Expert Info

Posted by
on 27 Jun 2011
is it possible to live in austria without knowing german or austrain german do the people of austria and educated people speak english and whether name boards in public , offical documents in software companies are in english ? please clarify in detail ?
Anonymous (not verified) on 29 Jun 2011 - 07:50
It's possible to live anywhere and not speak the local language, especially if you're a fast learner. Austrain German is the officially language of Austria, but well-educated people (which happens to be a large part of Austria's population) do speak English. That said, if you don't at least try to communicate in Austrian they may not take the time to respond in English. Austrians tend to be reserved and insular to begin with. English is the lingua franca of the overarching corporate world, but this doesn't mean you colleagues won't regularly speak German. If you're looking for a job with a software company contact you home country's chamber of commerce and see what multinational organisations are based in your city of choice.

Like many European countries, there is a sizeable expat network in Austria's largest urban centres, so you can most certainly make some English speaking friends. What other questions do you have?