Naturalisation - Gesprach Meilen

Hi All,

Our family is going through the naturalisation process (ordinary) Does anyone have any experience of the interview in Meilen 8706?

Im a bit nervous that we all have to go in person for this interview parents & 3 kids. Neighbouring gemeindes have done away with the interview Not ours. We meet all the criteria. The only thing is that us parents have shaky german and I'm not sure how we show were integrated. Kids are all in 6 klasse and sek, we go to local events but were not verein members.

Thanks for any insights.

OP, I was in your position a couple of years back (another commune in ZH), also 3 kids about the same age as yours. I bribed my kids to give the longest answer they could to any question

Since interview time is limited, I ended up answering only 2 questions. First "Why I wanted to become Swiss", bog-standard question which I had a prepared answer. And the second about my work/job, so easy peasy.

I still remember my 14-yr old daughter being asked about school, is she happy, etc. She managed to drag the convo to which field she's interested to study in uni and work later. Fortunately, the interviewer's daughter was also in the same field and this easily killed 10min of the time.

thanks for your response. good idea with the kids. mine are not so talkative but i might have to make it a big bribe!

When we had our interviews, we didn't even have kids to bribes. Didn't need them.

We each asked questions were one of the panel very handily gave us five minutes of explanation. But they were so friendly and clearly, as it were, on our side.

The Cantonal interview was rather more formal. But our interviewer understood that when we were baffled, it was a language issue rather than integration/not learning the material.

You only have to have B1. Languagemy well still be an issue. Afterwards she apologised for not being able to interview us in English.

I'm a bit worried about the type of questions we'll be asked. Although I get by day to day, I'm not sure if Im up to answering a detailed political question.

Have you not got any kind of detail of what they'll ask? We got a booklet to read that gave us the important information.

Have your kids test you on this? (in German of course) A lot of it will be school stuff anyway, sooner or later, so it’s either repetition or advance learning. Certainly their German will manage easily.
Let them be the one with the knowledge, in the drivers seat

It looks like the GrundKenntnisTest contains the entire cantonal catalogue of questions, the other downloads additional background info. Your municipality might have additional ones, it won’t hurt to enquire.
https://www.zh.ch/de/migration-integ…ntnistest.html

Find which bar your local Gemeinde meets in after meetings and then go and join them.

Proves you are integrated and ready to pay your round.

We're still at the very early stages of the process so have no experience yet.

The way it was explained to me at the Fremdenpolizei is that the naturalization test is mostly about general knowledge on Switzerland, even though there were 2-3 local questions in ours. The interview apparently is going to be about local issues to assess our integration in the Gemeinde. E.g. the name of the peninsula in Bielersee, name of the local bus and ferry company, for our youngest questions about the local ice hockey team (he knows nothing about ice hockey!), name of the Stadtpräsident and local council members etc.

We used the booklet to study for the naturalization test. A better source to study for the interview would be a regional newspaper.

The questions I was asked are here .

The open access book Naturalisation - Immersion dans La fabrique des Suisses (in French) has a comprehensive inventory of questions asked (pages 55-59).

This is the one for Aargau.
I Found the Thematic Questionnaire quite helpful.
Maybe it helps you. There is also a practise test for the Naturalisation Test which is administered. Really helps you brush up your knowledge of CH… LoL
https://www.ag.ch/de/verwaltung/dvi/…DgzYzVhZmEyOGI

We did it in Meilen a couple of years ago. It was in the middle of covid. The three of us (husband, daughter, me) did a first interview with three people from the committee, all of us wearing masks, them only speaking Swiss German.

We were then approved for a second interview a few weeks later, with 13 people asking questions, all wearing masks and only speaking Swiss German. That was really hard! Our daughter spoke Swiss German but my husband and I answered in High German, as best we could! Once we knew everyone would only speak to us in Swiss German for the second interview, we listened to as much as we could (SRF, podcasts etc).

Questions were about why we lived in Switzerland and not Australia (we're all Australian), why we chose Meilen, what facilities in Meilen we use, how we have integrated ourselves into the community etc etc. We talked about what we love about living here, our desire to be able to vote and participate in the democratic process, and so on. All members asked us questions and sometimes we got into discussions (e.g. about Australia). Some questions seemed formulaic and others based on the interests of the members.

For integration, we talked about our interaction with neighbours, our businesses (both based at home), the local services we regularly use, our participation in music activities, our use of sporting facilities etc. For our daughter it was no problem at all, as she did all her primary schooling in Meilen and has been a member of the music school for the whole time.

I think it's an advantage to have the whole family all do it together. Your kids will naturally be very well integrated, which reflects well on you, and they can take some of the heat!

But there's no denying it was a gruelling experience, especially the fact that not a single word of High German was spoken by them. We know we embarrassed ourselves and misheard some questions (as our daughter happily told us afterwards😉 but in the end it obviously didn't matter as we got through.

Good luck!

Kate in Meilen

Man, Meilen is tough... 13 person panel

Thanks for sharing.

But I must admit it has kind of put me off

I wonder if the interviews go badly can we suspend my husband and I's application and let the kids application go through alone?

Here it would be possible to do that if your kids are over 12. Different Kantons, different rules, so you should probably check your Kanton's regulations.

But you should go into this positively - you will manage! All sorts of people naturalize, why not you?