We're moving to Zurich for a year (visiting ETH Zurich). We have a 5-year old who doesn't speak German. We'll be sending him to a state school. (International schools are too expensive).
Wondering which neighbourhoods do other English speakers live? We think that might make school easier for our son, right? (e.g., teachers might be more accustomed to English-speaking children, there would be activities). He's already pretty shy meeting new people, so we're trying to ease the language barrier a bit.
We're looking to rent a 2-bedroom apartment in a neighbourhood where we could meet English speakers, and where there would be activities for English-speaking children. Closer to ETH would be preferable, but we're sort of capped at 1800-2000 francs a month, so I guess the closest possible with the given budget.
This Tages-Anzeiger article shows where Ausländer live in the city of Zurich. It notes that Anglo-Saxons tend to live in the more expensive neighborhoods, e.g., Kreis8/ Seefeld, which was made of 3.1% Brits and 2.4% Americans in 2014:
I live very close to ETH hongerberg, on the north side of the hill (8046) the rents are not so high as the coasts. My first 2-bed was c1500 five years ago and they still have lots under 2,000. Not many native English speakers here, but lots of foreigners whose common language is English or German with each other.
If you are going to be based here I would suggest looking. And there is even a coach link to the main campus in termtime,
We moved when my kid was 3, she picked German up quite quickly, and there is lots of support in the school (and kindergarten, as she will probably be there) because so many kids are foreign, ok, some are German or Austrian, but most are southern or easter europe or african or sub-continental, so not native German speaking parents. My daughters best friends in school are Kenyan, Italian, Portugese and Slovakian,
The more he has to rely on German, the faster he will pick it up.
My son did not realise until he was about 12 that I understood him when he spoke Swiss German and the result is that he has a very good command of English (C2 in the Cambridge exams, with 4 points of a perfect 100 score).
My daughter realised very early that I understood her when she spoke Swiss German. And while her English is fine, if it is something important to her, she will switch to German when discussing it with me.
We're all non-German speakers, so don't think we can be of much help to our son I'm sure he'll be able to pick up the language (probably better than we'll ever be able to).
It's just that since we're only staying for a year, I'm trying to find ways to make the move easier for him.
Thanks for the suggestions Will check them all out. Any other suggestions for affordable housing?
This, totally... especially if the move is more or less permanent. I find it hard to understand why expats often do not expose child to the local language until school time- favouring their own language and English. Seems to me very hard to then send child to local school with just a few words of the local language- and then complain that the child does not feel integrated and is even 'picked on'.
In this case, the OP is planning to be here for jsut a year- so quite different. Mind you, I wonder how many here intended to be here for just a year- and are still here 10+ years later.
I guess because of the short stay, we're just trying to make things as least stressful for him (and us) as possible. Don't get us wrong though, we'd love for him to learn the language. Just looking for ways to help with the transition.
Absolutely. I do wonder about the stress put on children who are not encouraged to pick up the local language at all until they begin school. A French colleague of mine did this in the UK- and her kids absolutely turned against French later as they really were stressed when starting school. They could speak French and Spanish (respective parents' languages) but hardly any English at all, as they had little contact with local kids who.