To make this clear, I am planning to learn German and looking for options that fit my working schedule.
But I am receiving a lot of incoming mail from different service that I don't want to rely on translation apps and website for, as this may lead to serious issues.
My other options before was to run these by friends here who speak German, but this is a bit embarrassing, i waste people's time and also have to share sometime personal information that I wish not to.
I was able to get my insurance to send communication in french and this was great, I was able to handle many hiccups on my own.
I can converse with such services in French or English.
My understanding is that French is a national language, so I suppose people moving from other French speaking cantons do not need to learn german just to communicate with the authorities.
If this is an option, it would be great to point me to how to start the process.
French is a national language along with 3 others, however Zurich is a German speaking canton and as such cantonal correspondance is in German; the individuial cantons have a lot of power.
Anything federal you can request in one of the 4 national languages and some things are in other languages, English, Spanish, Portuguese for instance.
It's pretty normal - and yes, if you can't converse/deal with the information in German, typically you can apologise and ask if they can communicate in French or English....
your path is totally normal - 14 years ago when we arrived we had to type every single word into a translations software, and then ask colleagues/neighbours/new friends for help...
That's why EnglishForum was set up - and it started before we had all these translation systems.... you will find enormous information in the forum history (use the search engine) but for anything technical or life-critical definitely you need someone you can trust to translate for you.
No. German speakers learn French and French speakers learn German. Same for Italian speakers. Beyond police, I don't remember other authorities being familiar with Swiss national languages from other cantons.
However, French is quite handy in pharmacies, on the train, restaurants, the bank, car dealerships, some real estate companies....and as you already found: health insurance. Young workers that during the military service or technical training spent time on other cantons are quite open to use their 10 words in French.
PS. some EFers offer translation services when you need to talk to local authorities. I'm trying to remember the name (forum name) of someone from ZH....I hope I remember later
Thank you all, I was able to converse with some authorities in English/French multiple times, was hoping to find a solution for the written communication, I guess I just need to pick up my German course as soon as possible
Tom ... that was quite clear from others feedback, thanks for spelling it for me though
Use deepl.com for typing written stuff in. However, even google translate got better in last 4 years, but deepl translations feel more natural. In both directions. Just don't overcomplicate english version
I use both deepl.com and google translate as I find one will give a better translation than the other depending on what’s being translated. And deepl sometimes throws a wobbly where it’ll translate a sentence or several sentences as “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but I think it’s a good idea” regardless of what the actual sentence/s is/are.
I sometimes get odd results from deepl (typically a repetition of parts of a sentence) when copy/pasting from a PDF. It usually helps to use an ordinary text editor (not Word and the likes) to redact the original text by removing unnecessary doublespaces, line breaks, and whatnot. This may be related to your issues.
Typically they will be tolerant of your writing to them in French. I always did that with the tax authorities in Zurich and was fine. But they will always write back in German.
I use Google translate with the camera on the phone. Does a decent job. If it's for something super official than needs a really good answer then ask a friend or here.
Use TextGrabber to translate letters - then you don’t have to type anything. It’s not perfect but gives the gist. Just noticed DeepL also translates from a photo.
is Italian works as well, but I normally write in German for my wife, as she only speaks Italian (her heimatort is in Zuri oberland, mine/ours is in SG, 15km from hers)