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Hey ho! That ending was unnecessarily rude. I don't think he planned his post as a personal attack on you or your values, so I don't think the hostility is necessary.

For some people it's easier than for others. I work with a ton of people who've migrated to Sweden. I think they find 1 and 2 fairly easy -- not trivial, mind you, but not hard enough that they can't be overcome. The third problem varies from person to person and what stage in life they're at. We have many people who have moved here with kids, and it seems to work out well. So it's certainly not unsurmountable, but yes, not easy either.

Yes - re-reading that now. It came off as rude that was NOT my intention. Sorry - I apologize. (probably best not to edit it, and hope they see this follow-up?)

It was my desperate attempt to implore them (and people in general) to think through their responses before hitting Submit.

Opinion is great, but we're all too trigger happy to post our own view. Often its best if we didn't contribute on matters we are not well versed in.

I'm guilty of this myself. Not implying I'm not.

Its a futile exercise I'm sure, but somethings I feel like I have to try.

First of all I think that moving to another country because you don't like the US customs might be a bit extreme, but still:

  >> 2) Language barriers
  > One, you'd be amazed how much you can get across non verbally

>>> So your answer here is great if you are a long-time tourist. Completely impractical in terms of career and work.

German here, I have worked in Germany and abroad, I worked with an Australian guy working in Germany that spoke about five words of German and that was completely fine ( he did HTML&CSS stuff, a little bit of PHP). Our client was American as well, but he spoke some German I think. (this was 2008ish)

My managers Manager in a big consultancy was American and stayed in Germany for a year and a half I think and did just fine with only english. The project lead at the same company was from India, didn't speak a word of German. On my last visit to Berlin I was amazed how many foreigners are there and working in tech at the moment, just the stuff you pick up on the street in Friedrichshain is amazing, people talking about databases and pointers while walking past you on the street in English with all sorts of accents you can imagine.

The same is probably true for Amsterdam or Copenhagen, the dutch and the danish are usually excellent with languages.

I guess on a completely personal note; in school I took French, German, and Irish classes.

I suck at all three.

My English is also terrible before that first cup of coffee in the morning too.

I agree with you that moving to another country is not simple. But I would like to offer some experience which might be encouraging to those who decide to do so.

1. I was able to happily work and live in Spain for couple of months with no knowledge of Spanish language whatsoever. It certainly limits your choices to a certain degree (I worked for one UK-based company which sent me to Madrid and it would have been difficult to find any Spanish-speaking job if I had to) but it's easier than you would think.

Now I live in the Czech Republic and I regularly visit 'English meetings' (imagine weekly organized party where anybody who speaks English is invited) and I know many foreigners (some of them are my close friends) who happily live here for years without any knowledge of Czech language.

2. Children - oh, how many times I was envious of their incredible adaptability. If they are younger than 10 - wherever you go they will have new friends in two weeks and they will speak fluently with no accent in 6 months. I had seen it many times with children of my Czech/Slovak friends when I lived in UK and I can see that now with children of my foreign friends living in the Czech Rep. 8 years old daughter of my Spanish friends speaks Spanish, Russian, Czech and English without any noticeable accent - her family moves a lot and I believe she will benefit from that tremendously. Children are so good at this that they don't need language lessons - they just pick it up from their peers while playing in a sandpit.

>On a final note. I'm Irish and lived (US) here 12 years. My family and I can move to Ireland at any time without worry for some of the larger barriers; visa and language.

An aside, but why did you move from Ireland to the US? I'm semi-seriously considering moving to the UK or Ireland, not out of any "argh america is literally hitler, i'm out" impetus, but to be closer to my girlfriend's family and for adventure.

The short (and unhelpful) answer is that I didn't intend to move here.

I came here for a long vacation of sorts (quit dev job in Ireland, swore never work in IT again, first stop on taking a year out to travel the world...).

I was at a point where I'd over-stayed tourist visa and was getting ready to move on and then I met a girl...

Thanks for the response; still a helpful answer.

So it goes! I don't know why it surprises me, but a sizable portion of the expats here in Berlin originally came for a guy/girl.

Meeting a guy/gal is a major biological driver in life. Other than food/physical safety, what is more important in life?