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Moving to Europe

monkeybarry

monkeybarry

Ian Walker
So in the last year and a half my marriage has broken down and I've battled depression partly caused by moving to California and then moving back six months later (i didn't want to leave).

I'm definitely uninspired living in the UK but the thing stopping me moving to Europe is the language barrier.
I do an office job - data analyst.

Has anyone on here had any experience of moving into Europe without being fluent in the local language? I see it as a huge barrier to earning a decent wage.

The two year countdown is on!!
 
monkeybarry said:
So in the last year and a half my marriage has broken down and I've battled depression partly caused by moving to California and then moving back six months later (i didn't want to leave).

I'm definitely uninspired living in the UK but the thing stopping me moving to Europe is the language barrier.
I do an office job - data analyst.

Has anyone on here had any experience of moving into Europe without being fluent in the local language? I see it as a huge barrier to earning a decent wage.

The two year countdown is on!!
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I've worked for periods in parts of Europe but not lived there. On the whole, you'll get by OK in major cities - the further you get out from them the better your language skills will need to be.

If you can find a large UK or US company with a European presence then you'll probably find they have English-speaking teams in most areas.
 
scaramanga said:
I've worked for periods in parts of Europe but not lived there. On the whole, you'll get by OK in major cities - the further you get out from them the better your language skills will need to be.

If you can find a large UK or US company with a European presence then you'll probably find they have English-speaking teams in most areas.
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Cheers mate.
I'm looking at this the wrong way perhaps.
My vision was move, then find a job.
But actually that step might be better from here.
 
As Scara says, there are some places where you can work in English, which would allow you to transition. Barcelona has quite a few English speaking companies. HP for example, with lots of expats scoffing sangria and tapis after work. Not a bad lifestyle, but it is never easy establishing yourself in a new place. It will take a year or three to become integrated and settled. I would love to myself, but not footloose at the moment.

If it doesn't work out you're an hour away from London on a cheap flight.
 
My company has an office in Berlin. You can get by in the city pretty much speaking English 90% of the time.


Sitting on my porcelain throne using Fapatalk
 
what country are you considering? I've only traveled and found the majority of people speak good English in Europe. I've never worked abroad, but wherever you go it would be great to learn a new language. Only place i went to where lots of people didn't speak good English was Japan.
 
I guess you could try the scandinavian countries. They all seem to speak very good English and apparently are the happiest places in the world to live ( I wonder how they measure that....rectal probe I suppose).
 
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I moved back in 2010, didn't speak a word of Czech and didn't have a job lined up at the time but I was leaving UK after redundancy so had extra money to hand to tie me over. Spent couple of months relaxing and enjoying life, had been in previous job 18yrs without much breaks, and then found a job with an American company and have not looked back since.

I wish I had done this when I was a lot younger.
 
Trixster said:
I moved back in 2010, didn't speak a word of Czech and didn't have a job lined up at the time but I was leaving UK after redundancy so had extra money to hand to tie me over. Spent couple of months relaxing and enjoying life, had been in previous job 18yrs without much breaks, and then found a job with an American company and have not looked back since.

I wish I had done this when I was a lot younger.
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I can definitely recommend that as a destination.

If you don't like the sound of Prague, Brno is lovely. Taxes are low, prices are low, way of life is pretty good (in the cities), beer is good, food is fudging awful - don't each Czech food.
 
scaramanga said:
I can definitely recommend that as a destination.

If you don't like the sound of Prague, Brno is lovely. Taxes are low, prices are low, way of life is pretty good (in the cities), beer is good, food is fudging awful - don't each Czech food.
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Plzen is very nice too. Czech food is getting better, it's just that the pubs all do the same stuff and a lot of the locals won't pay more for something better. In a lot of ways it is similar to how it used to be here.
 
Scandinavian countires all speak perfect English (probably better than most people here), most major cities will have a good level of English. In Amsterdam and Vienna over 90% of people speak English. Any other major business city will have a large no of English speaking people like Madrid, Barcelona, Geneva, Zurich, Vienna, Berlin, Paris etc. You could also consider Ireland.
 
Massive pedantry alert but if you're in the UK at present then you already live in Europe, we may have left the union but haven't quite thrown ourselves out of the continent just yet!

As said though, there isn't as much of a language barrier as you think in many of the countries. I lived in Prague for a year and a half and found generally that unless you've got 100% pronunciation it's not worth trying to speak the local languauge, a lot easier to be "ignorant" unless you invest some serious time and thought in to slavic languages and how they differ. Lived in France where I found the lingo a lot easier to pick up, lots more cognates so once you get the grammar and structure half of the time it's the same word but frenched up a bit.

Sorry to hear you're not having the best of it though
 
Come to Oslo. All of us speak English and are very happy to do so. Things are quite expensive here, but chances are you'll make good money too in the right job. Women are hot, beer is good and plentiful (though expensive as well) and we're rapidly improving when it comes to food.

And there's a great, friendly Spurs community here, meeting regularly for televised games and beer.

Good luck to you wherever you want end up and whatever you choose to do!
 
milo said:
Plzen is very nice too. Czech food is getting better, it's just that the pubs all do the same stuff and a lot of the locals won't pay more for something better. In a lot of ways it is similar to how it used to be here.
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I've seen a lot of improvement at the top end - Borgo Agnese is one of my favourite restaurants anywhere, not just in Brno.

From my experience though, your average place still relies on cabbage and grey pork as its staple fare. The lunch diners around the industrial estates do some decent stuff for pennies though. What's that Goulash type thing they do?
 
scaramanga said:
I've seen a lot of improvement at the top end - Borgo Agnese is one of my favourite restaurants anywhere, not just in Brno.

From my experience though, your average place still relies on cabbage and grey pork as its staple fare. The lunch diners around the industrial estates do some decent stuff for pennies though. What's that Goulash type thing they do?
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I don't know it, I spend most of my time there in Bohemia and am less familiar with Moravia.

The reason for that is that most of the pubs and restaurants are catering for a predominantly lunchtime trade that want a set menu for 40 or 50 Crowns. Quality is always going to suffer if you are doing two dishes for less than a couple of quid.

I think that things are getting better though. I've got several friends over there who have food businesses and are doing well.

It's gulas, the same dish. It's generally very good and I like the bread dumplings that they normally serve with it. Historically the boarders around there are pretty fluid, so there are plenty of Austrian and Hungarian dishes that would also be considered Czech.
 
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As a born and raised Hungarian I can fully recommend you Budapest to spend some time to recover. If you're in your early 30's, this place can offer you a lot. The girls are mad about foreigners and the wohle downtown is turning into a party place.
The language can be an issue, not too easy to learn and the locals have mostly basic English only, but at the companies where you can be hired (and can afford your wage demands:) all the employees are fluent in English.
Some companies to choose: IBM, BP, BT, HP, ExxonMobile, Avis, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Vodafone, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, MSCI.

If you decide to work here, i can give you same advice where to find a flat or what to bear in mind to establish yourself over here.
 
Rorschach said:
I guess you could try the scandinavian countries. They all seem to speak very good English and apparently are the happiest places in the world to live ( I wonder how they measure that....rectal probe I suppose).
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Most people under the age of 60 speaks English quite well over here (Norway). Not so sure about the "happiest in the world" bit, to be honest, sounds like bollox to me, we freeze 70% of the year over here, most people keep to themselves and don't like talking to strangers. Hard to generalize, of course. Depending on what kind of work you do, there might be work for you here though. I live close to a business dense area, and pretty much only hear English / Spanish / French / Hindi /Arabic on my morning travels.
 
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