What, just because of doing it in French, you mean? Well sure, I agree, but thousands wouldn’t. TBF though, there are a lot of Portuguese here, for whom I assume French would be easier to learn from scratch than German, and quite a lot of Italians in some areas like Zermatt, although I’m not sure how many of the latter are likely to want to take Swiss Nationality, given their own country is just over the hill, and that many of them are seasonal workers.
Anything is easier to learn from scratch in Switzerland because at least the other three languages are actually spoken and the Swiss peculiarities ( nonante sprinngs to mind - easy for a Belgium) are minor.
Septante and Nonante are widely used along la côte, less so huitante but that’s what I use. I notice that many frontaliers use the abbreviations as well. Four twenty ten nine? WTF?
I accidentally used septante in a shop in Alsace yesterday - they didn’t bat an eyelid. What about octante, though? I recall mistakenly using that in Romandie when we first moved there, somehow sounds better to my ears that huitante. ISTR that there is some part of the French-speaking world, Cnanda? Belgium? where that is an accepted local variant.
Octante is definitely not used in Belgium, neither is huitante for that matter. They use septante and nonante though.
Huitante isn’t used in Neuchâtel either, the locals always say they know when someone is from Vaud or Fribourg because they say huitante.
It’s normal in Valais as well.
I’m sure it is but Valais doesn’t border Neuchâtel so we don’t have a lot of people from there working in the canton.
It’s interesting that the French in Switzerland is so similar to French of France contrary to the German of Switzerland vs German of Germany!
Not really a surprise, given the wide range of Germanic languages that have developed semi independently across Europe. The roots of Swiss German(s) are quite different from so-called High German, more similar to Elsassich, with a much more recent shared ancestry.
1 Like
There is a Geneva Patois, rarely spoken these days.
1 Like
There’s also savoyarde, still (just) alive in the haute Tarentaise and Aosta valley, but I don’t know if it was ever spoken in Switzerland. Oh, apparently it’s still used in parts of canton Geneva, so maybe that is the patois to which you refer?
1 Like
I was told that it would be wiser to learn hoch deutsch fir st and focus on grammar and then learn Swiss German and not vice versa. Is this what most foreigners do?
That’s what I’m doing and I don’t plan to ever learn Swiss German. The only exception to change my mind would be to get into relation with Swiss girl.
I speak English at home even though it’s not my native language. It’s easy, precise and I have not much choice but to spend 80% of my life in English anyway (work, internet, movies, books).
1 Like
Pretty much, I think. Courses I went on over the years were very much focussed on ‘correct’ German. Couple of times some of the Swiss idiosyncrasies like perfect vs Imperfect past tense usage were mentioned, but only in passing and it was not expected that we would repeat them.
When I lived in German speaking areas I would use some local vocabulary, like Gruezi, Sali, Tchuss 'samme, those sorts of things, but I would never have had any desire to “learn” Swiss German as a thing in its own right.
Oh, and food and other shopping items, of course you need to know the local terminology, otherwise you’ll be skipping past all the pouletbrust while you continue searching for Huhn, and understanding local accent and pronunciation, of course.
1 Like
This question for you ACE, suppose you are new in Europe, not necessarily CH, and you only know English, which languages do you think would be more useful: German or French? I know in Northern and Eastern Europe, German is more in demand and French in UK. But what about in southern Europe, would you pick French, Spanish or Italian?
Yes, I noticed thatin CH they also use French words Poulet and trottoir in German. I guess French influence is higher here than in Germany.
Impossible question, not sure why you think I specifically am qualified to answer it, but fundamentally, and quite obviously IMV, it depends on where you’re planning to live.
I learnt French to a much higher standard than German when I was at school, I found it much easier, but that may have been because the German lessons I started aged 13 assumed that we’d already been doing Latin for two years so would have some idea about cases, which we did not, Latin having been dropped the year before mine.
As such I’ve found it very useful when learning Italian and Spanish (which is really just a touristy level in my case). I also found that I could understand some Romansch when in Graubünden, and at least some of the menus in Romania.
I’m not sure that German has as much useful crossover these days, with Dutch and Scandis nearly all speaking good English
French loan-words in Swiss German also include many greetings, notably salut which may have come via Italian, I don’t know, and merci (even merci viel mal) but I don’t think any real knowledge of French is needed to pick them up.
1 Like
I have noticed that in every Germanophone country, they have a different way to greet you: Gruzi here, Grussgot in Austria and Hallo in Germany!
My guess is that Austrians are more religious or were traditionally more religious, being a Catholic country contrary to Zurich and Hanover and their German is influenced by their religion.
Religion probably played a part in the etymology of all such greetings in most languages. How they morphed after that makes them more or less recognisable within our modern day speech.
“Goodbye” in English has its roots in “God be with ye”. Saying it doesn’t give any indication of whether you are religious.
2 Likes
Actually, the most common greeting hereabouts (shared with Bavaria) is Servus! (from Latin, at your service).
1 Like