dave_the_leg

I was at a careers advice session a few weeks ago. The advisor said that, for my line of work (Chartered Engineer working in electronics and optics) being unable to speak German would not significantly hinder me in finding a job, although I would need to learn the language to live there in practice.

Does this ring true to anyone?

MsElui

i spent a year in dusseldorf working for Mannesmann Anlagenbau (engineering/plant builders etc) as my university placement. I worked on a project that was building a gas pipeline in belgium - for a norwegian company - with sub suppliers in most of europe. The project language was English and all documantation was done in English. I actually had difficulty finding people to speak german to me at work as they all wanted to practice their english on me. The main reason I was there was to get work experience in an engineering field (as my degree was engineering based) and to get better at german (also part of my degree). I did improve over the year but not as much as i had hoped purely because so much i did/saw was in English. I would say most people in Germany educated to Engineer level would be pretty fluent in English.

Of course outside of work i had to deal with german language in shops, banks, doctors surgeries etc etc so the practicalities of living there was much easier knowing some of the langauge - but again an astonishing amount of people in germany do speak very good English. (my parents came over to visit me and drove! They got lost when they got near my house and stopped to ask some 10 year old kid for help. They showed him the written address and hoped he would be able to vaguely point in the right direction and were quite taken aback when he replied clearly with very good directions in English.

Does that help?

notathome

I could not imagine living in a country and not learning the language. You could most likely get a job in a specialised field, without knowledge of German, however you would not be as respected as when you showed you were making an effort to learn the language. You would also miss out a lot outside of the firm.

Novocastrian

When I first arrived in Germany I spoke very very little German, but worked from day one (research in an applied science). I had to go out of my way to get colleagues to speak German with me at work, but eventually convinced them to do that by starting conversations in German (as soon as I could), ignoring the fact they'd immediately reply in English by continuing in my (then) bad German until they'd got the message.

So yes, what the OP asks rings true.