This pretty much - huge taxes, low pay, low quality work where skill hardly even matters and on top of that every programmer speaks English, German not so much. Zero reasons to chose Germany as a programmer looking for a place to live in EU.
Every single source I've talked to always said some variation of this: "You cannot speak German (as a foreigner) in Germany, because everyone loves to answer/reply in English for various reasons (considering that polite/more interesting/easier than trying to autocorrect the German)".
Older people (50+ maybe?) might be worse here, but in general I'd say that everyone speaks English.
I especially challenge your 'Speaking German due to national pride', because that's really, really wrong (even HN had an - English of course - article about the special and challenging issue of national pride in Germany).
Sorry that you had a bad time, I'm not challenging your experiences. But your generalizations based on that are wonky as hell..
(Disclaimer: I'm German)
Apologies if my experience does not reflect the reality of the situation but That's all I have to go by as that is what I experienced. The "national pride" thing is something you might be able to challenge as you yourself do not feel it or see it. But I could see it as clear as the sun. It might not be as apparent as when Americans yell out loud "USA USA USA", but it is definitely there!
I am not exaggerating at all when I say that I spent 6 months in Germany and the only people I met who could speak English well are the foreigners. In fact, I could not even get a single contract (bank acct, phone, housing, insurance, etc) to be translated into English without using a lawyer or a cousin. Even my employment contract was written in German. Heck once a week I still get emails like this because when I contact the customer support for these companies they cannot speak English to terminate my contract... :D
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For the rest: My employment contract comes in German and English, with the notice that the German one is binding in case of errors and the English one is a translation for convenience. I'd expect IT companies to provide this, even if they don't have it readily available.
Talking English: Maybe that was also because most people I know hate to stumble. Some kind of 'I try to avoid sounding stupid, so I rather feign to know no $foreignLanguage'?
Regarding contract issues: Let me tell you about random mails in Hebrew that I still get every now and then or my time in Israel, Tel Aviv, trying to get a bank account.. :-)
edit:
> Regarding contract issues: Let me tell you about random mails in Hebrew that I still get every now and then or my time in Israel, Tel Aviv, trying to get a bank account.. :-)
haha I guess we are on the same boat then!
One can start seeing some positive results only after B1+ level.
And some banks do offer services in English while others explicitly forbid this.
Yes. And not only that. I would go as far as saying that it is the failing of the German system in general. Heck I am being too nice here. The way everything is structured in Germany is based on one idea and one idea only. The German worker > all others. Nationalistic pride at its best.
Why would bank employees speak English when dealing with foreign business consultants? its 2016, the world should speak German by now instead!!!
It is beyond me that in 2016 English literacy in Europe's biggest economy is basically 0. In fact, I speak 4 languages and all of them were useless there. Go figure...
In which other countries have you been and lived?
Would you get a bank account easily in the UK if you speak German? Ignoring German:
Are you certain that you'd get a bank account in France, Spain, Italy? You're coming off as rather agitated and aggressive here, plus these 'German pride' and 'Everyone should speak German' references are getting dangerously close to a rather painful and sensitive subject. I'm not sure if this is intended?
Syrian, Sweden, Austria, Germany, USA and Turkey.
I hold dual citizenship and speak 4 languages while learning a 5th (Spanish).
> Would you get a bank account easily in the UK if you speak German?
1. You make it sound as if "all languages are born equal". What a Jeffersonian claim that is...
2. Yes much easier than it is to open one in Germany if you speak English. how do I know? I have done it 3 times so far... When I first migrated to Europe I didn't know any English yet it all worked out within days.
3. English the 2nd most spoken language in the world, only surpassed by Mandarin. Spanish is a 2nd if you only account for native speakers only and English falls in 3rd place at that point. German is 13th on a falling scale.
4. The finance world has English as the dominant language so YES, I do expect a freaking bank to speak it.
> Are you certain that you'd get a bank account in France, Spain, Italy?
Yes I do. Especially in Spain (where I currently hold one and got it literally over the phone).
> You're coming off as rather agitated
no shit... What you said prior to my reply is just flat out infuriating.
> 'German pride' and 'Everyone should speak German' references are getting dangerously close to a rather painful and sensitive subject. I'm not sure if this is intended?
It is not sensitive at all since it is the truth. That is how people act when they want to exclude you and make you feel un-welcomed. They put up bullshit barriers that should not exist in 2016 especially not in Europe's biggest economy. All of this is purely designed to piss people off who are not a part of the German culture.
If you came over to Sweden and people acted like that toward you, I would be freaking ashamed and embarrassed. I would never make a ridiculous excuse such as "well you can't ask the most basic questions in my language"... It boggles my mind how you could even justify something like that in this day and age. It is 2016 ffs, if you are a middle-class European citizen and don't speak English, that means you have purposefully evaded learning it.
More anecdotes: I know several people in Munich that don't have much trouble managing only with English - doctors, banks, landlords, travelling etc. I also know people doing the same in cities 10x smaller than Munich, but there it's quite tougher and the odds are higher that you'll have negative experiences.
I think knowing German is a big advantage in any of those cities. And depending on luck one can have pleasant or also quite unpleasant experiences when interacting with the locals in English.