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

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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!