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Scudworth
Jan 1, 2005

When life gives you lemons, you clone those lemons, and make super lemons.

Dinosaur Gum

Reznor posted:

If you don't like thin skinned pissbabyism you have to hate every part of the internet.

You've been on SA for a decade, unsure which part of it you've been reading prior to this thread.

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Hogge Wild
Aug 21, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Pillbug
Why do Americans call themselves 'expats' instead of 'immigrants'?

Yorkshire Pudding
Nov 24, 2006



Hogge Wild posted:

Why do Americans call themselves 'expats' instead of 'immigrants'?

It's not just an American thing. Typically the difference is an immigrant is someone who decidedly wants to become a citizen of the country they have moved to, whereas an Ex-pat is usually just in the country for a certain period of time with no concrete plan on obtaining citizenship.

Jeza
Feb 13, 2011

The cries of the dead are terrible indeed; you should try not to hear them.
Accurately or not, people tend to define immigrants as aspirational and expats as being from places with high QoL already. Also, mild racism.

Reznor
Jan 15, 2006

Hot dinosnail action.

tsa posted:

You're really loving stupid.

Nuh uh, you are.

Yorkshire Pudding
Nov 24, 2006



Jeza posted:

Accurately or not, people tend to define immigrants as aspirational and expats as being from places with high QoL already. Also, mild racism.

That might be a better way to put it. "Immigrant" is often seen as a dirty word. "Ex-Pat" is often seen as some college graduate with White Money just doing a gap year or whatever.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

yeah they just aren't the same thing "expat" usually refers to people who are working overseas in a situation that is intentionally temporary where "immigrant" is much more open ended and often permanent

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

Reznor posted:

If you don't like thin skinned pissbabyism you have to hate every part of the internet.

If every part of the internet is 4chan and Reddit, then yes.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

Hogge Wild posted:

Why do Americans call themselves 'expats' instead of 'immigrants'?

People are giving you definitions but there are more important reasons IMO:

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.

2) The term immigrant is highly politicized in the US, has been since the 80s, and about half of the American population hates "immigrants" so they will not call themselves one.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

Reznor posted:

Since you mentioned "over there" do they speak English in "over there"

This sounds like you're being a huge prick when you say it but I think this is the answer to your question:

Most countries that are "easy" to expatriate to do not have high levels of English competency. By most I mean probably none, but there may exceptions that I don't know about. 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.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦

Sheep-Goats posted:

This sounds like you're being a huge prick when you say it but I think this is the answer to your question:

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.

Is Germany included in Germanic Europe? Because they definitely do not have excellent English.

Mr. Smile Face Hat
Sep 15, 2003

Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

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.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦

flavor posted:


Well according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EF_English_Proficiency_Index 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.

Well, according to me, who has actually been to Germany and tried to get by with English, it is very hit and miss whether you are able to do so with any particular person.

Kopijeger
Feb 14, 2010

doverhog posted:

Well, according to me, who has actually been to Germany and tried to get by with English, it is very hit and miss whether you are able to do so with any particular person.

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.

Mr. Smile Face Hat
Sep 15, 2003

Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

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.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
That's all true, but you have very low standards for excellence if that's what you call German proficiency in English.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

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 is a very strange way to put it. There have been Americans living abroad since America has existed as a country, and so have people from many other countries, it's not really a "tradition" just a reflection of the basic fact that sometimes people live outside of their home countries. Most people I know who are "expats" and refer to themselves as such aren't trying to live like Hemingway (nor make it look like they are doing so), they are mostly just people living overseas because of some work opportunity, sometimes they bring their whole family with them and sometimes not, and while they do tend to be people who enjoy other cultures it's not really the same kind of adventurism for the sake of adventurism that the whole Hemingway comparison implies. In a large number of cases the motivating factor is simply money.

Skoll
Jul 26, 2013

Oh You'll Love My Toxic Love
Grimey Drawer

doverhog posted:

Well, according to me, who has actually been to Germany and tried to get by with English, it is very hit and miss whether you are able to do so with any particular person.

A close friend of mine has actually moved to Germany and gotten married and has told me exactly the opposite of what you said.

From what I understand, all German students have to learn one foreign language in school and most apparently choose English.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
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.

P-Mack
Nov 10, 2007

I assume German high school English produces as much real world proficiency as American high school Spanish.

Mr. Smile Face Hat
Sep 15, 2003

Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

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

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
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.

P-Mack
Nov 10, 2007

flavor posted:

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.


Yeah, thats what I was trying to get it, actually using/trying to use the language in the real world is a necessary and indispensible component. Same in America, some people go into areas or careers where Spanish is very helpful, and naturally they're the ones who actually know Spanish.

Waci
May 30, 2011

A boy and his dog.

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.

With an attitude like yours, I'm not exactly surprised nobody wanted to speak to you.

doverhog
May 31, 2013

Defender of democracy and human rights 🇺🇦
I'm sure the average German has powers of telepathy and precognition to pre-emptively not learn English just to spite me, what a talented people they are.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

Earwicker posted:

That is a very strange way to put it. There have been Americans living abroad since America has existed as a country, and so have people from many other countries, it's not really a "tradition" just a reflection of the basic fact that sometimes people live outside of their home countries. Most people I know who are "expats" and refer to themselves as such aren't trying to live like Hemingway (nor make it look like they are doing so), they are mostly just people living overseas because of some work opportunity, sometimes they bring their whole family with them and sometimes not, and while they do tend to be people who enjoy other cultures it's not really the same kind of adventurism for the sake of adventurism that the whole Hemingway comparison implies. In a large number of cases the motivating factor is simply money.

No matter the actual motivation there's a glow to the term "expat" in the current American vernacular that I think we can trace to Hemingay and his contemporaries. I'm not saying they all think they're Hemingway. I'm saying that when they describe themselves as expats rather than immigrants they are in part choosing the former term because of the positive associations it has, and that those associations come from the way that group did things, not, say, the way Henry James lived abroad or the way Madonna does or whatever.

raton
Jul 28, 2003

by FactsAreUseless

doverhog posted:

Well, according to me, who has actually been to Germany and tried to get by with English, it is very hit and miss whether you are able to do so with any particular person.

In my opinion a remarkably large number of Germans speak remarkably good English. They have neighbors that are better but if the general level of English in Germany wasn't enough for you you basically should never travel outside of US/Cananda/UK/Oz.

PT6A
Jan 5, 2006

Public school teachers are callous dictators who won't lift a finger to stop children from peeing in my plane

Sheep-Goats posted:

In my opinion a remarkably large number of Germans speak remarkably good English. They have neighbors that are better but if the general level of English in Germany wasn't enough for you you basically should never travel outside of US/Cananda/UK/Oz.

Yeah, there's a big difference between "Germany has neighbours with a higher level of English proficiency," which is true in my experience, and "Germans don't tend to speak English very well at all." Arguably, the average level of English is worse than I'd expect, but it's still pretty decent and you can certainly "get by" without speaking much or any German.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

Sheep-Goats posted:

I'm saying that when they describe themselves as expats rather than immigrants they are in part choosing the former term because of the positive associations it has, and that those associations come from the way that group did things, not, say, the way Henry James lived abroad or the way Madonna does or whatever.

I'm sure there are some people who use the term for that reason but I think it's a huge stretch to make out like it's the most common or main reason. Most people I've encountered who use the term "expat" do so to emphasize that it's a temporary situation due to work, rather than the more open ended situation that immigrant implies. Nothing to do with Hemingway's lifestyle or being American in particular (many of them aren't).

Mr. Smile Face Hat
Sep 15, 2003

Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

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.

Hogge Wild
Aug 21, 2012

by FactsAreUseless
Pillbug

flavor posted:

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.

his problem is that he's angry all the time

teen witch
Oct 9, 2012
I usually get "moved" rather "immigrated". Those from non-white countries "immigrate" to Sweden. It's a weird linguistic do-si-do, but I can't rag too much on it, because I get a slightly better reception being from New York than being from America. Regardless, it's always immigrant for me. I'm taking Swedish for Immigrants, not for Expats.

nutri_void
Apr 18, 2015

I shall devour your soul.
Grimey Drawer

Sheep-Goats posted:

In my opinion a remarkably large number of Germans speak remarkably good English. They have neighbors that are better but if the general level of English in Germany wasn't enough for you you basically should never travel outside of US/Cananda/UK/Oz.

As someone from a second world shithole country that barely speaks any English at all and lived for a year in a country that does speak English very well (Sweden) I can attest that Germany does, in fact, speak English quite well.

poolside toaster
Jul 12, 2008
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)

Mr. Smile Face Hat
Sep 15, 2003

Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

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

Agean90
Jun 28, 2008


America had fucktons of German immigrants so some Americans learn German as a way to get in touch with that

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

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.

However it's certainly more advantageous to learn French or Spanish simply because those can get you by in much larger areas of the world than German, which is spoken in a comparatively small area.

Mr. Smile Face Hat
Sep 15, 2003

Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

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.

However it's certainly more advantageous to learn French or Spanish simply because those can get you by in much larger areas of the world than German, which is spoken in a comparatively small area.

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.

Earwicker
Jan 6, 2003

flavor posted:

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.

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".

I'm curious as to what their reasoning is that Portuguese or Romanian, for example, are "more similar" or more closely related to English than German.

flavor posted:

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.

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.

Earwicker fucked around with this message at 23:35 on Aug 15, 2016

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Mr. Smile Face Hat
Sep 15, 2003

Praise be to China's Covid-Zero Policy

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".

I'm curious as to what their reasoning is that Portuguese or Romanian, for example, are "more similar" or more closely related to English than German.

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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