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Hi everyone

I don’t usually comment on topics like this because there are so many biases and different perspectives involved. In the end, I believe only the person who has actually gone through the experience can truly understand it; otherwise, it often becomes just another judgment.

We are an ASEAN family earning more than €200k gross annually (sorry for mentioning the TC, but there is a reason for it—please keep reading before judging). We have lived here for more than six years, and you know what? I still haven’t obtained either permanent residence or German citizenship simply because I don’t have a B1 certificate. So first things first: regardless of how much you contribute to the country, German is a must today if you want to obtain residency and stabilize your life here.

I was honestly devastated when the officer told me that I was not eligible for permanent residence. That was also the moment when I started to feel that maybe I don’t actually need permanent residence in this country after all.

Story 2: In an international working environment, German may not matter much at the IC level. But I’ve seen countless situations where Germans exchange a glance with each other, and suddenly the final decision is not what was agreed upon in the meeting. Over time, I’ve learned that there are many unwritten rules behind the scenes, and when you speak their language, you start to understand them.

One bright thing is that maybe we’re still lucky. We bought our first home without fully understanding the laws, the government system, or the tax rules. We simply worked hard and played the game in a way that we believed would be sustainable in the long run. Whatever happens, we know there are still many other places we could go.

Our children speak German natively, but they are also willing to go the extra mile to speak our mother tongue at home.

If you ask me for one piece of advice for immigrants and emigrants in Germany, I’d say: life is short—play naked!

I appreciate your perspective, but I was curious what B1 proficiency actually entails and this is what I found [1]:

- understand the main points of clear standard speech on familiar topics such as work, school, or leisure - manage most situations that occur while traveling in German-speaking areas - produce simple, connected text on familiar subjects - describe experiences, events, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and briefly explain your opinions or plans

That seems like a reasonable standard of native language proficiency to ask of people who want to make the county with said language their permanent home.

[1] https://www.sprachenatelier-berlin.de/en/topic/3736.german-p...

My rule is that if you want to settle in the country, you ought to learn the local language and it doesn't really matter how much money you make in my opinion. I got to B2 and passed the test, but ultimately left Germany years ago. I don't intend to go back but I also don't regret learning the language.
FWIW, for Blue Card holders, after 27 months the language requirement drops to A1 and even if you don't have a Blue Card after five years you could also get an EU permanent residence without language requirement: https://www.make-it-in-germany.com/en/visa-residence/living-...

Though I would recommend setting yourself a target of some small (≈10) number of new words to learn every day and practice them during your commute or so. B1 is achievable in under a year with consistent practice. The official word list has 2400 entries: https://www.goethe.de/pro/relaunch/prf/de/Goethe-Zertifikat_...

As a german living in spain, i feel your pain. While I do speak spanish around B1/B2 level, it took a lot of time and effort - probably the biggest effort in learning something after uni. People are often "you should speak the language if you life there" - yes, agreed. BUT: Hell, if you are a professional entrepreneur, you are already not working 40h week but way more. If in your day job you speak english anyway because it is international, you hardly practice it. Especially in the EU we are taught that we can move freely between nation states - but reality of learning a language takes years. I learned english at age 10, so am practicing for over 30 years now and still learning and anybody could spot that I am not a native speaker. Countries that rely on foreign labour and advertise agressively on skilled immigration (such as Germany does) should not have those strict language requirements. Especially since german itself is a very difficult language.
So your complaint is you wanted permanent residence in Germany but did not want to learn to speak German?
Genuinely happy to hear you're successful here! But, why would you expect there to be no drawback to not knowing the local language when moving to a foreign country?
You can get B1 with a bit of spare time. With kids, I understand it's a different situation; however, it took me about 2 years to get there, learning in my spare spare time (which after a certain point was just listening to audio books before bed). The compounding effect works.

BUUUUT, even with B2, it's just not enough for avoiding "the look", as you put it. I think you need flawless C1 or something, idk. Don't care anymore lol.

If you cannot be bothered with learning our language, and think that being rich somehow makes our country owe you its citizenship — then yeah, maybe Germany isn’t for you.
I am European, working in China for 12 years making multiples of the average salary, speak Chinese above B1 level and am not eligible for permanent residency yet.

First of all, if you want to become a resident somewhere you must learn the language. Not should.

Second, no country owes any foreign citizen residency there.

I've been here for a decade, and sadly I feel the issue is upward mobility for skilled workers. Unless you're working for an intl company, with ex-pats in positions of leadership, your chances of "getting ahead" are going to be limited, especially when you're competing against natives.

The reason is sadly, the culture is very reserved and cautious, so as an "outsider" it's going to take A LONG time before you can be trusted in a senior/leadership position (no matter how good your German language skills are).

The good part, from my experience the people here are great, friendly, and yeh it takes time to get to know them but it pays off in the long run. But professionally... it's complicated.

So while people come here, work and stay for a few years, they're going to leave when they realise that despite their best efforts, they need to do 10x more than someone who is simply "a native" to the country (or... you'll stay in a position and just rot until you move on).

And this sadly affects applications for jobs (a photo is pretty much required which would be considered illegal in other countries like the UK), apply for apartments (which country is your last name from... automatic rejection), just to mention a few key cases that really affect immigration.

i've lived+worked in 4 different countries on 3 continents and i think you always have to expect to adjust to the culture, it's not going to change for you, nor should it. But if you want to progress professionally (and Germany NEEDS tech-imports, the tech culture here is a disaster, it's embarrassing) you're going to have to promote these people into high positions, not just view them as "cheaper labour".

I migrated to Germany 10+ years ago and I'm still here. Based on my limited experience, there are two big issues.

First, things are bad: trains are getting worse every year, the highways are in disrepair (ask me about Bonn!), overloaded doctors, impossibly slow bureaucracy, economic crisis, growing inequality, housing crisis, and so on. If you're a fresh immigrant who cannot find a job in an economic crisis (aka "most of them") you may very well wonder why staying here alone when you could be just as unemployed near your family.

Second: I won't say that Germany is xenophobic (not even all AfD voters) but I will say it's unfriendly. Work example: I've worked in multiple places in German without language issues, and yet many jobs automatically disqualify me because they ask for "minimum C2", a rank I don't have and one that many native Germans wouldn't achieve either. Add less chances to make a social circle, inflexibility, not great weather, and a government that's constantly calling you lazy and entitled, and that's how you get depressed.

The sad part is, Germany has all the pieces to be a great place to live that, for some reason, has decided to dismantle them all one by one.

Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citizen married to a German man. However, she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one. By contrast, when I became an American citizen, my American friends (white and hispanic) insisted that they attend the naturalization ceremony.
I‘m German, but I no longer live in Germany, so I can’t relate to the experience of immigrating to Germany.

I think a big part of the issue is a certain German presumptuousness.

There’s a general sense that Germany is a prosperous, influential country. The reason for that must be that things are done correctly in Germany.

I think this is an inherited attitude that doesn’t really correspond to reality anymore as systems are crumbling and a trip to many other European countries (including those Germans grew up to view as a barbaric hinterland or as holiday destinations) shows them that even small towns can have fast mobile internet, that you can pay by card at market vendors, and that the government can use computers.

As an outsider, but hailing from Germany's eastern neighbor and one of the largest sources of immigrants:

Overall sentiment is that the juice ain't worth the squeeze any more.

Back when my country became a full member of Schengen(2008) the ratio of GDP per capita between Germany and us was around 3.3x - salaries were roughly proportionally higher, so just about any job was worth moving there and potentially going through the hoops required to establish a permanent residence.

Earlier, especially throughout the 90s that ratio didn't go below 5, so a sizeable number of people attempted to move to Germany by any means possible.

Currently it hovers at around 2.1x and most of the discrepancy in salaries is focused on the trades.

A specialist from Poland typically doesn't have access to higher tier salaries, so they don't really enjoy a different quality of life than at home, so they have no reason to move.

Berlin is one the cheapest capital cities in Europe. As such it attracts a huge amount of immigrants. That low cost is reflected in the pay. An experienced full stack developer would be fortunate to get 90-95k euro annually. That is plenty of money if you intend to stay in Berlin, but is not something you can save up and build a future with or transfer to another country. Also, housing is a huge problem there and it can take 6 months to find even a basic flat. I am an American developer that lived there for many years and my co-workers were usually Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian, Iranian, Russian, Lebanese, and now Indian. It was rare to find an actual German coder.

I had a hard time with German work expectations and management style. Also, their engineering approach is thorough but incredibly slow and over-built. The environment is hierarchy and credential based with little room for individual initiative or creative problem solving. I was used to improvising, experimenting, and thinking outside the box. It was not a good fit.

I lived there for around 6 months like 15 years ago so perhaps it's changed a lot since then.

But even as an Englishman, it was very different to home. I remember the supermarket was shut all Sunday and was only open until 12 on the Saturday, and it shut early in the week too (at like 5pm or 6pm or something?) so by the time I'd got the train back home from work it was already closed. I had to get up early every Saturday just to make sure I could get the shopping done.

I remember once I waved at my neighbours who were sitting eating in a common garden area and they acted super confused that I would wave to them.

It didn't seem like an especially friendly place and there were so many rules about everything too, like just being able to take the rubbish or recycling out you had specific days and times.

I think there is also a chicken-egg problem in almost every country that doesn't use English as official language:

If you are not an engineer you must have an almost excellent level of local language --> an excellent level of a language is only possible if you are immersed daily over a long time and have the time to study --> to live there you need a job --> back to start

Different counties have different tolerances regarding how quick you pick up the local language. For Germany and France this tolerance is almost 0, for Netherlands it's much higher.

As someone who moved from the U.S to Germany and has been here for ~15 months, I figured I would drop a few comments while I'm running a NixOS rebuild.

Let me start with the wonderful things: Public transportation is nice, at least compared to the U.S. I like the shared sense of responsibility that Germans have with things like recycling. The directness is quite nice, in the U.S I often had to question if someone was being genuine or not, and that is not really a problem here. If you're into various hobbies, clubs, etc., Germany has really incredible communities and clubs for so many things, and they're very organized about this, it's quite nice. The nature is great, and I've really enjoyed exploring different areas.

As for the negatives, it's clear in Germany that you're looking at buying into their system, for life so to speak. You don't find yourself getting equity, trading stocks, buying a home, etc. You generally are expected to work, keep your head down, and hopefully acquire an apartment where the rent won't increase while you support the social system (for the record, I am more than okay with paying my share, but I was shocked at the difference in take home pay, and particularly how it feels compared to the U.S). Buying a home is likely not going to be in the cards for most, and there is so much paperwork, painful and expensive driving courses, and strange decisions as well with starting your own business. I have for instance a few projects where I could be taking revenue, but I specifically am not as it would make my visa situation more complicated, and am instead waiting for a year or two.

Germany is really not a convenience culture, I consistently find myself exhausted. This might sound stupid, but in the U.S, I can simply hop in a car and grab a reasonably healthy Chipotle bowl or similar, get enough protein and vegetables, etc. In Germany, there really are not so many places for quick food to grab, in general the food is actually quite poor, I don't find myself eating out at all.

Additionally, the language is brutal, it's hard to explain just how exhausting it is to learn while you're working full time. I have probably spent ~600 hours practicing yet I am still only about an A2 speaking level, with my understanding generally being a bit higher.

All in all, I'm happy I made the switch, it's been incredibly rewarding, but it truly is exhausting. I can see how this would add up, and I often think about how easy my life might be in the United States, and I miss this easy, casual life that's been replaced for something that really expects and demands so much from me, every single day and interaction.

German discrimination and racism towards migrant workers and visible minorities is world class.

And with Alternative für Deutschland / AfD rising rapidly, this is only going to get much, much worse.

https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/70478/study-finds-racis...

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/germany-...

I can add my anecdote to the language barrier points.

At work we speak English, everybody speak English all the time, all docs are in English, all meetings are in English. There's an occasional German email every now and then but people will switch.

When we go to a "team building" retreat, all the same teammates that happily chatted with us expats in English just switch to German 100%, full stop. You can come and stand at the edge of a group chatting in German and they will look at you and continue, knowing you stand there not understanding, without batting an eye.

I like Germany, studied German a bit in college, etc but when my family and I decided to move somewhere that suited us because we could work from anywhere Germany really failed to impress. We ended up in the Netherlands which offers a a lot of the perks people associate with Germany (perhaps wrongly, good trains were one of the things we wanted) without as many of the downsides.
It's interesting how quickly any discussion about immigrant/expat life in Germany becomes about language. That has to account for something.

After my tenure of 11 years in the country, my impression is that there is a deeper sense of "us" v/s "them"; the language is the most PC way to express it.

If you're in the category of "us" you don't complain about the taxes or things being closed on Sundays, because you're supposed to "understand" that there's a welfare state (which has been a myth for a while now and cracks are showing up since covid). If you're in the "us", you don't claim bureaucracy is treacherous, because the language should have equipped you to fight it. You might be in the "us", if you believe with every bit of your being that rules and regulations is the best way to ensure everyone behaves properly and everything works efficiently.

If you dare challenge (m)any of these and you don't speak German good enough, it's the language. If you speak the language, then you're not "integrated". Maybe that's immigration everywhere, but I feel in Germany, there is a rather narrow band you get to be in "acceptably".

All this discussion makes me wonder - is there any country an immigrant can move to, and better their lives as well as the locals' life/economy? Assuming the immigrant makes every effort to integrate (learning the language, respecting local people/customs etc).

It seems the world is turning hostile to immigration in general - or maybe it is just the impression I get from the media? I don't know for sure.

I see two big problems:

1. A "meta-problem": While many Germans agree that things are bad, people favour completely opposite solutions.

My meta-solution to that would be decentralisation and letting more things be decided locally, but unfortunately Germans are united in favouring centralisation these days.

2. There's a strong superposition of "things are bad" and "we are still the best"; a high degree of defensiveness and stubbornness. This was accurately described as "presumptuousness" in another comment.

Anecdotal and more for unskilled than skilled workers, but having traveled to Germany a bunch, I found that taxi drivers and delivery drivers seem pretty unhappy there. They mention not feeling accepted, feeling constantly looked down upon, etc. There's a bit of that in every country, but generally, the immigrants I've found in Germany seem a lot less happy than the ones I've met in other countries.
Why would anyone wanna go to a country that pays them low abuses them and they end up alone with no friends because this is Germany.
As a European and Canadian, I find very painful the fact that in the EU you MUST know English, yet there is no country with English as primary language in the whole EU. There is also no way to live in a country by knowing only English, so effectively you need to know 2 languages by default to be part of the EU.

I know two languages and for me learning English was a terrible experience,it took so many years and so much effort, if I could get by with just one, I would.

That is, if they can even get a work visa through the proper channels while following all requirements.

I had read Kafka's The Castle before dealing with the German immigration office but that experience gave me a new perspective.

I have friends who moved to Germany, so although I haven't been or experienced immigrating there myself, it's been in the conversation amongst my circles.

What I hear about it is that it can feel closed and lonely. Germans are not necesarily mean, but they won't fully assimilate you into their circles easily, especially if you're not European. I also hear dating can be tough if you're not German or European. It's an important factor for choosing to stay somewhere permanently if you move there in your early 20s, like my friend did.

>> About 60% of emigrants return to their home countries; 40% move on to destinations such as Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Croatia.

So how many emigrants stay in Germany?

This is a very sensitive topic. I think anyone moving to a different country has to learn the native language. That's the biggest barrier for proper integration and to feel fully at home in a new country. Whenever something is broken, needs help or in an emergency one cannot expect to have an English speaking person on the other-side.

That being said, German is not an easy language to learn. In my experience, native German speakers are quite patient and help you with practice compared to let's say French, still it would take ages to be fluent in German unless you're studying the language full time. However, if you're a skilled worker you would be working in an environment where English is used and the amount of time you'd get to learn German would be way less.

In that aspect I think Anglosphere is way more attractive for migrants to settle down and it's natural people would come to Germany, work, save some money, travel around Europe and move on to US, UK, Australia, etc. to settle down.

The situation is kind of similar in my country (France).

My partner and I lived together in Czech Republic for 7 years where I was working as a scientist (EU to EU, pretty much no paperwork involved). She is american and obtained a "partner of EU citizen" long stay permit. We decided to move back to France and now we have to deal with bureaucracy and it is exhausting.

There are many paths by which an non-EU citizen can get residency in europe and it includes:

- Student visa (9 months, needs to apply long in advance) - Entrepreneur (need to pitch a business, needs 30k€ of savings) - Refugee - Married (the easiest one) - Family member of EU citizen (only applies when the EU citizen is not native to the country you apply to) - Family member of native citizen

We had to apply to the last one, because we only have a civil union (it's a french thing called PACS and it's not recognized as a "proper" union for permits).

We also needed to prove that we had lived together for more than a year (which we also had to do in Czech Republic) so that she could get her one year permit. The fees are opaque (the website says 350€ of tax + 100 € of processing fee but the final bill was 650€). Any document must be translated (cost us around 1000€) and official documents must be verified by apostille (which we learned when we celebrated our civil union in at the french embassy in Czech Republic).

At the end of her permit, she will need to validate an A2 level of profciency in french to apply for a multi year permit (2 to 4 years). Once she has lived 5 years here, she can apply for a permanent residency if she has a B2 level, pass a civil exam and show proofs of involvement in civic life.

All of this to say that the requirements to immigrate in Europe require either a lot of money or a lot of dedication. This really changed my view on the whole "Europe has free border, anybody can get in to steal our job" rhetoric.

One of the reasons is that Germany is not a friendly country for non-german speakers (and/or if you dont have the right profile); I've worked for a while in both Berlin and Munich. In berlin you get away with english, except anything official - from opening a bank account to any interaction with the city council or government services. They will go out of your way to make you feel unwelcome if you are not a fluent german speaker. In Munich is even worse - in many "non-immigrant neighbourhoods" they wont even acknowledge you if you speak english (eg. In the supermarket), though often they understand it perfectly.

Learning german is not easy, but it is absolutely essential if you want to call it home; Id suggest anyone planning a move to start learning beforehand - the idea that you will "wing it by talking to people" is not enough.

My partner and I went to Germany and then left. We found that while they are desperate for skilled labor, they do essentially nothing to accommodate once people have come. Every step of the immigration process felt like another grift. Our Auslanderbörde appointment was borderline hostile, and our lawyer was a certified buffoon. Then daily life was beset with petty corruption. We couldn’t get an appointment at the burgeramt to register until we paid a fixer to go in on our behalf. Germany was full of petty annoyances and indignities that made it clear they want immigrants, but will not put in the effort to retain them. The U.S. is lately no friend to even skilled immigrants, but public government services are at least available in most major European and Asian languages. Go to the Netherlands instead. That’s what we would have done, if we had it to do over again.
This reminds me that I got fired from a German company (operating in DK) because I asked too many questions and would not stop complaining about the software architecture which was terrible.

The company culture was clashing with the Danish culture that I was used to and also I didn't give a fuck.

This feels rather naive in taking all the complaints at face value. The truth will be much more nuanced, and ultimately countries should be more welcoming to the genuine whilst far more discerning with the deceitful
When people came to the country to work then retire somewhere else, isn’t it not a net benefit for Germany? Less burden on the social net, healthcare system etc.

So what the Germans did is right, not wrong!

It's interesting that the B1 language requirement is discussed here mostly in terms of fairness. Is it reasonable or not, to require an immigrant to speak the language of the country they're immigrating to?

Whether it's fair or not is trumped by how _easy_ it is. You can get a B1 German certification in a matter of months with SRS and cheap tutors online.

This is a B1 English question:

“This is a nice bathroom.” “Yes. It’s the one _ we’ve just redecorated.” a) when b) who c) which

If German people move to African or Eastern countries, how long till they can get full citizenship rights? My understanding is never in most of these countries.
Why? Simple: visit a restaurant, especially one by the highway with truckers, in southern Germany, with your girlfriend/wife. But one in a town will do, just speak English, or French. It will be entirely clear after that.

Hell, I doubt you'll make it past the restaurant's door before it becomes clear.

They got millennials from post-Communist countries after all transition periods for new EU members have passed sometime around 2011. Were already lucky because they didn't open the market straight away in 2004 like Ireland, UK, and Sweden. Germans were overconfident because their largest demographic boom was in their 40s back then.

Treated that immigration wave like shit. They left.

Germans worked really hard for every single nasty thing which is about to happen to them.

PR and citizenship are different things, one is just to reduce the paperwork and allow some bare minimum benefits and the other is citizenship

The only reason to push language requirements for PR, is to make it harder to obtain it, its politically driven

immigrating to cold countries who are not used to immigration is not for the faint of heart
Somewhat off topic but since I see people discussing language proficiency using the CEFR system I'll ask.

Which certification language test is most transferrable? I'm most interested in testing for Latam Spanish if possible. SIELE or DELE?

What are the numbers for context? How many people come? How many leave? In what jobs do they work? How does that compare to other countries?
This used to the case with the USA as well but it took them the last 40-50 years to reform. Maybe there's hope for Germany as well.