QUOTE (Topsy @ Feb 13 2006, 1:15 pm)

I love it when the Anglophones start yabbering on about integration and language tests and the like, really I do.
Some of the same people (although not all, I hasten to add) will brag in the Irish bar about how they've been here years and not learnt any more than basic German because, well - they don't need to, do they? They mix mainly with ex-pats anyway.
Bingo, Topsy. I suspect there are many who read TT who are themselves not assimilated into German society. Hardly applicable to short termers, though - I am referring to those permanent resident aliens and long-term residents. This brings up another point...
Learn the language and the customs, people! Don't form mini-societies of your own kind and isolate yourselves. Sure it may be comfortable, but you've got to mix the familiar with the new. No matter how bizarre the Germans may seem to you (and they are rather strange sometimes), you've got to live with them, so might as well get to know what makes them tick.
Foreigners are just as responsible as the governments for isolationism. It's easy to finger point and say the government is to blame, such as with the situation in France, but the people who are complaining and burning cars are themselves partially to blame because they don't make enough of an effort to integrate themselves, and sit back and wait for the government to fix everything for them.
2 cents more in the bucket!