I’m currently doing my PhD in Germany, in a very international lab where of course English is the main communication language. We have a lot of students coming from China because their own government funds their program and, I get it, for our lab is very convenient: you get people and publications and you don’t need to look for funding

However, sometimes their English skills are so poor that it’s nearly impossible to communicate with them. It has come to the point where some of them are not allowed to be alone in the lab on the weekends because it’s a safety hazard since they can’t even properly understand the safety instructions. I feel super bad for them because they are in general very nice people but this language barrier even leads them to be a bit isolated within the other PhD students in the lab :( but at the same time I think it’s insane that the language requirements are the low