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Jeza posted:What are you basing that on? Have you lived everywhere in the world? Yes. Also, what the OP and some others wrote is sophomoric bullshit. You don't change countries on a whim. It's a hugely stressful and risky process that may end up being a complete waste of time. I just want to bring up some considerations that hardly ever get mentioned or given the attention they deserve: The first consideration is which countries a person can emigrate to, and under what conditions. Many whiny first worlders just talk about how they're just going to "move to X" under some circumstances when X isn't going to have them. This consideration alone usually eliminates 90%-100% of all choices. The second consideration is that particularly Americans who have never left the US (sorry, visiting Canada doesn't count) seem to think that all other countries are "America plus", i.e. that they have all the good elements of the US and are just the promised land where the fully formed, enlightened beings live and every last conversation is a revelation of the most exquisite in wisdom. In reality, it's a tradeoff. In many places you'll have to learn a difficult language, the country will be poorer, more boring, you will be seen as "that foreigner" and so on. Most importantly for the OP, the locals will have some obnoxious habits and opinions of their own. Also newsflash: You'll still be very much affected by what happens in the US. Lastly, before people rage-quit their country, they should familiarize themselves with the other place for a while, but make it at least a few months in a non-glamorous situation. Spending five days sightseeing doesn't count. Anyway, I kinda hope the OP will just ignore all this and run off somewhere while keeping us updated, it's more entertaining!
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Aug 7, 2016 00:22
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Earwicker posted:the OP abandoned this thread like a month ago, and 90% of the posts in here is just people stopping by to show off how they aren't as much of a dumbass as the OP. Very true, but there's the occasional "Waaaaaaah I don't like this country anymore wanna live in utopia" OP-inspired post too, and I find those and the whole subject extremely entertaining.
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Aug 7, 2016 02:38
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Earwicker posted:I very much disagree with the idea that there is a "best" country in the world in any kind of universal or objective sense. And I very much disagree with using quality of life studies as some kind of only benchmark. There are personal criteria that may differ from those used in the studies. Then there's the factor that some things work differently for foreigners. The countries that usually win these (Norway, Switzerland, Canada etc.) are backwoods places that would bore me to death, no matter how they score on some objective benchmark. It's like some music benchmark that tells me that Pink Floyd is the best band ever when I loving hate them. Thanks, but I'll listen to what I like.
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Aug 8, 2016 02:31
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PT6A posted:I don't disagree with your thesis that the desirability of a place is subjective, but I'm honestly curious: what level of stimulation do you require that no place in Norway, Switzerland or Canada could possibly provide you with sufficient entertainment? Where would be the place that you would, ideally, want to live? God knows there are a lot of things I don't like about Canada, but a general "it's boring" seems like a very shallow appraisal. No. "It's boring" would be a shallow appraisal, yes, because there are people who are hugely interested in these places. I just said that they'd bore *me* to death. I don't want to make this about my preferences and dislikes, it was just about how some criteria by which these places are selected, while objective, aren't the ones I would use or I would weigh them differently. The same would apply to other people but their weights would differ from mine in most cases, of course. I actually live in a place that's pretty close to where I'd ideally want to live, but again, I don't want to make this so much about me. I'm really sorry about Canada, I know that it's probably the best place in the world and I'm totally not saying that because 90% of the most vocal posters here are from there, but I'm seriously not very interested in it. (But it's a little bit like with Pink Floyd, Radiohead or the movie 2001: If you don't think they're the greatest thing ever, you'll have some serious 'splainin' to do.)
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Aug 8, 2016 06:00
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Reznor posted:That is the point of the thread. Not that America is a sinking ship and it's time to get to the lifeboats. Did you read a single sentence of the OP's post that started the thread?
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Aug 8, 2016 09:20
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Sheep-Goats posted:1) Since around Hemingway there's a kind of defined tradition of Americans living abroad. This tradition involves moving countries every once in a while (making you not an immigrant) and the people who have done it are generally looked up to by everyone who isn't a backwoods hick. So using the term expat for yourself means you're looking to live life that way and is kind of aspiration. That's very cool, what I really find ridiculous though is when I hear how some who traveled somewhere as tourists then tell others how they "lived" in that country. Maybe I'm splitting hairs, but "living" in a country means that you're based there and work there, even if temporarily. Otherwise you're vacationing/traveling/staying there for a while. (And by working somewhere, I don't mean using your laptop to access some work-related site in your home country.) Sheep-Goats posted:Countries with excellent English (Germanic Europe, other English speaking countries) are very difficult to expatriate to both from a legality and cost sense and the ones that have another native language will absolutely all-but-require you to know it if you're going to find work there. I don't think people like the OP or reznor are looking to approach this rationally. If anything, their whole "moving to another country" will amount to staying 3 weeks in Canada with a friend (who am I kidding?) or at a Motel 6, followed by returning to their respective basements. And even that would be a huge stretch. doverhog posted:Is Germany included in Germanic Europe? Because they definitely do not have excellent English. Well according to {URL=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index]this[/URL] they have high proficiency and are 11th in the world among countries where English isn't the primary language, so I'd say they're decent.
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Aug 12, 2016 09:45
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Kopijeger posted:Then again, if a foreigner visits an English-speaking country it is extremely hit and miss whether you can get by in any non-English language. Then again still, it's the same way between different non-English languages in all countries. Makes you think.
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Aug 12, 2016 13:04
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P-Mack posted:I assume German high school English produces as much real world proficiency as American high school Spanish. Well, you know what happens if you assume. The major difference is that American students immediately forget everything they learned after it's over because there's no actual need to speak or understand Spanish for most of them. America has no real culture of people learning different languages, it generally gets treated like spraying Febreze, something you can quickly pick up over a weekend to impress your coworker with a horribly bungled sentence or whatever, and when they find out about the actual effort involved, they rage-quit. This is quite different in a place like Germany. It's imperative for them to know English to interact with people from other countries, they're surrounded by things being in English and the benefits are tangible, such as better career prospects. doverhog posted:That's nice, too bad those students weren't around in Baden-Württemberg when I was there. Literally missed a train because no one around the station could speak English. You missed the train because you couldn't be bothered to look up the schedule or get to the station in time. I love your attitude. That a given country X has a generally high level of proficiency in language Y doesn't mean that every last person there speaks it to perfection (or at all). Mr. Smile Face Hat fucked around with this message at 22:35 on Aug 12, 2016 |
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Aug 12, 2016 22:12
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doverhog posted:I have no love for your attitude. Why are you so married to the idea of Germany having excellent English? You know what country has excellent English as a foreign language? Sweden. I've been there too, and it was like night and day compared to Germany. I don't know why you're emphasizing the word "excellent", which I never used. All I did was try to find a somewhat serious source instead of hearsay and anecdotes, and I quoted that FWIW. You, on the other hand, have no reading comprehension, baselessly generalize from your personal experiences and then endlessly misquote and criticize people who just give you the data they have. I have no idea what your problem with the train was, but I can tell you that when I travel, I prepare myself in a way that doesn't make me have to rely on people speaking one of my languages. So far, it hasn't failed.
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Aug 13, 2016 23:40
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poolside toaster posted:As someone who's traveled extensively in Germany, I can tell you that if they think that you can speak English they will try their damnedest to speak English to you. (pissed me off because I wanted to practice my German) And as someone who's been on the other side of this: Not every German wants to invest the time into a super awkward German conversation if they know you both can just speak English. I don't know your level of German obviously, but it sometimes takes a big effort to parse what somebody is trying to express between their pronunciation, choice of words, sentence construction and whatnot. It's just more efficient to speak English, and guess who's big on efficiency. e: Maybe I need to back up a little bit to explain this and put it in a more friendly way. First, you need to take into consideration that many Germans also have a desire to practice their English, which is as justified as your desire to practice your German. Second, Germans aren't brought up with the cultural expectation that foreign tourists have to speak German. (It seems to be the polar opposite in France.) I see that all the time in American travel guides that it's the height of politeness to say something in the native language, but I've never known any German for whom that made any difference. One thing I also never understood in that context is why Americans bother to learn German unless they have a very specific reason. It's apparently very difficult to become good at, and like any language you'll lose it if you don't practice it, which they invariably never do (and by that I mean really practicing it and not asking strangers for the way, heh). I think that, for example, Spanish or French are much easier and have more benefits as well as fun things to learn them from. /rant Mr. Smile Face Hat fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Aug 15, 2016 |
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Aug 14, 2016 22:45
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Earwicker posted:I took both German and French while in school and definitely didn't feel that French was "much easier". English is heavily influenced by (older forms of) both languages and I don't think one is substantially harder for an English speaker than the other. Here is a ranking, according to which French and Spanish are easier for English speakers than German. I would think that this is true on average, individual cases may vary of course. I wouldn't just go by the size of the area/population that speaks a language, but also by their expectations. Germans have much less of a stick up their rear end about foreigners having to know their language than some other groups. The whole "getting in touch with your heritage through learning a language and then being terrible at it" reminds me a lot of white people who are 1/32 Native American and then dress up as Chief Running Water. It's bullshit and they'll never be accepted, only pitied, with few exceptions.
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Aug 15, 2016 23:07
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Earwicker posted:It's an interesting list but there doesn't seem to be any mention of methodology, it's just the opinion of this one language teaching institute with the caveat that "others disagree". It was linked from Wikipedia. It's the best data I have access to. I doubt anybody can prove mathematically how difficult languages are for English speakers, but I would guess it's based on their experience of how long it takes to get the average learner to a certain level of proficiency. Earwicker posted:I think in most cases of Americans studying German because of their "heritage" it's just something they find interesting, I don't think there are many Americans who take it to the point of trying to become accepted as a German in Germany or anything like that. It's kinda cute and sweet and I'm probably just acting like an rear end, because I had people come up to me, say something incomprehensible in German and then acting like they expected a medal too many times.
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Aug 16, 2016 00:38
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I guess I owe you an explanation: It didn't happen to me in Germany. It's a thing that people do who force the whole "I detect an accent, where are you from?"  conversation on me. It gets followed up with smallltalk about things I don't care for (Soccer (bores me to death), Autobahn (too narrow with only two lanes per direction, therefore too stressful), German beer (I only like Belgian beer)). Often enough, it's being topped up with something like "Do you know Krappenhausen?" or something incomprehensible in German.
Mr. Smile Face Hat fucked around with this message at 11:26 on Aug 16, 2016 |
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Aug 16, 2016 11:19
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Earwicker posted:People who work in the heavily touristy areas of cities like NYC or Paris or London tend to be perpetually annoyed no matter what language is being spoken to them by whom. It's nothing to do with the culture of the surrounding country or even the rest of the city, it's just that working in those kinds of areas tends to have that effect on people over time. Yeah no. Paris and France routinely win "rudest place for tourists" in surveys. Yes, now we're going to hear again that "some disagree".
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Aug 17, 2016 01:04
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Jeza posted:I didn't read any of the posts in between but French people love people attempting to speak French. They, more than most, like to watch tourists at least attempt to speak their language rather than just launching into English and assuming they will respond. I have seen French people feign being unable to speak English to some person, then speak it 5 minutes later fluently to somebody who at least attempted to ask them a question in French. This here is a forum with many somewhat intellectual Americans. Those typically underestimate two things: 1) The difficulty of learning a foreign language and the amount of time it takes. 2) The importance and acceptability of English. It's simply not feasible or an efficient use of time to learn a whole language for a one-time touristy trip to a country that lasts a few days. It's also not unheard of that people travel through several European countries with different languages in a few days/weeks. I remember with amusement a thread here many years ago where someone asked about visiting Prague over the weekend and people making GBS threads themselves with rage about why he was too insensitive to learn conversational Czech. I doubt any Czech people had a problem with that. From statistics and what I read, the French just seem to be douchey outliers with their expectations, it's probably because they've lost some cultural influence over the last century to the English-speaking world. Kopijeger posted:If only they did the same thing when they go abroad. Speaking from personal experience, in the German city of Köln (Cologne) I was suddenly approached by a teenage boy with a stereotypically French appearance and an obvious French accent who saw fit to ask me, out of all the other tourists around, something like "hey...where izz double-u c?". He did this in lieu of preparing in advance and learning three basic words: "Entschuldigung", "Toilette" and "Bitte". The next day, I was walking along a street in the same city and there were a trio of young women going the other way. One of them went "Excuse me, do you speak English" with an obvious French accent instead of learning the German for "I don't speak your language. Do you know French or English?". Boohoo. I didn't know there were Germans (if you're German) with that attitude, I thought it was limited to the French. I've helped people in several languages, and I never even thought "Couldn't they at least have learned these n-1 words in one of my holy languages? I am so offended and shall not respond or, better, I will direct them away from the crapper, haha!". Language is completely irrelevant to me in such situations. They're not harming anyone by this and intend no harm. To be an rear end to them is not warranted.
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Aug 28, 2016 23:17
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Kopijeger posted:Even for a short trip, it would be worthwhile learning some of the most basic stuff in order to interpret common signs and the like. That's usually covered in travel guides. Kopijeger posted:I'm from a Scandinavian country, for the record. The reason why it annoyed me is not so much that they didn't bother to learn even the basics of the local language, but that they expected a foreign tourist like me to play along with their worldview. If they aren't going to even attempt to act according to local custom, it would probably be better if their limited their attention to professional tourist handlers, like those people who man information booths. I don't know, did you have "foreign tourist" stamped somewhere on your head or other signs that made that instantly obvious? I've been asked directions in places that I didn't know so well, in which case I said "sorry, I'm not from here", but didn't spend any time being upset about the nerve of people to ask me directions. You have some kind of weird attitude problem with people taking casual quick low-involvement trips to different European countries. I'm absolutely not seeing the slightest issue with someone taking a quick side trip to Poland when they're in Germany for example or vice-versa, and I don't think anyone should have an issue with that. The concept of "it would be polite to learn some of the language" is something I see when people are other people's guests, want to actually live in that country or those kinds of situations.
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Aug 29, 2016 09:32
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Kopijeger posted:This usually happens in locations where there are plenty other tourists around. And I don't mind being asked about directions if they use the local language to do so. Hell, it has even happened in Italy when I thought I was too pale and northern European to pass as a local. I point them in the right direction if I know, or tell them "I don't know" if not. The key point is this: do they demonstrate a willingness to adapt to the location they are visiting? Kopijeger posted:When did I ever say that people shouldn't go on trips? The point is that they shouldn't expect every other person, whether locals or other tourists, to adapt to their whims when they go abroad. I'm absolutely not seeing the supposedly horrible act of asking someone something on the street in English as "expecting others to adapt to their whims". It's a simple question they're asking. If they're not being understood, or get no reply, fine. You're acting like they're holding the locals by their shirt and yelling "Sing and dance for us, yokel, dance the tarantella and sing us the songs of your ancestors" while dropping some coins on the ground. Europe simply has a lot of small countries with very different languages. Earwicker posted:There's nothing wrong with quick trips but IMO it is rude to go to a country and not learn at least rudimentary stuff like hello, thank you, good night, where is the X, etc. Even if I'm just changing planes in the Frankfurt airport for a few hours I'll still greet the people who work there in German first before resorting to English. You don't need to be fully "conversational" and it's really not hard to learn the basics. I'm simply not seeing it as rude at all to suddenly decide to go to another country nearby spontaneously with a few friends or while on a larger trip or whatever without being expected to prepare. To me what gets advocated here looks like some weird mixture of cultural superiority feelings and a kind of cultural guilt trip. I promise you that I won't judge you on your language skills or lack thereof when you're a tourist. Mr. Smile Face Hat fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Aug 29, 2016 |
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Aug 29, 2016 20:32
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Earwicker posted:I'll certainly still think of you and treat you as a human being, but a human being who's kind of a dick. It doesn't make you some horrible ignorant person but it seems lazy and rude. It does not take much time or effort to learn at least how to say hello to someone in their own language when you are visiting their country, and not putting in at least that little bit of effort is just showing you don't care and expect people to cater to you. The problem I'm having with all of this is that you're holding all people to your own standards. I speak several languages and would certainly learn a few words for a trip if that's practical. However, that becomes completely pointless if I can't even understand the reply. I would almost certainly not understand "At the third intersection from over there, turn right at the bakery, then walk about 100 meters and there'll be a big building on the left side of the street" in a language I don't speak more than ten words of. It's a waste of time for all involved to pretend to speak the language. Another issue is that people may be old, not that intelligent, got separated from their guided tour or whatever. Also not everybody is looking for perfect cultural immersion on a day trip, they may just want to have some fun, see some sights and get out again. Anyway, these language expectations are probably a very deeply held cultural belief in which we differ. I personally see people as dicks who treat people any differently for this.
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Aug 30, 2016 00:01
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Earwicker posted:Again, I'm not talking about "learning the language" Yeah, you're not talking about learning the language, just about, you know, learning the language. And when someone tries it one me, sure I politely act impressed, but there's a concept of feeling embarrassed/ashamed for someone else (there's even a German word for it: Fremdschämen.). Be all that as it may, I get why you're doing it and so on, but what puts it over the top for me is that you're basing your judgement of people of being "rude" or "lazy" on it. There are some situations where it's simply not practical to prepare something, and I think you're rude and mentally lazy to not acknowledge that. Alexeythegreat posted:My language has 260 million speakers, but the word for hello has a three letter consonant cluster followed by a four letter consonant cluster, so gently caress if I expect anyone to learn any basic words. Those who try can't pronounce it anyway, 10 times out of 10 I can't recognize the words. Reminds of thinking "What the hell is a 'doxin' supposed to be? Some kind of poison?" Turns out it was supposed to be "dachshund", which is hard to pronounce for native English speakers (and therefore hard to make out), and super formal, antiquated and unusual in contemporary German, where they're called "dackel" instead.
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Aug 30, 2016 23:58
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I think this premise is flawed:Idiot posted:The main reason I left was that I felt that the United States faced an irreversible economic and social decline. America was no longer a free country and the government was tyrannical in many ways, as evidenced by Edward Snowden’s recent revelations. I had also grown tired of the appalling stupidity and ignorance of large swathes of the population and I saw that the United States was becoming an increasingly dysfunctional society. The government in the US is bankrupt and living on borrowed time.
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Sep 4, 2016 01:39
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