Which language should you actually learn in Luxembourg?

You can live in Luxembourg for years in English alone, and a great many people do. Whether you should is a different question, and the answer depends on what you want: getting through daily life, integrating into a neighbourhood, widening your career options, or eventually applying for nationality. Each of those points to a different language, and the state will pay for a substantial part of the learning if you choose Luxembourgish.

What each language is actually for

English

The working language of much of the financial sector, the funds industry, the EU institutions and international companies. It is sufficient for professional life for a large share of arrivals, and it is widely understood in shops, restaurants and services in the capital.

Where it runs out is administration, local trades, older residents, and everything outside Luxembourg City. Official correspondence arrives in French or German. A plumber, an electrician or a syndic will often work in French or Luxembourgish. Your neighbours may switch to English as a courtesy and revert as soon as you leave the room.

French

The most useful second language for daily practical life. It is the language of most administrative correspondence and forms, most retail and hospitality, and most trades. It is also the language a very large proportion of the resident and cross-border population uses as a common tongue.

If you learn one language for practical reasons, learn French. The return on the first hundred hours is higher than for any other option, and it works immediately.

Luxembourgish

The national language, the language of much informal social life, and a condition of naturalisation. Knowledge of Luxembourgish is required in a significant share of advertised vacancies, particularly in the public sector, health, education, retail and services, and it is the language a large proportion of employees use at work.

It is the language that changes how you are received rather than what you can accomplish. Attempting it, even badly, alters conversations in a way French does not.

German

Used in administration, in parts of the press, in the school system and in the north and east of the country and toward the German border. It is the language of literacy in primary schooling, which matters enormously if your children enter the public system.

The 200 hours the state helps pay for

Luxembourg operates a specific mechanism, the congé linguistique, which allows employees to take paid leave to learn Luxembourgish. It has existed since 2009 and remains under-used.

• Who qualifies: employees of any nationality with at least six months' service with the same employer, and self-employed people active in Luxembourg for at least six months. There is no age or residence condition, so cross-border workers qualify as well.
• How much: a total of 200 hours over the whole of your career, divided into two instalments of between 80 and 120 hours each. The second instalment is available only after you have obtained a certificate of success from the first.
• How it is paid: the employer pays a compensatory allowance equal to your average hourly wage, capped at four times the hourly minimum wage for unskilled workers, and the state reimburses the employer half of it.
• How it counts: the leave is treated as effective working time, so seniority and employment protection are unaffected, and it may not be set against your statutory annual leave.
• Flexibility: it can be taken in fragments, with a minimum of half an hour per day.
• The condition: the course must be recognised, and the request must be approved by your employer, who is entitled to refuse.

This is one of the better benefits available to employees in Luxembourg and most people have never heard of it. The forms and the list of supporting documents are on guichet.lu, and the sensible approach is to identify a recognised course first and then put a specific, dated request to your employer.

Where to learn

• The Institut national des langues is the national reference for Luxembourgish and also teaches the other languages. It runs the Sproochentest and preparation courses for it.
• The communes run evening courses, frequently at low cost, and they are also where you meet the people who live near you.
• The professional chambers run courses aimed at working adults.
• Private schools and tutors fill the gaps, particularly for intensive or one-to-one work.

Places at the popular institutions fill quickly at the start of each term, so enrol earlier than feels necessary.

A realistic plan by objective

• You are here for two or three years and work in English: learn enough French to handle administration, tradespeople and restaurants. A hundred hours is transformative.
• You intend to settle: French first for function, then Luxembourgish for integration and eventually for nationality. Start the Luxembourgish earlier than you think you need to.
• Your children are in the public school system: German and Luxembourgish become part of family life whether you plan for it or not, because that is the sequence in which your children will become literate.
• You want to widen your job market: Luxembourgish, because it is the requirement that most often excludes otherwise qualified candidates from public sector and client-facing roles.

How to actually get practice

The obstacle for most learners in Luxembourg is not tuition, it is exposure. The country is so accommodating linguistically that a learner can go months without being required to use what they are studying.

• Tell people you are learning and ask them not to switch. Most will cooperate if asked directly, and almost nobody will do it unprompted.
• Use the language in low-stakes transactions where a failure costs nothing: the bakery, the market, the pharmacy.
• Join something local. A commune sports club, a choir, a volunteer association or a parents' committee provides regular contact with people who are not being paid to be patient with you.
• Watch and listen to local media. RTL broadcasts in Luxembourgish and is the most accessible source of natural listening practice, which is exactly what the B1 listening component of the Sproochentest tests.
• Take the commune's evening course as well as any private one. The other students are your neighbours, which is a benefit beyond the language.

Choose a district where you will actually hear the language. Households aiming for integration generally do better in a village or an established residential quarter than in an international new-build, where the working language of the whole building is English.

Three questions we are asked

Can I really get by with only English?

In Luxembourg City, in an international workplace, largely yes. What you lose is a layer of ordinary life: neighbours, local associations, communal meetings, the syndic's assembly, small businesses and the parts of the country outside the capital. Whether that matters is a personal judgement rather than a practical necessity.

Is Luxembourgish hard for an English speaker?

It is a Germanic language with substantial French vocabulary, which makes it approachable for anyone with German or a Germanic first language and less immediately familiar for others. The greater difficulty is exposure: it is spoken widely but written less, and speakers will readily switch to French, German or English as soon as they detect effort, which makes practice harder to come by than the number of speakers suggests.

When should I start if I want nationality eventually?

Immediately, and sit the Sproochentest as soon as you are ready. The certificate has no expiry date, so passing it in your second year and applying in your sixth is entirely normal and removes the language from the critical path of the application.

Where we can help

Language is one of the quieter reasons people move between districts. Households who want more contact with their neighbours generally do better in Bonnevoie, Neudorf or one of the villages than in a new-build tower, and we can point you toward the ones with an actual community.

In which language should you actually learn in luxembourg?, the section on where to learn should end with a test the reader can actually perform.

It is tempting to assume that a realistic plan by objective is automatically positive, but a serious property guide should also test the opposite case. For the question raised by “A realistic plan by objective”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

For the question raised by “A realistic plan by objective”, the useful detail is not a generic list of advantages.

A stronger reading of what each language is actually for starts by asking what would change for the resident on an ordinary weekday.