What jobs can you do without the language?

This really is theoretical, and not an "asking for a friend" or an AI dilemma.... but myself and Mrs R were trying to come up with some jobs you can do with no - or very little - local language.

So let's say you move to Armenia, and know no Armenian beyond hello and thanks, just what jobs could you realistically do there?

We haven't got much beyond English teacher or possibly cleaner so far and even then it's tricky.
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  • robatwork wrote: »
    This really is theoretical, and not an "asking for a friend" or an AI dilemma.... but myself and Mrs R were trying to come up with some jobs you can do with no - or very little - local language.

    So let's say you move to Armenia, and know no Armenian beyond hello and thanks, just what jobs could you realistically do there?

    We haven't got much beyond English teacher or possibly cleaner so far and even then it's tricky.

    But how could you be an English teacher if you don't know the language?

    Cleaner I'd agree with but even then you need someone to tell you what to do .
  • Just think of the jobs in the UK where people don't seem to speak any or little English - car washer, taxi driver, cleaner, labourer etc etc
  • GlasweJen
    GlasweJen Posts: 7,451
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    Open a british restaurant and employ a local Armenian who speaks English to answer the phone and translate the orders for you while you cook the food? I know a Pakistani curry chef who can barely introduce himself in English and yet he's been in Scotland for 5 years and his children attend Scottish schools and are fluent in English and learning Gaelic
  • Now I live in Wales and I ask non-Welsh speakers how they manage for income, with discrimination going on against them when it comes to getting some jobs - the answer often is "People have to 'make' their own jobs - and be self-employed at something (ie because you're not going to discriminate against yourself)".

    In this area that often seems to translate into jobs in the building trade of one description or another or "creative"/artistic type work.

    I'd imagine that, in this day and age of the Internet, some people could also "work from home" and it wouldnt matter whereabouts in the country/or even the world they are. I can certainly think of someone I know living here that does that.

    Though, on the other hand, I can think of two people here (one fellow incomer and one unfairly dismissed person) that have been unable to find work at all (though that is possibly because they are looking for "reasonable" level jobs and I have the feeling they also wouldnt take NMW jobs).
  • JReacher1
    JReacher1 Posts: 4,652
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    I've lived and worked in Wales before and I have never been discriminated against for not speaking Welsh.

    According to the last census only 1 in 5 Welsh people speak Welsh so I don't really understand how you can have discrimination from a minority population to the majority population. It doesn't really work that way round!
  • LilElvis
    LilElvis Posts: 5,835
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    But how could you be an English teacher if you don't know the language?

    Cleaner I'd agree with but even then you need someone to tell you what to do .

    Plenty of twenty-something backpackers do it. My goddaughter taught KS1 age children in Qatar for a couple of years and a friend's daughter did the same in China.
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 45,936
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    DH reckons there is a good living to be made correcting official and semi-official translations in Spain (and probably other holiday destinations as well). This is despite him knowing no Spanish beyond 'two coffees / the bill please / a large beer please'. :rotfl:
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  • agrinnall
    agrinnall Posts: 23,344
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    Savvy_Sue wrote: »
    DH reckons there is a good living to be made correcting official and semi-official translations in Spain (and probably other holiday destinations as well). This is despite him knowing no Spanish beyond 'two coffees / the bill please / a large beer please'. :rotfl:


    Of course, the same is probably true of many things written in the UK by people who are supposedly native speakers but can't actually string two words together coherently :D.
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 45,936
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    agrinnall wrote: »
    Of course, the same is probably true of many things written in the UK by people who are supposedly native speakers but can't actually string two words together coherently :D.
    True. There's a van usually parked near work with a sign stuck on the outside saying "Graffiti is vandalism and cost's me thousands." Every day I want to correct it ... And don't get me started on the notices which went up in the gym I used to belong to!

    Although in Spain we find it's the choice of words which is 'interesting' more than the grammar.
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  • Malthusian
    Malthusian Posts: 10,898
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    robatwork wrote: »
    So let's say you move to Armenia, and know no Armenian beyond hello and thanks, just what jobs could you realistically do there?


    Pretty much any online business.
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