If you move to a city and don't attempt to learn the local language then yes you won't get the full experience. But you can definitely get away with minimal Spanish here, being seen to be making an effort is more important than fluency.

I have been here for ten years and managed up until the last year with English speaking jobs.

I have a different experience. It's easy to live there without speaking spanish. However, you should not move there if you don't want to learn it at all. In fact don't move outside any non-english speaking countries if you don't want to learn the local language. ;)

Are you comparing that salary to US salaries? Because the still relatively low cost of living in Berlin makes that anything but low

Salaries all over Europe are like that. Except for London (maybe) or Switzerland. Don't compare them to Silicon Valley or the US in general, you'll be disappointed.

70k is anything but low in Berlin. It is actually really, really high. For reference see here (monthly before tax) https://www.morgenpost.de/bin/bmo-213539703.jpg

With that amount of money one could afford a very sweet place to live easily, and still have plenty of spending money for intellectual pursuits or whatever.

Speaking English is no issue here, at least in the "hip" parts of town.

Would I say it's the best place to live? Probably not (Switzerland would probably rank higher), but one could do a lot worse. And with a decent IT job it's easy living. Dirt cheap compared to Silicon Valley prices.

> it means that after taxes it's around 3.8k/month; a bit low if you ask me

3.8K after taxes anywhere in W-Europe (outside of London) is pretty good salary