Hacker News Reader

Comment by ShabbyDoo | Hacker News Reader

How was the Aussie able to converse with the customer service people with the state-run telcom? He didn't mention any knowledge of Estonian or even Russian.

View on HN

Because we can also speak English here...

Although, as an Estonian, I'm a bit disappointed he chose Tallinn as a city to live in... :S

Oh? Because you live elsewhere in Estonia and would rather he moved there? Or because you don't want the secret to get out and be flooded by itinerate programmers?

Hehe, nope.. I have lived in Tallinn for a few years (during university time) and this place is a lot more nervewrecking than either Tartu or Helsinki in Finland.

Also, I had some friends over from Tallinn this weekend and we hit a nighclub last Friday - they were a bit amazed how relaxed Tartu is compared to Tallinn.

How hard would it be for me to live in, say, Tallinn as an Ugly American (joking, I hope) who speaks and reads only English?

You won't have too much trouble as long as you keep to the center of the city. As in pretty much any Eastern European country, anybody under the age of 30 can speak english more or less acceptably. And expect to get ripped off by taxies if you don't speak at least one local language.

I'm slowly trying to learn Estonian from the Byki software package, but as a general rule, anyone young can speak english just fine, and even old people (My landlord is 60+) have a passable grasp of the language.

Dealing with the phone company has been simple, they have a menu option from the Estonian main menu to choose English, and although not all their staff speaks English, they can understand you when you ask to speak to someone who can.

I chose Tallinn because of two primary reasons, firstly Rob lives there, and although I'm kind of an isolated person myself, I didn't feel comfortable living in a city where I didn't have at least one person extremely close to me, and two I went with the assumption that there'd be better quality of life in the larger city. I have since arriving however heard a few times that Tartu is quite a bit more peaceful and still has all the important stuff that Tallinn does so YMMV.

Most of the telecom and multimedia companies that I know in eastern Europe have someone ready to take your call in either English or one of the neighbour country languages. Same with banks. A bit worse as far as other services go (electricity, etc.)

Most likely in English. Plenty of people speak English in Tallinn.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com