Hi, so I’m very young and this may change, but I wanna get started at learning a language anyway. I either wanna go to Germany, Austria, Poland, or Italy. According to the Wikipedia, I believe Italy speaks the least amount of English out of the 4.
However, which country would have what I’m looking for: rich culture (probably all), good writing inspiration, friendly people, cheap places but still good to live, good pay for jobs like teachers, and in need of English education. Also, not a lot of far-right, homophobic/Nazi groups (I’m a lesbian).
I can throw South Tyrol into the mix. It’s italian territory, but most of the population speaks a bavarian (german) dialect, it’s culturally very Austrian (used to be Austria until end of WW1) and is very geographically beautiful. It’s also a rich province and I think teacher’s pay is also decent, but can also be expensive compared to other places in Italy.
The people can be strange and seem secluded, but I would say we are generally open-hearted and friendly. Catholicism is, however, like everywhere in the Alpine region, a big part of the culture, but most participate only for those reasons and I never experienced any sexuality motivated hate. Fun fact: my elementary school religion (!) teacher out themselfs to us as lesbian, and years later they transitioned and a’were still teaching there (however, different subjects).
The school system is a bit weird also: there are german schools, where italian is tought as a second language, and vice versa. English is part of both schools types. There are few private schools (I went to one of those, they have to still conform with teaching curricula etc.) and afaik the qualifications for teachers are more relaxed there; they usually filter applicants on a more individual basis.
Now that’s interesting!