Netherlands. Do you have to learn the language to KEEP a contract?

[Joe Black]

Danke veld for your answers (that means thanks)

No, that means a thankful field...

[DieScum]

You may as well learn the basics. It'll be fun but really I can't see you getting anywhere near business level fluency unless you are a genius.

I speak pub German. I can have chat in german over a few beers but if I had to communicate anything in a business setting I'd be screwed. I've sat in meetings conducted in german and maybe understood about a third of what is going on. To get really fluent would be take a lot and when you speak the lingua franca anyway...

... but definitely get the basics.

[Moscow Mule]

Godverdomme.

[Billy Pilgrim]

Worked in Sweden a while back and the PM of the project thought it was great that I was trying to learn a bit of the lingo (more to better myself than owt else). Speaking it is quite hard but got to the point where he could ask me questions in Swedish and I could answer them in English

End of the day if you can get something like that going it would actually make your time over there more enjoyable IMHO and you'd feel that you are getting something out of it more than your 20 pieces of silver

[sweetandsour]

Danke veld for your answers (that means thanks)

I think you mean to say "Dank u wel".

I only ever learned that to help me out on the few trips to Amsterdam that I have taken.

You should try a bit harder.

[KentPhilip]

No, that means a thankful field...

oh

see - I am hopeless at der linguo

[DieScum]

I speak fluent French. Studied in France for a year at an IEP as a teenager. Spent first couple of working years working on an IT helpdesk for the French market speaking the language all day.

I'm pretty crap, comedy heavy accent, but I'm fluent.

Thing is if I do a project in France and anything controversial comes up they start to hate on the guy with the accent. I got feedback from one partner company that"I could barely speak the language" which I thought was a tad harsh considering I had just conducted an entire week long technical training class in it.

If you are buying from someone suddenly it is all "Wow, where did you learn such excellent French"... but if you are selling it is "Eh, eh...I can't understand".

I am very envious of those who can get up to unaccented native standard because you really need that to properly speak a language in a competitive business environment.

[tim123]

Disagree.

Some can some can't

When in Italy we had one girl got to that level in a couple of weeks, it took me (and others) 18 months.

When in Germany I spent 2 years before I gave it up as a bad job.

I just can't learn natural languages

tim

[Rantor]

I speak fluent French. Studied in France for a year at an IEP as a teenager. Spent first couple of working years working on an IT helpdesk for the French market speaking the language all day.

I'm pretty crap, comedy heavy accent, but I'm fluent.

Thing is if I do a project in France and anything controversial comes up they start to hate on the guy with the accent. I got feedback from one partner company that"I could barely speak the language" which I thought was a tad harsh considering I had just conducted an entire week long technical training class in it.

If you are buying from someone suddenly it is all "Wow, where did you learn such excellent French"... but if you are selling it is "Eh, eh...I can't understand".

I am very envious of those who can get up to unaccented native standard because you really need that to properly speak a language in a competitive business environment.

I think this is a prety standard cultural attitude from the french. I know a (native dutch speaking) belgian bloke who recently got a knockback from a gig in paris because of his 'language skills and he speaks perfect french with no noticeable accent.

My french is ok, probaly not as good as yours, and I get sick of the crap some peole come up with. I'm very often in a situation where I speak better french than the other peson speaks english but, for various reasons, they often insist on continuing in excrutiatingly bad english. If I stick to French they will mostly flip to 300 words a minute dialect'that forces me into rabid glaswegian.

My accent must be weird as I often get frenchies responding to me in dutch when I start in french. Fortunatley, I often speak better dutch than they do so thats not so bad.

[vetran]

try a little its only polite

Worked for a french company for years.

Learn the greetings, please, thankyou, how are the wife & kids and enough that you can interrupt politely with apparent understanding when they are talking french to their colleague in front of you and purposely ignoring you with typical Gallic arrogance (normally when they want to do something stupid with the project and you told them NO - you know the type) and you will be fine.

After two sentences of you murdering the accent they will swap to English but you will be seen as a great guy for trying.