[saiya-jin]

You should definitely get off your high horse a bit, world is a bit bigger than your opinions. There are millions of very smart high earning expats all over the world that see no reason to learn local language well if its ie too hard for them, they practically never use it (ie at work its english, at home its XYZ and for basic chit chat you get by with few hundreds of basic words), or simply don't have time to learn due to ie parental responsibilities.

I applaud to every parent who rather spends time with their kids rather than studying language because 'you should'. Ideal is both of course, but that's not how reality usually looks like.

[bigpeopleareold]

I only hope those expats are ready to pick up and move either back home or to another country because they can't find a job in English in their country. They might be fine though. However, I'm being serious and am not joking, because it was my own concern. I am probably ok though as a software developer, maybe, but the thought of picking up and leaving at this point is really tough. At the very least, securing my assets and collected pension is well worth the time I am putting in to learning a language. Hey - you even get brownie points when you can mutter something in the local language.

As an example, here in Norway, I have read of expats, specifically British expats, being denied various earned benefits because their residency permits have expired and/or they decided to return back to where they came from. The collected pensions were not afforded to them. IANAL definitely, so if this is ok or not in terms of EEA rulings is maybe another story, but this, even being pre-Brexit, was still worrisome to me. At the time, years ago, I was not a citizen here nor a citizen of the EU/EEA, so tying my wife and my benefits' fates to whatever employment we were able to attain is a bit concerning. Not being explicitly tied to employment and maintaining the full rights of every other citizen by being one myself is a relief. Of course, one of the requirements was reaching a certain language level (it was A2 when I got it, which I aimed for specifically, but the government has since decided to push it up to B1.)

Also, I don't have children, but I have had co-workers who do, who sought to learn enough to be involved their children's education and also really can't afford expensive international schools. I mean, we all make salaries that are average to our profession, citizens and non-citizens alike; I mean, if you want your children to only speak English, work in a English-speaking country.

[izacus]

Look, good for you if you refuse to learn the language of your society.... As long as you don't attempt to write opinion pieces about that society you have no hope of integrating or understanding.

That's what the article writer did.

[saiya-jin]

Nobody said outright refusing, I specifically mentioned even with few hundreds of words you can get by in many societies (probably not Japan or ie China though). Its about priorities, one has very little free time and for some there are more important matters than talking a bit better to strangers. Many languages require multi-year frequent commitment, you can learn tons of other skills or sports instead.

You can certainly write opinions, that's what they are, internet is still mostly free for speech. Not sure why you feel as an authority on who can write what. Something about high horse again? Living somewhere you can get tons of positives and negatives of state, society etc. even if not understanding a word. Maybe not 100% picture, but enough to form an opinion and write about it

[notch656c]

My country has no official language and the lingua franca of my neighborhood is not a language I speak. Shit just got weird because basically no one would not consider me part of this society and I sure as hell understand it roughly as well as anybody else in my hood.

Maybe America is just weird but you can come here and not learn English and if someone refuses your right to comment on our society they'll probably just be called a straight up racist.

[izacus]

Your country isn't the whole rest of the world. I thought that would be obvious for an average HNer?

[notch656c]

I would think one would look at the original quote and see it says:

"私は日本語がかなり下手です" [0]

Not being good at something is not the same thing as having refused to learn it. From the authors response I honestly can't assess their level of Japanese well. I routinely have had people tell me they don't speak English well but then have a full conversation with them.

https://twitter.com/wingcommander1/status/161706014073333760...