[Major_Grooves]

That is wilfully distorting what I have written.

I have learnt German. I speak fluent German. I am German.

The language is only one part of what makes it complicated. It is very difficult for Germans too. Nevertheless, the whole process should be translated into English if the country wants to attract foreigners to come here and set up companies.

Current status is that people are warned against incorporating here.

[q-big]

> I have learnt German. I speak fluent German. I am German.

As a native German speaker, I really would not consider

> I speak decent German, but the vocabulary of company incorporation was not covered in my Volkhochschule classes nor Duolingo.

to be fluent in German. In such kind of language discussions, I often see that in the USA vs Germany, there seems to be a quite different understanding of fluency in the native languages:

- In the USA, you are considered to be a fluent (English) speaker when you can talk somewhat freely with the fellow countrymen

- In German(y), you are considered to be a fluent speaker when you are able to speak the language on quite a high level

[G3rn0ti]

> In German(y), you are considered to be a fluent speaker when you are able to speak the language on quite a high level

That reminds of an old joke: The ultimate test of your German skills is listening to „Jan Delay“ and understand a word he says. (being a famous German hip-hopper that tends to talk „through clenched teeth“)

[marcus0x62]

> - In the USA, you are considered to be a fluent (English) speaker when you can talk somewhat freely with the fellow countrymen

American here. I would not consider such a person to be fluent in English, and I don’t know anyone else who would, either.

We don’t have our own special, lesser, definition of fluency.

Based on your written grammar, I would not consider you fluent in English.

[the_common_man]

What was wrong with his written English, that you consider it not fluent?

[marcus0x62]

Writing "somewhat freely with the fellow countrymen", while not wrong, is unnatural. Same for "In such kind of language discussions". Those constructs aren't wrong, or even particularly bad, but to me they immediately out the writer as someone who does not have native-level fluency.

[q-big]

How would you formulate these phrases then?

For the phrases that you list, I actually did look them up in the dictionary beforehand when I wrote my comment to be sure that I express them correctly in English.

"fellow countrymen": according to https://www.dict.cc/?s=Landsleute "fellow countrymen" is the English translation of the German word "Landsleute".

If you tell me that in the phrase "In such kind of language discussions" I forgot an "a" (i.e. "In such a kind of language discussions"), you are surely right. Otherwise: according to https://www.dict.cc/?s=solcherart "such a kind" is the English translation of "solcherart".

[marcus0x62]

I wouldn’t use those phrases at all to convey those ideas. Instead of:

“In such kind of language discussions, I often see that in the USA vs Germany, there seems to be a quite different understanding of fluency in the native languages”

I might write:

“When discussing language fluency, I often see that there is a significantly different perspective between Americans and Germans”.

Instead of “In the USA, you are considered to be a fluent (English) speaker when you can talk somewhat freely with the fellow countrymen”

I might write: “In the USA, you are considered to be a fluent English speaker when you can speak comfortably with other Americans”.

There, of course, many different ways to write those sentences. I’m not saying my examples are the best options, or that yours are wrong in the sense of being technically incorrect or incomprehensible. What I am saying is your constructions stick out to me as something a non-native speaker would say or write, and that if I see much of that in written (or spoken) conversation, I do not consider the writer/speaker to be fluent in English. My bar for fluency may be higher than average (apparently even linguists can’t agree on a definition,) but it certainly is not common in the US to consider someone fluent in English based on the sort of limited proficiency that would allow someone to “talk somewhat freely” in English.

[sgt]

You should have put it in another way, then.

Anyway, the main issue here doesn't seem the language, rather that the process itself is complicated no matter how you look at it.

I think that should be the point of focus which I guess you did, but the rant about German was a bit distracting.)

[Major_Grooves]

yeah I did edit the article afterwards to admit the comment was flippant and explain what I really meant.

Language is the small part of the problem here. Really, it is the process that is bad.

[Ekaros]

If the foreigners aren't ready to spend couple thousand in fees to setup a company are they worth it in first place? Germany isn't exactly poor. And in general it might be better for them to garner those that can follow their rules and operate in their system.

Setting up limited liability company or equivalent would any way be couple thousand max? If someone wasn't going to invest this much, how much were they going to do anyway?

[petre]

> the whole process should be translated into English if the country wants to attract foreigners to come here and set up companies

Good luck with that - Ausländern setting up companies in Germany without speaking German. They'll probably incorporate in Estonia or Ireland. It's way easier to set up a company in post communist Eastern Europe.

[Major_Grooves]

well that was rather my point. Estonia makes it easy for non-Estonians to incorporate there. Germany should do similar.

[rvnx]

The fun fact: when you live in Estonia, you get German gov-supported Facebook Ads to incorporate your company in Germany.

For example, recently getting a new one: https://start-ups.invest-in-bavaria.com/

[kaashif]

I find that ad funny.

> Don't believe everything about Bavaria. Just believe the facts.

Maybe it's because of the article I just read, but I'm reading that like "Don't believe everything you've heard about how Germany is a terrible place to do business."

Presumably if New York or San Francisco had ads encouraging people to start companies there, they would want people to believe everything they've heard.

[blueflow]

Dann lern halt Deutsch anstelle im Internet rumzuheulen, dass Menschen in einem FREMDEN Land nicht deine Sprache sprechen. Junge, wenn du kein Deutsch kannst, hol dir halt einen Übersetzer oder komm halt nicht her.

Wäre es gleichermaßen zu erwarten, das ich in Großbritannien eine Firma auf Deutsch registrieren kann? Ich denk, das wäre vermessen.

[Major_Grooves]

I kinda suspect you did not read the actual article, based on what you write here.

Also - this is an international site - you should really write in English.

[blueflow]

> Also - this is an international site - you should really write in English.

That was bait to expose your double standards. Germany is a German-speaking country, if you want to do business here, you should really do it in German.

I could criticise your approach with the founding, but the other comments did that well enough. I'd largely parrot https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33588536 .

I think "Entitlement" captures the essence of your article well. You did not research how to do it and created most parts of the mess yourself, and then blamed it on the german system. Of course this is going to aggravate people, me included.

If i was you, i'd take the article down because i would not want to be seen as a incompetent founder. Its one thing to fail at challenges, its another to put it online where people can find it when they google your name.