Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
I got a question about do you need to speak English language fluently in order to work
abroad as a junior programmer.
This is from Arthur and he says, "I'd like to apply for a junior programmer/developer
position in the UK, but I'm a foreigner and I'm afraid that my spoken English language
may not be enough.
I learn it every day, but obviously most of my time I use my native language.
I know that if I'd start to work with English people daily, then I'll become better.
I have only problems with speaking and listening to British accent, which is much harder than
American, but I do not have problems reading or writing.
What is your opinion, John?"
I'll be totally honest with you.
I think that when you work in an English speaking environment and you don't speak English very
fluently that it is a big disadvantage for you and it's probably a disadvantage in getting
a job.
I mean this should be common sense.
A lot of people don't like to say it, but it's true, communication is really big.
I think that today in software development field more so than anything else, communication
is so, so important.
That's why I made this channel, that's why I encourage you to write a blog post and to
develop your communication skills because I think that is really, really important.
I know in my career myself that the biggest thing that helped my career more than anything
else was developing my communication skills meaning able to communicate with people.
that's the asset that helped me more than my technical skills.
Does that mean that if you have an accent or you can't speak perfect fluent English
that you can't get a job as a developer in the US or the UK or somewhere where it's English
speaking?
No.
There are plenty of developers that do, but just realize that it's going to be somewhat
of a disadvantage to you and realize that the more fluent that you are in English and
the easier it is to understand you and the better your communication skills are the better
off that you're going to be.
That's going to be something that is going to be useful and helpful to you.
Now, as a junior programmer, does that make a difference.
I don't think that matters as much.
I think that you 're going to have to—as a junior programmer it's already a little
bit more difficult to get a job than it is as a senior programmer.
Take that into account.
I would say this though that I think you're making a false assumption by assuming that
you're going to better develop your English skills to speak fluently by working in an
environment where you have English speaking coworkers.
It might improve to some degree, but I have worked with enough people that had English
as a second language that I know that that their skills did not improve very much that
they still spoke with a very hard to understand accent and that their phraseology was still
a little bit odd.
If you can read and write that's going to help you, but I would definitely, if you're
really serious about this, maybe you go through some language coaching.
It might be worth it to either try to go through voice coaching to help reduce accents and
help you to understand English and American accents and some language courses to be able
to help you to speak a little bit more fluently and to speak with more of the—speaking more
of the way that Americans or people from UK speak as well.
That's just something to think about.
Again, these are things that are not critical.
I don't think that it's going to prevent you from getting a job.
I don't think it's going to prevent you from advancing your career, but if you want to—if
you're thinking about this, if you really want to have the best shot, these are the
things that I would do in your situation.
I would be going and I would try to get someone to coach me on trying to reduce my accent
and I would try to be going to—be trying to go to an English course that I could take
that was going to help me to speak a little bit more fluently.
I'd be doing a lot of reading and a lot of writing, which it sounds like you're already
doing, but do more of that and get someone to correct your writing.
In fact, one thing that might actually help you as well is just doing writing a lot since
you're already writing and having someone not just correct your writing as far as the
words, but the grammar of it and the structure of it.
Tell them to read it and then to give you feedback and to mark it and up and to say,
"Look, this is what you should say.
This phrase sounds awkward."
So that you get that kind of feedback.
Once you get that kind of feedback I think that will help you a lot.
Because just communicating the message, yeah, you can get it across, but there are certain
things that you might say that are going to be flags that are—or communication—it
doesn't translate as well.
Just for example, I know that a lot of Indian developers say, "I have doubts about."
That's sort of—I understand what you're saying when you—well, I do now because I've
worked with enough Indian developers to know that I have doubts about this, what that means.
When I first heard that I didn't understand.
That just means I have a question.
I didn't get that.
When you say that that might be harmful to understand it, communication, but it would
be real simple if you understand that when Americans hear that that they don't understand
what you mean then instead of saying, "I have doubts" you might start saying, "I have a
question."
Little things like that are going to help a lot, I think, in the communication.
All right, if you found that question useful and the answer and you'd like me to answer
one of your questions, you can email me at john@simpleprogrammer.com.
Don't forget to click that Subscribe button.
I'll talk to you next time.
Take care.
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