[werner34]

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.

[donohoe]

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.