem to deeply care about, but Germans very typically don't.
So, my opinion/advice is: she should simply abandon such concepts ("identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]", "naturalization") that, as a native German, are simply far away from the mentality that I observe in daily life.
Don't forget that a unified Germany was a concept that only involved in the 19th century, so "Germany" is more of a somewhat "synthetic" unification of various historical, and very different, federal states where the unifying element is rather what is now considered to be a shared language, ethicity, culture and history.
With this in mind, the advice should be obvious:
This woman should concentrate on getting really good in German, and learn about the more than 1000 years of (what is now German) culture and history, and additionally learn about the laws and rules to survive daily life. Otherwise, she should live her life.
What she should not do, is caring about what "identifying as" or "feeling like a" German means - she should put this out of her mind, since modern Germany is a very synthetic unification of what were historically very different sovereign nations that share what is now considered to be a common language, ethicity, culture and history.
>because nobody made her feel like one
I'm German. Very rarely is the issue that people will in principle treat her as foreign, there's sometimes still the stereotype that you "can never be German" but in most places in the country that's not my experience.
However what is important is that you need to elbow your way in. There's a saying "nur sprechenden Menschen kann geholfen werden*. (only people who speak up can be helped). If you think someone's gonna carry you in that's not gonna happen. That's the biggest mistake I see immigrants make. It's a private and personal culture but people respect someone from the outside who shows initiative, and nobody is easily offended by someone being assertive, that's seen as a good thing.
It's not the kind of place where you can just wait and people will read what you want off your face. Doesn't even work for Germans, if you feel left out, you'll have to stand up and say you want to be in.
As an American, to me it's always felt like non-white Americans are never really accepted as "full" Americans by people as a whole. If a German guy moves to America and gets citizenship, he might be known as that German American guy, sure. But if he has kids, they'll just be called American. Over 100 years ago, some Chinese people moved to America. Those people had kids. Those kids had kids. Those kids had kids. Some of those kids also had kids. But what are those 5th or 6th generation Americans called? Asian Americans or even Chinese Americans, even if they've never been outside of the US and nobody in their family several generations up the line has either. And people who were forcefully brought to America 300 years ago still have their descendants being called "African American" instead of simply "American."
I say this as someone who myself emigrated from America. Nobody calls me "that American guy." I'm just "that guy".
It is an interesting divide. "German" is both an ethnicity and a citizenship, and it's possible to become one but not the other. "American" on the other hand is purely a citizenship, and so it is possible to become an American after immigrating.
My prejudice is that there are only a few countries in the world (US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, possibly others I don't have experience with) where coming as an immigrant they take you in and you can be considered from that country.
Relative to South America, Germany is going to feel very unfriendly. I think it's a matter of perspective. Also, countries that are very homogeneous (ie everyone looks the same) are probably going to have some ethnic ideas built in their idea of citizenship so your citizenship will be question if you don't look like them or behave like them. South America and Germany are very different regions culturally sitting at opposite ends of most cultural traits so her experience isn't surprising.
There is deep history here. For most of the past centuries, most Europe was from where you immigrated FROM, not where you immigrated TO.
There just is not the kind of immigration culture as in America. Some people don’t even have a notion why anyone would want to come to Europe.
As someone who lived in the US briefly, I found Americans are just a lot more hospitable to foreigners, than Germans and most other Europeans in general.
Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you into those clubs, you just got a piece of paper, not the culture and belonging the locals with ancestry there have.
It's not something you can learn as an adult living in a big international city with lots of expats and international companies, it's something you get from growing up there surrounded by that culture and ethnic ingroup created by your ancestors.
The equivalent for americans would probably be those whose ancestors were there before the civil war but that's a smaller % of the population today vs the more recent immigrants compared to Europe. Sure, there's as much immigration to Europe as well, per-capita as in the US, but a lot of it is undesired and the native Europeans have various cultural and bureaucratic glass ceilings to keep working class immigrants in the least desirable jobs, while they kept the more desirable governmental, academic and managerial jobs.
Not knocking them for it, they're free to run their societies the way they see fit, but then they also shouldn't be surprised when, unlike in the US, the second or third generation migrants growing up in the ghettos who are full citizens now, decide to blow themselves up, shoot up a cafe or drive a truck through a crowd, because of how unaccepted and held down they feel by the native European society.
The issue I see seems to be on how US and EU treat integration of migrants. In the US you ge equal opportunities and freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone, while in the EU you get endless strict rules and welfare which not only don't compensate the glass ceilings and isolation, it also pisses off the locals to see their high taxes going to foreigners who don't integrate. The other reason might be that migration to the US is more from Canada and latin america which is culturally similar to the US, while EU migration is mostly from africa and middle east which are very different culturally.
The oldest american "citizens" are merely 250yo. Like the country.
My point being, everyone in America is more or less an "immigrant" if you go back enough on their family tree, but the Native Americans.
>she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one
well, because she isn't one. had she moved to China, she wouldn't magically become Chinese.
How is your English compared to her German?
I‘m German, but I no longer live in Germany, so I can’t relate to the experience of immigrating to Germany.
I think a big part of the issue is a certain German presumptuousness.
There’s a general sense that Germany is a prosperous, influential country. The reason for that must be that things are done correctly in Germany.
I think this is an inherited attitude that doesn’t really correspond to reality anymore as systems are crumbling and a trip to many other European countries (including those Germans grew up to view as a barbaric hinterland or as holiday destinations) shows them that even small towns can have fast mobile internet, that you can pay by card at market vendors, and that the government can use computers.
I spent a day or so traveling through Germany with my parents a few weeks ago as part of a (much longer) trip and a common refrain during that day was, "So much for German efficiency." Frankfurt's airport was a tiring and frustrating experience, with long delays on the tarmac, at baggage claim, at the check-in counter, etc. One rest stop on the highway was half way dismantled, with restrooms filthy enough that everybody who got a look at them turned right around and went back to their cars. And so on. I was surprised, having expected that things would be generally more functional than in the States. (I will say that the roads were in a much better state of repair.)
> that you can pay by card at market vendors
When I (German) was on vacation in the Netherlands, I found it dystopic that you could often not pay cash, but had to use card. This "I don't want to be tracked" mentality is deeply ingrained into the feeling of many Germans.
So, I would rather call this not a bug, but a feature.
>There’s a general sense that Germany is a prosperous, influential country. The reason for that must be that things are done correctly in Germany.
I'm from the Netherlands(also not living there anymore) and I recognize this arrogance there, too.
And at the same time, almost paradoxically, the Netherlands has an inferiority complex.
The "doing things correctly" mentality is the root of so many problems. Bureaucracy, "German engineering" (overengineering), cargo-culting, CYA, error culture, ...
where do you live now?
Berlin is one the cheapest capital cities in Europe. As such it attracts a huge amount of immigrants. That low cost is reflected in the pay. An experienced full stack developer would be fortunate to get 90-95k euro annually. That is plenty of money if you intend to stay in Berlin, but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country. Also, housing is a huge problem there and it can take 6 months to find even a basic flat. I am an American developer that lived there for many years and my co-workers were usually Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian, Russian, Lebanese, and now Indian. It was rare to find an actual German coder.
I had a hard time with German work expectations and management style. Also, their engineering approach is thorough but incredibly slow and over-built. The environment is hierarchy and credential based with little room for individual initiative or creative problem solving. I was used to improvising, experimenting, and thinking outside the box. It was not a good fit.
90-95k would be impossibly high in Belgium, which is but a stone's throw away from Germany. If that isn't enough money to save, you're doing something very wrong, or your idea of a cheap city might differ from mine.
Your first sentence is a bold claim considering the current state of the housing market
> 90-95k euro annually. [..] but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country.
Nice disconnect from reality.
90k is more than twice the median income in Germany, and by extension, more than twice the median income of most European countries.
Where do the German coders go though?
As an outsider, but hailing from Germany's eastern neighbor and one of the largest sources of immigrants:
Overall sentiment is that the juice ain't worth the squeeze any more.
Back when my country became a full member of Schengen(2008) the ratio of GDP per capita between Germany and us was around 3.3x - salaries were roughly proportionally higher, so just about any job was worth moving there and potentially going through the hoops required to establish a permanent residence.
Earlier, especially throughout the 90s that ratio didn't go below 5, so a sizeable number of people attempted to move to Germany by any means possible.
Currently it hovers at around 2.1x and most of the discrepancy in salaries is focused on the trades.
A specialist from Poland typically doesn't have access to higher tier salaries, so they don't really enjoy a different quality of life than at home, so they have no reason to move.
Will this overall sentiment actually be confirmed with migration numbers if we check them?
I lived there for around 6 months like 15 years ago so perhaps it's changed a lot since then.
But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.
I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.
It didn't seem like an especially friendly place and there were so many rules about everything too, like just being able to take the rubbish or recycling out you had specific days and times.
This is funny because when I moved from the USA to UK I was caught off guard by "Sunday trading laws"[0] and even where not legally prohibited, it seems like most retailers other than vape stores or corner shops close at 5:30 or 6 pm, Since covid, we have to book an appointment in advance to go to the tip.
I think things have improved a little bit over the past few years – one large retail park near us advertises "late opening" (7 pm! ha!) on Thursdays — but it's still difficult to run errands during the week. I don't understand why it makes sense economically to only have your store open when no one with a 9-5 job can shop there.
[0] https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law
I'm from Switzerland and live in Germany and I think it is very relaxed. Too relaxed for my liking to be honest. Sometimes the bins are still out in the evening??? What kind of anarchy is this ;-)
Really, it's just what you are accustomed with.
Stores closing on Sunday is a good thing I think, it makes it easier for families to have a day together and kind of resets the week. On Saturdays they are also open until 8pm, some even until 10pm or so.
>I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.
You need to yell "Moin" very loudly. If you are in Southern Germany, you need to yell "MOIN" twice as loud to establish dominance.
Supermarket opening times are definitely not that restrictive (these days, but I don't recall it ever being like you mentioned & I moved to Berlin in 2013). The ones near me are usually open early morning till late evening (8-10pm), monday to saturday.
Have you visited London recently? Particularly east. It's got the unfriendliness but also complete total breakdown of the social contract and social decency
Music and video calls without headphones on all transport all the time. Shoes and socks off on train seats. Zombies barging into you constantly. Nobody letting people off the train.
Throwing rubbish on the ground. Leaving it on trains and buses.
Vaping on the tube
Pushing through the barriers at stations is normalised
Everyone does whatever the hell they like everywhere all the time. Constant antisocial behaviour. It's hell. An absolute epicenter of selfishness
I dream of a rule based society like Germany or UK of years ago
Edit: am a Brit but wouldn't live in London for love nor money. Obviously a lot of those issues aren't just in London. This isn't "foreigner repeating right wing talking points" people love trying here
>But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.
If it were the Anglosphere that had very restrictive laws about store hours/days of operation, and Germany/Austria with pretty much unlimited hours, this would be the #1 topic brought up in any online discussion whatsoever about the US/UK/etc. But because of DACH's smaller cultural visibility, it isn't brought up nearly so often in actuality.
to quote a relative "Germany is a great country to live in, except for all of the Germans"
It’s funny you give out about supermarket opening hours when being English - Sunday trading laws are arcane in England too!
I think there is also a chicken-egg problem in almost every country that doesn't use English as official language:
If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study --> to live there you need a job --> back to start
Different counties have different tolerances regarding how quick you pick up the local language. For Germany and France this tolerance is almost 0, for Netherlands it's much higher.
Anecdotally I've noticed that among the coworkers I've had from other countries, the ones who manage to learn danish and stay, have generally been in areas with lower density of foreign workers.
My theory is that in areas with lower densities of foreign nationals, you'd benefit more socially form learning the local language.
In Germany, if you are an non-software Engineer, you MUST have an excellent level of the language. I have not seen a single Engineering position that doesn't require C1.
> If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study
I disagree: for many jobs, it is expected that you have a decent level of English, but at least in Germany, you are often not immersed a lot in English. So you have to get decent in English with barely any immersion.
I thus have a feeling that because many Germans had to learn hard to get somewhat decent in English on their own, they have the same expectation on immigrants to learn really hard on their own to get good in German fast (without demanding immersion).
The same problem also exists in countries that use English as their first language. If you don't speak passable english, you will have a hard time integrating or finding an engineering job.
As someone who moved from the U.S to Germany and has been here for ~15 months, I figured I would drop a few comments while I'm running a NixOS rebuild.
Let me start with the wonderful things: Public transportation is nice, at least compared to the U.S. I like the shared sense of responsibility that Germans have with things like recycling. The directness is quite nice, in the U.S I often had to question if someone was being genuine or not, and that is not really a problem here. If you're into various hobbies, clubs, etc., Germany has really incredible communities and clubs for so many things, and they're very organized about this, it's quite nice. The nature is great, and I've really enjoyed exploring different areas.
As for the negatives, it's clear in Germany that you're looking at buying into their system, for life so to speak. You don't find yourself getting equity, trading stocks, buying a home, etc. You generally are expected to work, keep your head down, and hopefully acquire an apartment where the rent won't increase while you support the social system (for the record, I am more than okay with paying my share, but I was shocked at the difference in take home pay, and particularly how it feels compared to the U.S). Buying a home is likely not going to be in the cards for most, and there is so much paperwork, painful and expensive driving courses, and strange decisions as well with starting your own business. I have for instance a few projects where I could be taking revenue, but I specifically am not as it would make my visa situation more complicated, and am instead waiting for a year or two.
Germany is really not a convenience culture, I consistently find myself exhausted. This might sound stupid, but in the U.S, I can simply hop in a car and grab a reasonably healthy Chipotle bowl or similar, get enough protein and vegetables, etc. In Germany, there really are not so many places for quick food to grab, in general the food is actually quite poor, I don't find myself eating out at all.
Additionally, the language is brutal, it's hard to explain just how exhausting it is to learn while you're working full time. I have probably spent ~600 hours practicing yet I am still only about an A2 speaking level, with my understanding generally being a bit higher.
All in all, I'm happy I made the switch, it's been incredibly rewarding, but it truly is exhausting. I can see how this would add up, and I often think about how easy my life might be in the United States, and I miss this easy, casual life that's been replaced for something that really expects and demands so much from me, every single day and interaction.
Germans tend to differentiate between getting takeout (something like kebab/pizza/asia box to go or delivered home) or eating out (going to a restaurant and eating there).
But I'd argue for most people getting into the car to get takeout is not very common.
clubs! yes! Vereine! they still are the heart and soul of Germany.
Are you in a big city? There is so much takeout food everywhere in Berlin.
> In Germany, there really are not so many places for quick food to grab, in general the food is actually quite poor, I don't find myself eating out at all.
That is wildly false. First of all the availability of eating out options is directly influenced by where you are (e.g. in Berlin there is incredible variety of cuisines, price ranges and healthiness), and secondly almost every food or grocery you buy in Germany is of higher quality than the US equivalent.
I remember my shock when every single food item I bought in the US had sugar in it.
I can add my anecdote to the language barrier points.
At work we speak English, everybody speak English all the time, all docs are in English, all meetings are in English. There's an occasional German email every now and then but people will switch.
When we go to a "team building" retreat, all the same teammates that happily chatted with us expats in English just switch to German 100%, full stop. You can come and stand at the edge of a group chatting in German and they will look at you and continue, knowing you stand there not understanding, without batting an eye.
Excellent anecdote. I'm not sure if you're making a judgement about their behavior at the team event.
I'm an English native speaker, new in Germany, and learning German. I personally find it really annoying and awkward when other foreigners come into German social situations and expect or push them to speak English.
- What right do I have as the foreigner to intrude and get them to speak English?
- Social life in another language has it's own shared culture, jokes, and social cues. It's not fair or realistic to make people give that all up because some foreigner walked near the circle.
- It's my problem that I'm not yet fluent. It's not their problem that they're not speaking English.
- Some people are shy about their English skills, and they do not want to be pushed to speak English in front of others, in a group social setting.
- If you want exposure and practice, these are the golden opportunities! Take a humble learners position. Be quiet, understand as much as you can, and say what little bits you can, in German, not in English. Then study, study, study as much as you can in your time alone.
I hear fellow foreigners bemoaning the fact that they can't speak German yet, but these same people will inadvertently push English into every social situation they walk into. This just doesn't work. If you want to learn the language of the land, you have to let them speak it.
I find Germans are incredibly friendly and welcoming, especially when you come in humbly, trying to learn, and don't push everyone to speak English.
I've been there, same as in Quebec for French but I would see it as a learning opportunity to practice.
In Austria I've always made an effort to stay inclusively in English in these settings but it's probably normal to fall back to default language in most countries and cultures especially when the context is not about the work per se.
God forbid people speak the language of their country.
This. And don't forget the occasional refinement meetings during which you think you're making a group decision but your manager and the other senior (both German, speaking German, having spoken in private without your awareness) already decided on many things, even though they acknowledge that you're the more experienced person in the room. So you're treated as a rubber stamp and three months in when you have an objection because clearly you're walking into a sunken cost, will be shown ADRs (in Denglish) basically where everything's already decided in their favour.
German discrimination and racism towards migrant workers and visible minorities is world class.
And with Alternative für Deutschland / AfD rising rapidly, this is only going to get much, much worse.
https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/70478/study-finds-racis...
https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/germany-...
I'm from a "southern" country and I lived in Germany for 10 years. My kids were born there.
Last year we decided to move to my home country because of "too many things" but also fed up of feeling an immigrant.
Few months ago I met a German family living around here in a coastal area. I asked them why they moved here and they answered me straight to my face "Because in Germany there are too many immigrants". I think the joke tells itself.
I would hardly call it "world class". Most of the world is much harsher place to migrants than any EU member country. Privileged, well paid expats may be treated nicely in most of the world, but that does not apply to refugees and people who move for low-paid manual labor.
I moved to Germany 15 years ago from Scandinavia. Integrating here is really tough. The bureaucratic systems are very opaque and small mistakes in paperwork can cause a lot of problems...
Germany is a remarkably rural and insular country compared to the Netherlands whose foundational myth comes from bankers and merchants.
I mean... yes discrimination doesn't feel nice... but it's not as if people who come to Germany where forced to do so by the germans. I'm not from Germany, but the vibes in some of the high-muslim density parts of Germany I've been to have likewise felt unwelcome, unsafe and hostile (towards me as a scandinavian).
So it feel a bit more complicated than "germans are racist, BAD". Anecdotally I've heard that it's hard for any other nationality to do business in germany, simply because they prefer to do business with other germans. It's their country, we just need to accept those cultural differences, and their right to do as they please in their own country.
There's plenty of countries whose laws or attitudes I don't agree with, and that I just don't visit or have any ambition of staying in. China, Burkina Faso, Somalia and Chad are a few examples.
> Foreigners and native Germans 'unite' in discriminatory attitudes
I don't think it's just the Germans and there's definitely an additional factor at play.
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I like Germany, studied German a bit in college, etc but when my family and I decided to move somewhere that suited us because we could work from anywhere Germany really failed to impress. We ended up in the Netherlands which offers a a lot of the perks people associate with Germany (perhaps wrongly, good trains were one of the things we wanted) without as many of the downsides.
It's interesting how quickly any discussion about immigrant/expat life in Germany becomes about language. That has to account for something.
After my tenure of 11 years in the country, my impression is that there is a deeper sense of "us" v/s "them"; the language is the most PC way to express it.
If you're in the category of "us" you don't complain about the taxes or things being closed on Sundays, because you're supposed to "understand" that there's a welfare state (which has been a myth for a while now and cracks are showing up since covid). If you're in the "us", you don't claim bureaucracy is treacherous, because the language should have equipped you to fight it. You might be in the "us", if you believe with every bit of your being that rules and regulations is the best way to ensure everyone behaves properly and everything works efficiently.
If you dare challenge (m)any of these and you don't speak German good enough, it's the language. If you speak the language, then you're not "integrated". Maybe that's immigration everywhere, but I feel in Germany, there is a rather narrow band you get to be in "acceptably".
There's two things at play here:
1. Defensiveness; one could describe it as "Stockholm syndrome"
2. What outsiders don't understand about the language thing is that it's not about how much German you need to get along in daily life. That's a similar challenge everywhere in the world.
The crux is that in Germany, correct use of the language is a social status thing, more so than in other places. Any person, whether German or foreigner, who appears to have difficulty with the language, is easily looked down upon.
I have like a dozen different german friends, and it's nothing like you say: everyone in the country curses the bureaucracy, every sunday is like "oh let's quickly get something from the shops oh no wait it's sunday uuuugh"
The taxes seem largely fine relative to the cost of living there, with people living in poorer regions at an advantage even due to the Freibetrag.
All this discussion makes me wonder - is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy? Assuming the immigrant makes every effort to integrate (learning the language, respecting local people/customs etc).
It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media? I don't know for sure.
I know the US gets a lot of flak due to the current administration's policies and actions. Despite that it is still the best country for immigrants with the caveat 'Assuming the immigrant makes every effort to integrate (learning the language, respecting local people/customs etc)'
Yes. The United States.
Despite the whirlwind of media to the contrary, the US is very welcoming to foreigners who follow the laws (that is, don't enter illegally) and make an effort to integrate by learning the language and customs.
Much more than any other country on Earth.
> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general
Not the concept itself, but the insane numbers. Even South Africa is having "anti-migrant" protests (by the _black_ population; important detail, due to history).
Having 1-2% of your population come in as migrants* is pretty nuts; no negative migration afterwards; number only goes up. I cannot see how this is going to end well in the long run.
*: This is for the Netherlands, for the last 5 years since 2024 (that's the latest numbers I got from our Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS)). That is _just_ economic migration. It's insane. I made some visualizations: https://tbataafschebroederschap.nl/projects/autochtoonse-ned...
Lots of people want to migrate from one country to another, so they clearly think their own lives would be improved (bar a few doing it altruistically).
As for including the locals lives, how? You might be bringing skills they need, or money. Do you mean purely socially? That is very subjective.
I think the media exaggerate the hostility. IMO most of the hostility here in the UK is aimed at 1) illegal immigrants and asylum seekers and 2) Muslims. There is also rising hostility to Jews, but usually from an entirely different group to those hostile to Muslims.
> is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy?
The United States.
> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media?
The world is turning hostile to immigration because the media (and social media sites) highlight and repeat the bad anecdotes, while barely mentioning the actual data showing positive outcomes.
For better their lives as well as the locals' life I think it is most of them. For feeling rewarded or fulfilled for doing that, I think depends on both the person and the country, but probably quite rare.
I tried two countries so far (>5 year in both) and there were pluses and minuses in each. Which are different to the pluses and minuses in my home country.
I think that one will (generally) evolve and adopt some habits of the country you immigrated too, while giving up some habits you had before. The result? You might be a more complete person (because you become aware of the habits, and can choose to some extent) but on the other hand you will not belong anywhere any-more (you will not adopt some stupid habits of the new country, but you did gave up some stupid habits that you had).
> is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy?
Not really anymore. All the good ponds have all been fished out by now.
Housing is in short supply in every livable city in the western world and the job market is tight right now, so if you move there now, you're one, increasing labor competition for the locals, and two, rising housing prices for the locals. THe only locals happy with this arrangement are the corporation hiring you and the landlord taking your money.
The world has min-maxed itself into oblivion that it's already reached saturation point. We're way passed the balance point, everything is fucked, there's no magic place on the planet where things are nice for everyone.
It's the impression you get from media.
Get born outside the western world and migrate to Europe as a skilled worker and your live increases significantly as well as that it your family. Same goes for the society you live in.
> It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media? I don't know for sure.
I view it as growing pains. We inhabit a highly interdependent and interconnected world now, the economy is extremely global. Nation states as the primary governance model simply don't make sense anymore, and the world needs to adjust and find a new political organizing principle. The modern concept of nation state is itself a historical concept, it really arose approx. 18th cen. has worked ok for a while and now we need some new governance concept that is a better fit for our highly interconnected and global world.
What we are seeing now are reactions against what in my view is the inevitable decline of nation based organization and the formation of something else. The "old system" is acting out in an attempt to save itself, in a refusal to evolve. People don't like change. The writing is on the wall though. The degree to which every nation is now completely entangled with every other makes nations themselves as an operational concept inefficient and untenable.
Why don’t people migrate to developing countries instead to help them directly. This form of migration makes it appear that Western countries are better.
There is a big problem with mass migration and people entering a country with antithetical values and beliefs.
We aren't really talking about this loneliness epidemic that is not contained to any one particular country. I can imagine how difficult it is to move to a new place now, no matter where it is, and especially in the future if the trend continues.
That really depends on what country are they coming from, and how established they are in life. As an extreme example, someone from Sudan would benefit by moving out, if only by being in a stable place that's not being ravaged by civil war.
Immigration does generally improve the economy, but it doesn't happen overnight, and this is an incredibly easy anxiety to exploit for short-term political gain.
pretty much anywhere in America (the continent) you're welcome to migrate to. We don't care as long as you respect the locals and the local culture
There's been a lot of pressure to break the EU for quite some time, and now even the US is also aiming for this.
It's a lot of misinformation and funding from too many countries, for a long time.
What's impressive is how much this tension had actually been holding on, which goes to show that education actually plays an important role when dealing with misinformation.
Sadly it was successful in the UK.
I see two big problems:
1. A "meta-problem": While many Germans agree that things are bad, people favour completely opposite solutions.
My meta-solution to that would be decentralisation and letting more things be decided locally, but unfortunately Germans are united in favouring centralisation these days.
2. There's a strong superposition of "things are bad" and "we are still the best"; a high degree of defensiveness and stubbornness. This was accurately described as "presumptuousness" in another comment.
>2. There's a strong superposition of "things are bad" and "we are still the best";
These can be reconciled by good old xenophobia: "Yes, things are horrible, but the way they do it is worse because it is not the way we do it"
Anecdotal and more for unskilled than skilled workers, but having traveled to Germany a bunch, I found that taxi drivers and delivery drivers seem pretty unhappy there. They mention not feeling accepted, feeling constantly looked down upon, etc. There's a bit of that in every country, but generally, the immigrants I've found in Germany seem a lot less happy than the ones I've met in other countries.
Why would anyone wanna go to a country that pays them low abuses them and they end up alone with no friends because this is Germany.
Various combinations of "they didn't know", "still better than the place they left", "their experience wasn't that bad", and "needed for their resume".
In my case (not Germany but also in the EU), I just bought into European propaganda too much.
> and they end up alone with no friends
This sounds like a personal issue. Is Germany at fault here?
not to mention taxes the shit out of them with little to no return on their investment
That is, if they can even get a work visa through the proper channels while following all requirements.
I had read Kafka's The Castle before dealing with the German immigration office but that experience gave me a new perspective.
I have friends who moved to Germany, so although I haven't been or experienced immigrating there myself, it's been in the conversation amongst my circles.
What I hear about it is that it can feel closed and lonely. Germans are not necesarily mean, but they won't fully assimilate you into their circles easily, especially if you're not European. I also hear dating can be tough if you're not German or European. It's an important factor for choosing to stay somewhere permanently if you move there in your early 20s, like my friend did.
This is a very sensitive topic. I think anyone moving to a different country has to learn the native language. That's the biggest barrier for proper integration and to feel fully at home in a new country. Whenever something is broken, needs help or in an emergency one cannot expect to have an English speaking person on the other-side.
That being said, German is not an easy language to learn. In my experience, native German speakers are quite patient and help you with practice compared to let's say French, still it would take ages to be fluent in German unless you're studying the language full time. However, if you're a skilled worker you would be working in an environment where English is used and the amount of time you'd get to learn German would be way less.
In that aspect I think Anglosphere is way more attractive for migrants to settle down and it's natural people would come to Germany, work, save some money, travel around Europe and move on to US, UK, Australia, etc. to settle down.
The situation is kind of similar in my country (France).
My partner and I lived together in Czech Republic for 7 years where I was working as a scientist (EU to EU, pretty much no paperwork involved). She is american and obtained a "partner of EU citizen" long stay permit. We decided to move back to France and now we have to deal with bureaucracy and it is exhausting.
There are many paths by which an non-EU citizen can get residency in europe and it includes:
- Student visa (9 months, needs to apply long in advance) - Entrepreneur (need to pitch a business, needs 30k€ of savings) - Refugee - Married (the easiest one) - Family member of EU citizen (only applies when the EU citizen is not native to the country you apply to) - Family member of native citizen
We had to apply to the last one, because we only have a civil union (it's a french thing called PACS and it's not recognized as a "proper" union for permits).
We also needed to prove that we had lived together for more than a year (which we also had to do in Czech Republic) so that she could get her one year permit. The fees are opaque (the website says 350€ of tax + 100 € of processing fee but the final bill was 650€). Any document must be translated (cost us around 1000€) and official documents must be verified by apostille (which we learned when we celebrated our civil union in at the french embassy in Czech Republic).
At the end of her permit, she will need to validate an A2 level of profciency in french to apply for a multi year permit (2 to 4 years). Once she has lived 5 years here, she can apply for a permanent residency if she has a B2 level, pass a civil exam and show proofs of involvement in civic life.
All of this to say that the requirements to immigrate in Europe require either a lot of money or a lot of dedication. This really changed my view on the whole "Europe has free border, anybody can get in to steal our job" rhetoric.
>> About 60% of emigrants return to their home countries; 40% move on to destinations such as Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Croatia.
So how many emigrants stay in Germany?
You might be thinking of immigrants.
Emigrants are those that left the country... so by definition, no emigrants stay in Germany.
One of the reasons is that Germany is not a friendly country for non-german speakers (and/or if you dont have the right profile); I've worked for a while in both Berlin and Munich. In berlin you get away with english, except anything official - from opening a bank account to any interaction with the city council or government services. They will go out of your way to make you feel unwelcome if you are not a fluent german speaker. In Munich is even worse - in many "non-immigrant neighbourhoods" they wont even acknowledge you if you speak english (eg. In the supermarket), though often they understand it perfectly.
Learning german is not easy, but it is absolutely essential if you want to call it home; Id suggest anyone planning a move to start learning beforehand - the idea that you will "wing it by talking to people" is not enough.
Tja, Nie im Leben würde ich zu Bayern gehen.
I'm surprised that despite its claim to openness and tolerance, cities like Hamburg, Bremen or Hannover are not capitalising on this.
Lol. Honestly, I love Munich, but I totally understand why certain movements galvanized there :p its easy to be on a high horse on a rich land - if something is not right, must be someone else's fault.
My partner and I went to Germany and then left. We found that while they are desperate for skilled labor, they do essentially nothing to accommodate once people have come. Every step of the immigration process felt like another grift. Our Auslanderbörde appointment was borderline hostile, and our lawyer was a certified buffoon. Then daily life was beset with petty corruption. We couldn’t get an appointment at the burgeramt to register until we paid a fixer to go in on our behalf. Germany was full of petty annoyances and indignities that made it clear they want immigrants, but will not put in the effort to retain them. The U.S. is lately no friend to even skilled immigrants, but public government services are at least available in most major European and Asian languages. Go to the Netherlands instead. That’s what we would have done, if we had it to do over again.
you could try China? I hear they are famously enlightened when it comes to people immigrating, becoming citizens, etc.
This feels rather naive in taking all the complaints at face value. The truth will be much more nuanced, and ultimately countries should be more welcoming to the genuine whilst far more discerning with the deceitful
This reminds me that I got fired from a German company (operating in DK) because I asked too many questions and would not stop complaining about the software architecture which was terrible.
The company culture was clashing with the Danish culture that I was used to and also I didn't give a fuck.
Is Danish culture more flat in its organization?
It depends on the company.
Small companies are usually flat, but my experience is that larger companies turn into departments/teams until someone realizes that more leadership on paper doesn't add any value.
With how much cultural weight law of Jante has in Denmark, I would hope so.
It's interesting that the B1 language requirement is discussed here mostly in terms of fairness. Is it reasonable or not, to require an immigrant to speak the language of the country they're immigrating to?
Whether it's fair or not is trumped by how _easy_ it is. You can get a B1 German certification in a matter of months with SRS and cheap tutors online.
This is a B1 English question:
“This is a nice bathroom.” “Yes. It’s the one _ we’ve just redecorated.” a) when b) who c) which
If German people move to African or Eastern countries, how long till they can get full citizenship rights? My understanding is never in most of these countries.
When people came to the country to work then retire somewhere else, isn’t it not a net benefit for Germany? Less burden on the social net, healthcare system etc.
So what the Germans did is right, not wrong!
errr, no? when you work here for long enough you accrue pension benefits which are paid out wherever you live.
if you retire abroad you spend the pension abroad. that's a net loss for the nation.
Wouldn't the lack of medical expenditure win out against the loss of consumption from a pension?
Why? Simple: visit a restaurant, especially one by the highway with truckers, in southern Germany, with your girlfriend/wife. But one in a town will do, just speak English, or French. It will be entirely clear after that.
Hell, I doubt you'll make it past the restaurant's door before it becomes clear.
PR and citizenship are different things, one is just to reduce the paperwork and allow some bare minimum benefits and the other is citizenship
The only reason to push language requirements for PR, is to make it harder to obtain it, its politically driven
immigrating to cold countries who are not used to immigration is not for the faint of heart
They got millennials from post-Communist countries after all transition periods for new EU members have passed sometime around 2011. Were already lucky because they didn't open the market straight away in 2004 like Ireland, UK, and Sweden. Germans were overconfident because their largest demographic boom was in their 40s back then.
Treated that immigration wave like shit. They left.
Germans worked really hard for every single nasty thing which is about to happen to them.
Somewhat off topic but since I see people discussing language proficiency using the CEFR system I'll ask.
Which certification language test is most transferrable? I'm most interested in testing for Latam Spanish if possible. SIELE or DELE?
What are the numbers for context? How many people come? How many leave? In what jobs do they work? How does that compare to other countries?
This used to the case with the USA as well but it took them the last 40-50 years to reform. Maybe there's hope for Germany as well.
Wow, what a take...that says a lot about you and nothing at all about the US. I would guess that you are actually your own worst enemy.
Emigrating is hard. Expect language issue, culture issue, bureaucracy issues. Other countries are not your country but with a different language, living somewhere is not the same as visiting as a tourist.
Emigrating is a generational project, you will forever be a foreigner, your children will be immanent children and only your grandchildren will be true locals.
This is not a government issue, right wing issue, racism, or what not its just a fact of life. Be prepared for it when making the decision.
Germany is literally disappearing as a nation (too low a replacement rate and other problems). Pretty awful situation. Here's Peter Zeihan's assessment of Germany's future (or lack thereof):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmEhTFjQB1g
guys, join a Verein. some Verein. any Verein. that's where Germans make friends when we're new in town.
They joined verein but didn't notice it's two years contract with auto renewal, cancellation three months in advance by letter. Left the country after receiving Mahnbescheid. Have fun in this asshole-verein.
2y? sounds like some fitness sth scam. not the real thing. no clubs, where people share their hobby.
I've been living in Berlin for about seventeen years. My German isn't great but usable in an emergency. I get by with it. Most work related stuff is English.
Bureaucracy is an annoyance in this country. But the flip side is that if you persist, you'll manage. It's also not something that's necessarily a lot better in other big countries. But Germany could do a lot better by just moving a lot of the key processes online, cutting down on asking for the same information over and over again via paper forms, and speeding up decision processes. That's slowly happening.
With AI translations, doing things in German (or any language) is a lot easier these days for foreigners. Also making sense of the complex processes with AI is helpful. Insistence that everybody should learn German is understandable from a nationalistic point of view. But you get quite far without that. Easier than ever now. Germany could be a bit more accommodating for this.
And the reality in factories, on construction sites, etc. is that you hear a lot of other languages being spoken. Lots of eastern Europeans active in the construction industry, for example. And lots of nurses and doctors from abroad are active in their hospitals. Packages are being delivered by people from India and Pakistan. And of course German companies that sell to foreign companies have to deal with the notion that their customers mostly won't be speaking German. Germany is already a lot more international than it might like to admit.
But it's undeniably true that you need to speak German in order to interact with especially older Germans and their companies. They simply don't speak anything else. Kind of weird because many of them are super dependent on import/export markets and yet they are mortally afraid of having to be in a meeting with non German speakers. I've experienced this several times. However, the baby boom generation is retiring and younger generations are already much more internationally focused. Most younger college educated people here speak English at this point. It's not that much of a problem as it used to be.
And even talking to people is getting easier now that we have AI translations and transcriptions. I've worked my way through a few meetings in Denglish. Ugly, but it works and if you have a shared business goal, people get more flexible.
Germany has been in and out of a recession for several years now and it's working population is on track to shrink and things like its pension and healthcare system are becoming a problem financially. It will need to work smarter to get out of that and that probably is going to require working with people that won't be speaking German from outside of Germany. Easy fix for that recession is just embracing the future. Many of Germany's problems are of its own making and very fixable.
I am the son of a (Cuban) immigrant and a German woman. Once, the police asked me if I spoke German, probably because my hair is dark and my eyes are brown. Germany has a bias against “southerners”—the darker your skin, the worse it is. If your skin is light and your eyes are light-colored, you won’t even be perceived as an immigrant as long as you keep your mouth shut. But if you look southern or Asian, you’ll always be a “Kanake” or “Fitschi,” even if in every other respect you’re more German than most Germans.
Racism here isn’t so severe that it leaves you with bruises, but you notice it in the little things. For example, this year I was looking for a new apartment with my partner, and when I first made contact, I used her German last name instead of my foreign one—just to be on the safe side. Whenever I do have to deal with the police—for example, because of a traffic accident or something similar—it seems like who gets blamed depends on skin color. If some guy named Hans Müller cuts me off, the police are still on his side. If I cut off someone named Achmed, strangely enough, they’re on my side. The last startup I worked for as a developer really played up its left-liberal, progressive image. Even so, the bosses were blond and blue-eyed, and the janitors were Black Africans. I could fill an entire book with impressions like these.
All the bureaucratic hurdles mentioned in the article are probably intentional. The aim is to make it difficult for foreigners to come here and stay, because these people are not wanted here. In recent years, even politicians deep within the left-liberal spectrum have touted the fact that the so-called migration problem has been brought under control. In other words, they have adopted the right-wing premise that migration itself is a problem, rather than the way migrants are treated and integrated.
The tragedy is that we’re running out of people of working age. We’re having too few children and are turning into an aging society. Over the next twenty years, this will hit us like a bus driving toward a cliff, while none of the passengers see the impending disaster. Immigration could be our salvation, but we just don’t want brown people.
At the same time, German society is tearing itself apart through policies that lack solidarity. Life is meant to be made as difficult and harsh as possible for people with average incomes. The last remnants of the welfare state are being gradually dismantled over successive legislative terms. Everything is being ruined by austerity measures. There is no longer any awareness that collective investments in education and public infrastructure are, in fact, investments that will yield a real return later on—for example, in the form of well-educated people, transportation networks that allow goods to be transported smoothly, or nationwide internet access when you need it. Instead, everything must be milked dry by the private sector, or it’s simply left to rot (or both).
Another comment here mentions that sclerotic forces are at work in Germany. I think that’s an apt description. It frustrates me immensely that society can’t pull itself together to take bold steps toward shaping a positive future. Instead, we have to watch as the country slowly withers away, while one idiot after another takes the reins of government to orchestrate the next round of bloodletting.
It's gotten to the point where I've now lost faith in democracy. Things aren't getting better—they're just getting worse and worse. And all I can do is try to position myself in my personal life in such a way that I can hopefully protect myself and a few people around me from the worst damage caused by this decline.
You are (as am I) in the 30% of Germans (40% in major cities) with a Migrationshintergrund.
At that point, it barely makes sense to call that a minority, it's just normalcy. If you find yourself in a pocket of unusual backwardness where it feels otherwise, you should probably leave.
I pass as German based on looks, but my name is weird and my wife doesn't look or sound German at all. I don't think her or I have ever noticed any adverse consequences from that.
If your German is good, you can just act and feel like you belong here and no one will challenge that.
The people saying they're having trouble getting by with just English though are weird to me. What did they expect? Different countries are different, that's sort of the point.
I do actually agree that Germany isn't the best country when you're looking for economic opportunity, but that isn't really what people are optimizing for here. You might disagree with this, but it's mostly not directed against immigrants.
Regarding your political points: Ironically, they sound very German to me. Yours is a standard left of center critique in German politics. The countries that have a long history of being targets for immigration largely don't work that way, probably because extensive social safety nets are bad for the acceptance of recent immigrants by locals.
I couldn't help but notice that your post also contains bias against German people.
Of course, being a German is not relevant, nor does it preclude you from displaying anti-german bias.
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> It's gotten to the point where I've now lost faith in democracy. Things aren't getting better...
"it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" - unknown, often attributed to Churchill
Rah-rah democracy advocates, and patriots of countries which imagine themselves democratic, often attribute all sort of mythical virtues to democracy.
But the reality is no more than "statistically less bad than the alternatives".
These days, the by-far worst problem for most supposed democracies is the excessive financialization of wealth. A century ago, the personal fortunes of most better-off people were tied to the overall fortunes of the country, the province, the city, and the neighborhood in which they lived - giving them huge incentives to care about those collective fortunes. Vs. now, the prevailing attitude seems far closer to "when this place goes to shit, I'll just pack up and leave".
I think that the financialization of wealth is a problem of education not of the political system. People just do not understand how that is a problem and how it affects them.
For me the best thing in a democracy is the fact that is supposed to have some dynamics. I am more afraid of a fixed set of people taking continuously worse and worse decisions. Many dictatorships started with the dictators managing fine the country, and people being fine to give them more and more power. Then, in something like 10 or 20 years things go to shit, but there is no "mechanism" to replace them.
It’s a good recipe for consensus. I find it easier to reluctantly submit to the will of the majority than I would to the will of a minority. There are certainly a few opponents of democracy who feel exactly the opposite, but most people probably feel the same way I do. That is precisely where the stabilizing effect of democracy lies: it makes people compliant. But it is a misconception that democratic decisions are intrinsically better than others in terms of substance. A majority can pass nonsense just as easily as a minority can make wise decisions. What’s important in a democracy is that people truly believe that the will of the majority prevails—or, even more importantly, the common good. If they lose that belief, a democratic society slowly dies.
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Sounds like the sort of accusation that should be backed up with evidence rather than innuendo.
Wow, lots of generalisations are being made in the comments. I'm German and have lived in the south-west for most of my life. I hope it goes without saying that Germany is a big country, both by space and population. We have some very dense urban areas (Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin come to mind) but also very open "arsch der welt" hinterlands with villages of 100 people or fewer. This creates huge diversity in standard of living conditions as well as life experiences (and expectations). Some places are better than others, this isn't unusual. Thus, many experiences that people have written about can't be applied with any certainty to large swaths of the populace.
Regarding the DW article, yes language is a constraint and does cause issues with finding/keeping a job and integrating into one's area. Believe it or not, this can also affect us locals too [1]. The bureaucracy is often _difficult_ and people behind the counter can be unhelpful.
We definitely suffer from institutional inflexibility, leading to absurd situations, for example with our population of economically active refugees who will probably be forced to leave, which will lead to an even bigger job market deficit and possible economic decline [2], or how we blunder large scale projects like Stuttgart 21 (or 35 or 70?!?!)[3]. The German concept of identity and unity is also very complex [4,5], and sadly this reflects somewhat on our interaction with migrants. Couple this with complex domestic and international economic and political issues [6,7], and we now have a situation that is far from ideal for people coming here to work and build a life.
All this can be difficult to deal with for you who are planning to come here or those who already live here, and I really wish that weren't the case. Please don't be discouraged, we want and need you, for more than just helping to prop up our economy and welfare state (by the way, thank you!). I believe that the diversity of experiences and ideas you bring is a boon to our future.
[1]: https://archive.is/20240627085213/https://www.faz.net/aktuel... [2]: https://p.dw.com/p/539wt [3]: https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-wuerttemberg/stuttgart/s... [4]: https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/auf-der-suche-nach-der-deutsc... [5]: https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article13813483/Nati... [6]: https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/deutschland-ist-lau... [7]: https://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/research_institute/hri-...
My take: Nothing is funny in Germany? :)
Hihi people o/ my two cents here...
So, I have lived in Frankfurt for a couple of years now, and after talking with so many other expats, I think I have come up with a solid reason why this happens and why I am also thinking about leaving Germany. My TLDR is that Germany makes it really hard to settle down. When you are a skilled worker and you decide to come to Germany, you feel that things in your home country are holding you back, so you move here to step up, to upgrade, to move forward. And that is not what you find here.
- You drove in your previous country? Good luck getting your driver's license in Germany (I know people living in the Netherlands and Italy who have been driving since their first month there), and good luck paying so much for parking. And then, you might say: "but use public transportation". And I reply, good luck going for a dinner with your gf when it 0 degrees outside and raining to get the metro that has less availability (because it is evening already) or they are doing some maintenance in the line. In my experience here, public transportation is only good when is working hours. In Frankfurt, after working hours they reduce itinerary of a metro and during weekends - hahahaha - you would cry with me.
- You want to buy a house? Good luck finding a bank that wants to finance you without a credit history in Germany (a friend already bought a house in the Netherlands, btw). Want to rent a place? Good luck finding someone to rent their house to someone who just arrived in Germany.
- Do you have doubts or problems with bureaucracy? So cute... good luck with that too. Workers in public service do not speak English, and those who do don't want to speak English with you (and that is with me living in Frankfurt - one of the most international cities in Germany). Not even in the Ausländerbehörde do they speak English. (I am ok if the waitress in the cafeteria doesn't speak it, but not in the Ausländerbehörde).
- Then you think: "ok, let's learn the language...". Germany is the most expensive country to learn its own language that I've ever seen. I studied in France and they were teaching French for free there. All the free/cheap German courses here are not for skilled workers, because with a skilled worker's wage, you are above the threshold for social benefits and all the cheap alternatives are out of the question. Then, you might say: "but you can learn online". Fair point, but how do you expect people to connect with your country by learning online? For me, it was way cheaper to pay a professional teacher in my home country online to have individual classes than to attend a German class here.
- You have a problem in your house? Good luck waiting years for it to be "solved". I have full experience with this: we had an issue with the roof of the building and it literally took them more than 2 years to solve it. Because the roof belongs to the building and not the apartment, it is not the landlord's responsibility, and you need to find out who is responsible for it, etc.
And, on top of all this, Germany is not a cheap country to live in, and the infrastructure is far from ideal: trains are always late and expensive, and you cannot rely on DB anymore. Internet is super expensive and slow (we have a bunch of data centers in Frankfurt, but you have no fiber connection in the houses here). Energy is stupidly expensive now (due to German politicians eating shit for breakfast).
So... overall, I think skilled workers think about leaving after some years because small issues stack up, and in the end, you are not able to build a life here. And I don't even want to get into the topic of making friends here, maybe in another post.
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I'm a Canadian/German dual; a praire, hockey-playing, hard-O Canadian at that.
There is nothing German about me, apart from some family myths.
Every 8 or 9 years my passport renewal at the German embassy plays out like that scene in Inglorious Basterds, where Brad Pitt's character Aldo Rain tries to pose as Italian stunt-man Enzo Gorlami.
Long German pre-amble
"Err-ahh... err - nine."
Pause and stare
"Ok een Eenglish 'zen."