I know that Switzerland has 4 official languages, but why some people inform that you should speak their language depending on te Canton, and not even waiting to switch when they visit another?? That is why English should be the glue to all this. But found.this in the newspaper for some days ago. What do you think?
https://www.20min.ch/story/in-der-schweiz-spricht-man-deutsch-fitnesstrainer-putzt-kunde-herunter-674510797325
12 comments
The problem is that we can not speak the other language. So specially in the french part one speaks english with each other. Or the French dont speak german.
No, you can’t expect English to be the glue. You can expect any of the local languages to be working.
I mean yes, de facto English works almost everywhere in Switzerland, but it shows a sense of entitlement if you just expect people to speak English with you. Lots of people can’t speak it. The majority of people of my generation (above 40) especially out here in the countryside have not had more than 3 years of instruction in English, never reached a good level and forgot what they knew for lack of use in their daily life.
Having said that, the fitness coach described in the article wasn’t very professional or service oriented in the way he spoke with the customer. He should just have arranged another appointment with a trainer who does speak English.
I try not to speak English when talking to Romands to improve my French
It should be french because among the four national languages, it’s the most international.
I don’t think that anybody can expect to be serviced everywhere in a language that is not even native to this country.
Obviously it’s good to offer services in English (and certainly also a market advantage) but it’s not something that simply can be expected or even demanded.
No, English please … we need to speak this language with all these US/UK expat degenerates at work. I mean these bums who are not willing to learn one of the local languages at all.
Mi sento bene che posso parlare italiano in Ticino.
This guy has been in Switzerland for 4 years. Why isn’t he fluent in a local language? People are fed up with these immigrants that won’t integrate and live in an English bubble.
In tessin no one i found spoke english, but they could speek german, french and Italian, idk if it is like this everywhere elso too.
The guy in the
article has been living here for 4 years, so he was probably too lazy to learn amd use german, he shouldn’t be crying!
It’s annoying that more and more immigrants/expatriates here have the feeling that they have to speak English!
If you cannot speak any of the native languages here, you have to expect people making fun of you. In Romandie, people might even be offended and refuse to talk back in English, even if they could. If your French is that bad, better go for Italian lol
nah man, if you ever visited biel/bienne you would know the struggle between french and german is real, there is 0 possibility that english even has a chance at being any kind of glue
German, French, Italian are nice languages to learn. But if you can’t speak English by now in our modern connected world you are either:
A. Not very well educated
B. A farmer living in a cultural bubble.
The world has a de facto international language. It’s English and you can cry all you want but it’s getting even bigger in places like Asia for example.
I’m Swiss (I got the passport before the stupid language rules which help nobody when you have different dialects of nonsense) I only use English 100% of the time in Zurich. Been doing so for 15 years. I’m fully integrated into the “Swiss” style but why don’t I speak German? Because nah fuck that I can get catered to in English. It’s the #1 spoken language WORLDWIDE with 1.4 billion people. (French is 5th, German 12th)
I’m rude? I’m entitled? I should (or as the Swiss say “you must “) learn a national language? Ok Switzerland abolish English in Zurich and watch it turn into a ghost town overnight.