I don’t think it really makes a difference, as long as you’re staying somewhere for any significant amount of time (i.e. months) it makes sense to start learning the language.
I mean, it’s common courtesy to try to learn enough of the local language to buy stuff and ask for directions when your just on vacation.
I was in Germany for half a year during my studies. To me it was obvious that I needed to learn the language from day one, because I had no intent of going around and expecting everyone else to adjust to me not knowing the language. I have a very hard time understanding how someone could move to a country for years, and still not learn the language because “it’s not permanent”.
When you’re working you need to communicate in a lot more depth than that though. That’s exactly why they want to talk Spanish, to speed up communication or be more precise.
Social language skills are on the easier side. You can get away with a lot of mistakes.
Of course, I’ll speak English in meetings and other settings where we’re talking about work and need to minimise the language barrier for practical purposes. I’ll also speak English in a lot of social settings, because these are nice people that I enjoy talking to.
What I’m talking about is the silent expectation that a group of Norwegians talking at the lunch table should switch to English if one or more non-Norwegian speakers enter the room. I don’t like that silent expectation, and really appreciate the colleagues that learn Norwegian well enough that I can just keep the conversation going without feeling like I’m excluding them or feeling that I need to swap to English and fill them in on what we’re talking about.
The sad truth is that, regardless of your intention, it does exclude them. Even if they’ve put some effort in and learnt some basics, they’re unlikely to jump in to group of natives talking.
I don’t think there’s a good solution. I’ve been on all sides at work.
iii@mander.xyz 3 weeks ago
You convinced me on that one. Perhaps they should enough of the language for day-to-day niceties. The particular problem with Belgium is that this means they should learn both basic French and Dutch :-p Most french speaking Belgians don’t even do that.