Remote workers working in English-speaking companies - do you have problems with English and how do you solve them?

Question

Distant work

I have been living in Russia all my life, I have never even been abroad (I am 34 years old). I do not know any other culture besides Russian, Russian is essentially my native language. But since last year I have been dreaming of getting a remote job in a foreign company, for the sake of money and not only. What stops me is that I don't know English very well and I can't learn it at an acceptable level for myself. There are no problems with reading literature and technical documentation, but it’s hard to talk and express yourself.

Why do I consider this a problem? Now I work in a large Russian company, also remotely. All communication is in Russian. But despite the fact that everything in my life is in Russian, sometimes even in my native language I have to choose words, think several times before saying something. In large companies, everyone usually communicates with each other in a friendly and diplomatic language, so knowledge of the language as such plays a significant role. At least if you count on a promotion and a generally loyal attitude towards yourself. I'm not talking about the frequent cases when the interlocutor has a bad connection and you need to literally decipher what was said. In a non-native language, this would be very difficult to do.

Previously thought about working for Upwork and collected information for a while. I was surprised that they advised me to start working there with little or no knowledge of English. Don't worry, there's nothing complicated about it. I don’t know about freelancing, but I think knowing the language at an acceptable level will not hurt at a distance. They will understand you, but it can be uncomfortable to work with you.

Answer 1

You just need speaking practice, it is best to get it with the help of sites where you can work remotely with native speakers from other countries. And usually the teacher's rates there are cheap, so you can devote a lot of time to this. Never paid more than 5 bucks an hour.
I personally worked even with Africans, this practice greatly liberates and is beneficial. At the same time get acquainted with other cultures, it is very interesting actually.
The main thing is to focus on just chatting.
In six months, your brain will not consider English dialogue as a lot of stress at all, since you already told a guy from Nigeria how you rode down a slide on a refrigerator door as a child.
Great experience.

Answer 2

What difference does it make to you whether they are comfortable working with you or not? This is their concern. Russians are hired for savings, for a favorable price / quality ratio. As long as it is profitable for them, they will work. It will not be profitable for them - they will not work with you. And if they have a normal local programmer there, it costs from $100 per hour, then everything that is cheaper is profitable. No one expects benevolent and diplomatic turns from us. I have been working in the Western market since the 14th year. In the 14th year my level of English was extremely low, and even then no one cared. Those who did not like it simply did not work with me, and those who worked did not complain.
To call, you only need to know a few phrases: show your screen, let me show my screen, see this button? - click, left menu, top menu, right menu, top left corner, bottom right corner, grab and hold, move left, move right, down, up. 100 g of cognac - and go.
Now, of course, I speak freely. It's just practice. A tongue is like a muscle, if you don't use it, you immediately lose it. Use it and it gets better.

Answer 3

I regularly communicate both in correspondence and by voice with foreign countries.
I did not take any courses in the language, I taught myself from books.
First of all, learn tenses and faces in English, because there is nothing more idiotic, more cringy and miserable than when an Englishman who builds constructions in English the way he would build in Russian, kind of: "I make source code, I try compilation it and he can't compile".
And a lot depends on the interlocutor - in most cases you won’t speak with native speakers, and it’s usually good when the interlocutor has an accent (the French and Israelis, for example, have it rougher and more understandable).
In short, learn the language, reach at least pre-intermediate and go ahead, make millions on Upwork, just like they write on Habrochka.

Answer 4

The meaning of the question is a bit incomprehensible
. If you know a foreign language, then what are the problems. If you don’t know, then at 34 you can guess that not knowing the language means that you won’t be able to use it.
Written and spoken language are completely different things to your brain. The fact that you know words and can write them and make complex sentences is the visual and associative memory related to images. But recognizing sounds and converting them into words is a completely different part, and if it is not trained, no vocabulary will allow you to quickly understand what kind of sounds foreigners make. Therefore, this part needs to be specially trained, as well as speaking yourself, so that there is a habit of pronouncing and composing phrases on the go.
There is nothing difficult in this. There is only a difficult part - to spend enough time on it.
Now there are a lot of remote courses, you can hire a teacher on Skype and work out for several months, listening and speaking.
Yes, on many exchanges there is enough initial English, because you can find orders using only correspondence, but with spoken language it’s easier, and you can find more customers, and it’s faster to discuss some little things with your voice.

Answer 5

You just have to start. For example, you can write in the tracker not in Russian, but in English. And comments are also in the code.
In general, colloquial - is also being tightened. The main thing is just to start and not be afraid.