Would you ever consider moving to continental Europe? And if so where?

Feria40 wrote: »

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Really?

I've seen estimates of over 200.000 undocumented Brits living cash in hand in the ghettos on the costas.

Why would anyone move to Britain abroad?

NeuralNetwork wrote: »

They're not exclusively English either. I've come across Dutch, Germans and Irish people who fit that description. It's just that there are a LOT of English examples due to volume of tourism.

It's very easy to exist somewhere, entirely in a bubble of satellite TV and a cluster of people who speak your language and shop in a fake English high street.

That's why I'd discount such places in discussing moving to Europe as they're really holiday resorts no different to ones in Turkey, Egypt and Morocco.

Expat ghettos essentially with a nucleus counter to the host nation.

Living in Switzerland for a few years now. Most likely here for good. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea but the level of general accountability, cleanliness and stability is hard to beat. It’s also less punitive than Ireland to those who show financial prudence which means a greater ability to accumulate (and transfer) wealth. Another nice factor.

I still need to work more on the language as I’m only B1 or maybe B2, on a good day. And I don’t speak any dialect at all which would help with integration. It can be challenging though when you work 40-50 hours a week in English and go home to an English speaking household.

completedit wrote: »

I find with language learning the effort is not worth it. I have enjoyed my language learning experiences and technically speak two at a C1 level but I'm not the type to make friends and casually chat in English let alone a foreign language. I feel girls have the advantage as there is an incentive for me to speak with them in the language. Not really the same if you're a man

Not being facetious, but why did you bother learning two languages to C1 level if you don’t use them to make friends and interact with the locals? Seems counterintuitive.

You are on to something with women having an advantage when it comes to learning the language. I did an Erasmus year in Germany when I was a student. Most of the girls in the class came back fully fluent in the language because they had local boyfriends. Meanwhile, the lads didn’t have the same opportunities as women don’t tend to find foreign men with less than perfect language skills, as being a particularly attractive prospect.

You see the same thing play out here in Ireland. There are a fair number of Irish guys going out with Eastern European women and Brazilians to a lesser extent. However, men from those countries aren’t exactly highly prized by Irish women.

In response to the original question: already considered it and moved, to France, more than 15 years ago. My work takes me all over the country for variable lengths of time, so I know now that (a) the way life and the people are in one place can be very different to another; and (b) area I made my home suits me perfectly! I've worked for long enough close enough to the Swiss-German border to be able to sample daily life in those nearby territories, and the thought of moving to Germany wouldn't bother me too much, but I'd prefer Bavaria or Austria.

I couldn't cope with living in Switzerland, at least not the western cantons - the eastern and "Italian" part of the country is more interesting. I've been pestered with contacts over the last week to go and work there, even to set up a business, but the having seen first hand how seriously the Swiss take their night-times, it's just not for me.

If I wasn't already committed longterm to my house and lifestyle in France, I'd be seriously tempted to take up one of the offers to move to one of the dying villages of Italy, where they give you a house for free and a few euros to live for a few years. Spain and Portugal just don't have the same appeal though.

Wherever you move, though, making a conscious choice to not learn the language is just plain stupid, and not making a serious effort is a great way to be forever unsettled. By far the biggest mistake that I see other immigrants make (at least here in France) is filling their ears with the sounds of home. People underestimate how much of a handicap it is to listen to spoken English while you're trying to learn the new language. Unless you're really gifted, after a few hours muddling through the "foreign" language, it's comforting to phone home, or meet up with expat mates, or tune in to Sky/CNN/Netflix/YouTube and not have to struggle to understand what's being said. But doing that undoes a lot of the work you put in earlier in the day, so the next day you have to start again, and over weeks/months/years you make really slow progress which knocks your confidence and reinforces the bad habit of always taking the easy option. This is the main reason why children in school, guys/girls with a native partner, and people working in a non-English-speaking environment always learn faster - hours spent in those situations cuts down drastically the time your ears are contaminated with the rhythms and sounds of English.

Captain Havoc wrote: »

It's the reason that I urge anyone who moves abroad for any length of time to take a course, it's your best opportunity to master a language and the most effortless.

I wouldn't discourage anyone from doing a course, but I do find that a lot of people aim to master the language, then get frustrated when they can't achieve that within an arbitrary time frame. My preferred strategy is to get my "students" to learn a very limited vocabulary, but one that they will get to use over and over and over again in a short space of time.

Most summers, I take non-French speakers under my wing to work as volunteers at a festival, dealing directly with the (mostly) French speaking public. For the most part, in 24 hours I can have these guys and girls ready to say hello, take orders, ask for payment, refer problems to a manager, and/or give a cheery goodbye.

Now the lads working at the bar might not have enough shared vocab to talk to the lads working in the ticket office, but by the end of the festival, both groups will usually be able to make small-talk with the public, and that does wonders for their confidence.

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

How do they understand the replies? Thats what gets me.

It may seem paradoxical, but working in a high-pressure serving-the-public environment makes that easy. Customer comes up to you and says: "I'd like three regular beers, two pale ales, one red wine and two ciders, please" You've been taught all the relevant numbers and vocab, so now you repeat it all back to him, to be sure you understand it correctly, then go and get the order. The worst that can happen at this stage is the customer calls you back and says "actually, make that two regular beers and three pale ales", in which case you repeat the whole lot again, with a few filler words thrown in if you feel up to it: "are you sure, now? that's final? no refunds if you change your mind again ..."

There are seventeen more customers queued up behind this one, so there's little risk of getting stuck in an open-ended conversation about philosophy or politics ... until it gets quiet (but you're the newbie, so you've been assigned to the rush hour) Then, as you've been interacting with people like that for three hours, and haven't had time to think about your grammar or the right tense to use when booking a train ticket and you've been hearing the language with a "native" ear, suddenly it's easier to understand the unfamiliar words that someone throws at you when you're not expecting it.

Niner leprauchan wrote: »

Indeed but as I said above, every time I get into a short conversation with a native, they go off on mad tangents and it ends up being gibberish to me. Maybe Im just encountering crazies or its the area Im in because its not a tourist area so they arent as used to idiots abroad like myself

Ah that old ‘inbetween’ phase of learning a language!! You know enough to get things done in the shop and not to appear as an uncouth fly-by-night, but not enough for the intricacies of small talk and ‘gibberish’. This just depends on your persistence now. Even if you never darken the doors of a language school again, if you really listen to that gibberish, and make sure you absorb the few words that you do understand, the meaning will start opening up for you at some point. It’s like magic.

There is no language teacher as good as living among the native language speakers and having to interact with them on a daily basis. None.

Brian? wrote: »

I’ve lived in the Netherlands 2.5 years and it’s incredibly difficult to learn the language. 6 months at a language school and I got the basics down. But every time I try to speak it out in the real world everyone switches to English as soon as I try. Most people’s English is better than mine here, so they don’t want to listen to my mangled Dutch.

what part you living in?

Jim2007 wrote: »

Most people are lazy about stuff that doesn’t interest them and they only learn it out of necessity. As a child, my daughter always spoke to me in dialect until she found herself alone with her Irish cousins... of course she already understood, but a month in Ireland without mom or dad to fall back on and she was blabbing away...

What age was your daughter at that time? My 4 year old is exactly like this, will only talk to me in German, and doesn't even want me talking her to English.

HansKroenke wrote: »

Another one for Switzerland here. What makes it unappealling to some is what draws others to it and I think I am definitely the opposing force to the person who is not attracted to Switzerland. High standard of living, strict compliance with the rules, private life respected, no mad partying, outdoor lifestyle, direct democracy (where they vote on anything), beautiful country with incredible food, great base for travelling to other parts of Europe, very international community, superb transport system, slightly more affordable rents than in Ireland but certainly a lot more stable for renting long term.

Years ago I read the Xenophobes Guide to Switzerland and their adherence to the rules certainly set them apart. It seemed a lot more parochial in a way too in that supposedly people tend to stick to their own cantons.

Fascinating place, would love to visit but I reckon I could only tolerate being a tourist.

HansKroenke wrote: »

Are you single or settled? I think this is what draws me to Switzerland when it would not have a few years ago; being settled, nearly married and close to having kids.

Been married for years, but that hasn't stopped us emigrating twice in the last decade. We're childfree and always enjoyed new places, so the notion of settling is a bit alien to us. Having said that we've elderlies in their dotage that have put a stop to our gallop, for the moment.

Switzerland does look like a wonderful place to be a kid, I love mountains.