> It’s a lose-lose situation for everyone involved, really. The German speaker is limited in what she or he can express, the German audience is limited in what they can understand, the English audience doesn’t progress in learning the language of their new home country.
Maybe, but by not learning German they expats miss out on access to about 40 million Germans/Austrians/Swiss who don't also speak English (and they are likely not the smartest ones either). By not learning English, the locals block themselves out of a vast amount of knowledge and resources contributed by over 1 billion people.
Expats miss out on local job opportunities that need German speakers.
I am not in Germany, but the point applies to other countries. I missed out on extremely good opportunities a few years ago because I didn't speak the local language well (like opps that would have gotten me an easy 20-30% raises. I was constantly having to say no to recruiters because of that one detail, that I was not good enough at the time. I did get good and I did get a good opportunity and I hope in the future that I don't see it any other way that the investment of putting my head into something like that will have a great return in the future.
With Spanish and English you can communicate from Canada to Patagonia except for Brazil (and the Brazilians will understand an 80% of spoken Spanish and a 90% of written one because of Romance similarities), among UK, Spain and Scandinavia. Also a good part of France, Portugal and lots of Southern Italians will understand you in Spanish too.
Maybe, but by not learning German they expats miss out on access to about 40 million Germans/Austrians/Swiss who don't also speak English (and they are likely not the smartest ones either). By not learning English, the locals block themselves out of a vast amount of knowledge and resources contributed by over 1 billion people.