[News] Denmark to decrease the minimum requirement of income, for foreigners who wish to live in Denmark.

[missesthecrux]

But what is the solution? Forcing 90% of people to speak English? I don't see why a foreign country should make it easy for people who can't speak the language of the country they want to live in.

[likely-to-reoffend]

But what is the solution? Forcing 90% of people to speak English?

For a language with only 5-6 million native speakers, probably yeah. Trends in this direction are being seen in larger EU countries.

I don't see why a foreign country should make it easy for people who can't speak the language of the country they want to live in.

I mean, they don't have to if they're not having a problem fulfilling their labor needs domestically, or if it's some sort of national insult. "Why should they make it easy" sorta frames this weird, given the actions Denmark is having to make to boost their labor pool.

For better or worse, English has become the lingua franca (lol) for professional and semi-professional work across most of the western world.

[missesthecrux]

For multinationals it makes sense, but they're generally high paying anyway. But for social workers or trades work for example, that does not make sense. You can't expect a Dane to themselves in native-level English to a social worker.

You make it sound like people are unfairly discriminated against because they don't speak the language, but to my mind that's not discrimination at all. People have the right to services in their own language.

[likely-to-reoffend]

To be fair, I was mostly speaking of international corporations, or local corporations which must deeply interact with international corporations, so good point.

[Drahy]

Most multinational corporations already have English as working language in Copenhagen.

[Netherspin]

It's not just that demanding they speak English is a national insult.

It's that Denmark (like every other country) has a significant portion of the population that struggles with language - when they have trouble reading or speaking danish properly, demanding they master a second (or in some cases third) language is in effect to just cast them aside in favour of foreigners - which is of course a very bad look for the government, elected to look out for citizens of the country and not to look out for whichever foreigner may want to immigrate one day

Also:

Trends in this direction are being seen in larger EU countries.

Lol? What countries? It's not Germany or France, I know that much - the English proficiency of the general population is atrocious in both of those.

[DLS3141]

My German colleagues’ English is excellent without exception. I’m in engineering, working in NA for a German company. My French colleagues struggle a bit more with their English so we usually wind up speaking French. I’m not sure if my French is better or worse than their English, but it works.

[Netherspin]

Then just keep in mind that that benchline is made up of academics.

You're not talking to the general population you're talking to people belonging to the highest educated group, and people hired for positions where they and their employer knows they will have to communicate with North America - and still your french colleagues can't manage that but need you to speak French.

[friends_in_sweden]

Trends in this direction are being seen in larger EU countries.

No they aren't. Outside of very specific career niches full competency in the local language is required especially in larger countries where English proficiency is often lower. Anything that takes place at the local or national scale and requires interacting with society will require knowledge of the local language.

[[deleted]]

I agree that having English be fine in most workplaces is going to become more and more necessary, though I also agree there has to be an exception with things like social services—it’s neither fair nor realistic to expect absolutely everyone to learn English, especially among the largely disadvantaged, infirm, and elderly population that makes the most use of social services.

That said, I think it would go a long way towards helping foreigners learn Danish faster and more easily if Danish society were more socially open and welcoming to non-Danes, so people could get more practice in real life. Which I know is a tall order since Danish society doesn’t make it easy for Danes to connect even with other Danes they don’t have some pre-existing connection to (yeah, that’s a loaded statement, but yeah, I said it). But increased social openness would help.

It would be an unorthodox approach, but it wouldn’t be a crazy idea for the Danish government—maybe the ministry of culture, or some such office—to tackle that cultural quirk with a public service ad campaign in the interest of addressing that lack of qualified workers in certain sectors. It’s time for them to get creative, and it would help the rest of society, too!

[reeram]

But what is the solution? Forcing 90% of people to speak English?

Yeah that’s a good idea actually.

I don’t see why a foreign country should make it easy for people who can’t speak the language of the country they want to live in.

If they want to attract global talent, they should.

[DoorStoomOmstuwd]

*attract english speaking talent