redbaron wrote:A global phenomenon that too often leaves individuals stranded. In Europe, you won't get anywhere if you're monolingual; even entry-level jobs in Germany require a certain grasp of English these days. Sadly, many thousands of German Turks struggle even with German.
That's why, in true capitalist fashion, some German companies are offering products and services tailored to these "assimilation-challenged" Turks, such as a mobile virtual network operator advertising in Turkish only. Now you may argue that this is an act of "peace by capitalism", but I think it's still worth asking if you're sending the right message by thus supporting people to stay in their own secluded niches.
I'm really undecided about this. In general, I think there's no way around learning languages and adapting to a globalized world. But in particular cases, like d3drocks' friend here, that leaves many people sidelined. And there are millions of these particular cases...
Unless you're English that is Christoph....we are the world's worst at learning other languages....It's a kind of British arrogance left over from the empire....we expect everyone to speak English, and guess what...they mostly do.....Funny thing is, whenever I go anywhere I always try to learn a bit of the language, and keen to try it out, I try using it....what happens? They reply in English, and their desire to improve their English overrides my desire to learn their language....there's only one universal language though and we all know what that is....
