Foreigners are unsociable and refuse to venture beyond their own culture and friends

[scooterscot]

Not sure if you're being serious but the concept of exporting skills is very subjective. You could have all the professional and technical skills everybody can dream of, but if you can't speak the local language 99% of the locals will think you're an idiot, otherwise
they might understand your language and think you're arrogant for not trying to blend.

The Bavarians can't speak German either. Their so lazy. It's like accusing a Yorkshire man of speaking English. You know it's the language, just no one understands.

[petergriffin]

The Bavarians can't speak German either.

Again, not sure if you are joking or not. Bavarians have always spoken a different kind of German from the Prussians. They are natives, so they can speak the dialect they want.

[I just need to test it]

I moved to the US with my family in the 90s and didn't really integrate with the natives.

I had plenty of friends, but they were also immigrants - Dutchies, South Africans, other Brits. And irony of ironies - one of the two Americans I am still friends with was born in London and emigrated with his British family when he was three.

So there are cultural differences at play here. British people tend to offer friendship more readily. Americans tended to be a little more reserved - they might be friendly but that didn't mean you were now friends. That tends to strike an odd chord with Brits.

Language-wise, they simply didn't seem able to comprehend my wife's Manchester accent, which she found wearing.

[scooterscot]

Again, not sure if you are joking or not. Bavarians have always spoken a different kind of German from the Prussians. They are natives, so they can speak the dialect they want.

Aber ist es nicht hoch deutsch, it's not jsut dialect, they don't finish their words, like northern Germans, which my ears understand. The younger Bavarians are justas bad, in fact I've found many speak better English than those back home.

[petergriffin]

Aber ist es nicht hoch deutsch, it's not jsut dialect, they don't finish their words, like northern Germans, which my ears understand. The younger Bavarians are justas bad, in fact I've found many speak better English than those back home.

So you're saying that the Queen's English is the only English accepted in Britain?

[Churchill]

Aber ist es nicht hoch deutsch, it's not jsut dialect, they don't finish their words, like northern Germans, which my ears understand. The younger Bavarians are justas bad, in fact I've found many speak better English than those back home.

Home being Scotland? That explains much.

[scooterscot]

So you're saying that the Queen's English is the only English accepted in Britain?

Well she's half German. And English itself is a mongrel language full of inconsistencies.

I'm only point would be folks learn to annunciate whatever language they use.

[petergriffin]

I'm only point would be folks learn to annunciate whatever language they use.

Google translate is not as good as it used to be!

[norrahe]

Not sure if you're being serious but the concept of exporting skills is very subjective. You could have all the professional and technical skills everybody can dream of, but if you can't speak the local language 99% of the locals will think you're an idiot, otherwise
they might understand your language and think you're arrogant for not trying to blend.

You'd be surprised that people think they can get away with not having the native language and get by. In cloggers it is easier as they speak English relatively well and way too many people use that as an excuse for not learning the lingo. It's ok if you live in hamsterjam, but if you live elsewhere then forget about it if you want to get anywhere with the locals.

I would have thought that somewhere like Germany there would be more emphasis on having German. In the Netherlands it's increasingly becoming the case for gigs.

[OwlHoot]

Very true.

I don't know how many expats I've met here who refuse to learn the lingo and only socialise in their own expat groups.

Here being Cloggers presumably. But apparently (so it's been claimed here in the past) native Dutch speakers consider foreigners who try mastering and speaking Dutch as insufferably rude and inconsiderate! God alone knows why - you'd think they'd be flattered when foreigners made the effort.