Yep, every other three Swiss-German words one is an English word…
It’s considered “mega-cool”. 
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I cringe a bit when I hear people in their fifties here say “mega-cool”.
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Me too, even older ones use this expression. You expect to hear it from a 14 or 15 y.o…or a 12 y.o. 
It’s funny though.
I think everyone under fifty prefers English though, even though, as I said, many speak a decent French.
I think those who prefer French over English are over sixty or at least over fifty. But I might be wrong. Btw, when we moved here and my German was rather basic I managed with French in some places where they either refused to speak English or were older generations.
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Mega is the new normal. Last week I saw an interview with a woman - let’s say in her 40-ies? - and EVERYTHING was mega. In fact that’s all I remember about it , I would even claim if someone counted her words there were more “megas” than other words.
I wondered if everything is mega, there is nothing outstanding in … what ever she was on about.
The Swiss German riddled with English words is called Neudeutsch and by now totally old-fashioned. Yet I wouldn’t be surprised if half the people who speak it don’t even know what the English words they use really mean.
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Just asked my teenage son is “megacool” a thing and he smiled and said “grammatically its ok, but even our teachers don’t use it. only old people on TV”
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well, I hear “mega” constantly in the inner courtyard between our two apartment buildings (which unfortunately has an acoustic every concert hall would envy) maybe those folks just watch tv too much.
Actually, isn’t “cool” out too?
It’s still used in canton ZH by various age groups, but definitely not by teachers!!
Especially NOT by the older ones. I think they’d feel offended if someone accused them of such things…
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So nobody among the younger Swiss generation or younger foreigners who grew up in CH can speak or is willing learning French and Italian in Zurich or other Swiss-German cities?
Massive (or should that be mega?) over-generalisation, absolutely not true as you’ve worded it. You seem to want to lump all “Swiss-Germans” together, but neither linguistically nor culturally is that the case.
Loads of factors will be in play including family background and ethnic origin, education level (and type, I guess) and geography (e.g. both Basel cantons borders with France).
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I’ve heard “sick” creeping in recently among the Zurich kids (sick as in “really good” rather than “vomit”). Ahh, what exquisite linguistics they pick up from Yoo-toob… 
When I first came here I met a French girl who was a highly qualified translator but could not find a job
The Swiss did not understand the concept of a translator we all speak in multiple languages.
So do you mean that in the past Switzerland never had translators? So how are all the official documents produced? Don’t they translate them to another Swiss language?
Of course there were translators but the point is there was not much call for them because multi-lingualism is common here.
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There still are translators, just that the ones that are able to make a living and charge decently are the ones with economically important languages that are not amongst the national ones (incl English). I don’t know how much we pay for Chinese and Hindi, but i know the admin assistants are always frustrated by the invoices
I know a couple of them. They translate official documents, act as interpreters in front of various institutions etc. It’s not true translators don’t “exist” anymore.
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To be fair, I think md4351 meant translators of Swiss languages seeing as he mentioned “official documents”.
No, I meant that if you want to start a new career, don’t become a translator as there is very little demand.
If you really want to this is the best Swiss school but do not expect to meet many Swiss students.
Most of the documents you use in daily life come already in DE/FR/IT. The day I forgot to pay the SERAFE, I got served a payment reminder from the cantonal Betriebungsamt with the most important words in the 3 languages. The application I fill out to renew the residence permit also comes in 3 languages. When I moved from a FR speaking canton to a DE speaking one. I brought the registration doc in DE to FR speaking one to deregister and they just looked at the date and postal code. They did not ask for a translation to let me go and stop paying taxes there haha.
Last time I applied for an apartment, the real estate company sent a French version of the contract. Same for the car leasing. When I moved the money from a French speaking 2nd pillar fund to a German speaking one, the language was not a problem haha.
As summary, for most of daily life there are multiple language docs, and people working with these docs, another language is not a problem. All they need is name, birth date and AHV/AVS number.
What a strange thing to say. How does the UN, the NATO, even the EU function you think (not that I claim the EU functions but that’s not due to the translators).
Everybody screams globalization but translators are not in demand?
And tons of jobs in Geneva for translators.
Where do you live, marton? 
No they need the rest as well. But within Switzerland, if you bring your papers in one of the three languages it will never be YOUR problem, if they don’t speak it where you show up. It’s their problem to get the content. As D/F/I are the official languages. Try bringing in a Spannish document …
Obviously not in Geneva
Today jobscout.ch is advertising 170,000 jobs and only 24 for translators but if you want to change your career for this tons of jobs opportunity then feel free.