What's a skill that's taken for granted where you live, but is often missing in people moving there from abroad?

aard@kyu.de to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 570 points –

I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it's pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that'd be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can't ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning "swimming" made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

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I've never been able to whistle and I'm so sad about it. I can do the grass trick though, and I can also make a whistle/scream sound using an acorn cup.

Mr Rogers was unable to whistle, so you're in very good company!