undefined

points

[-]

Switzerland's multilingual situation might look primed for a balkanized culture war, especially if you are coming from a place where that is common. But 1) it's a country of 10m people and 2) the national identity is centered around being unified despite language differences.

Of course people make jokes and remarks about "those people" who speak a different language. But "those people" are probably 1h away by train, are probably coworkers, and their language was taught in your school (even if some didn't bother to learn).

by jokteur3 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

We have national media (German: srf, French/Italian: rts, Romanche: rtr), people consume that, and a few medias that have multiple language versions like 20minutes.

We also have a few language specific medias (German: NZZ, Tagesanzeiger, Blick, ..., French: Le Temps, 24 heures, La Liberté, ...), but I think most people consume Swiss media, especially when Swiss politics and local afairs are absolutely not covered by French and German medias.

by Arodex3 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

The funny thing is that people know more about what is happening in the neighbouring countries than in the other parts of Switzerland. The "national" media is very divided and only covers French-speaking regions in French, German-speaking in German, etc. as if they were local media.

by mytailorisrich2 hours ago|

parent|

[-]

Switzerland is like that. I remember asking (in my best German) the person manning a ticket counter at Zurich train station if they spoke French once, if a look could kill I'd be dead, lol.

It gives the strange feeling that although they decided to create a country together they don't want to interact with each others unless absolutely necessary.

by palata48 minutes ago|

parent|

[-]

That's not it. Everyone in Zurich studies French at school, if you speak slowly to them in French, it's pretty likely that they will understand a lot of what you say (if they are familiar with the context of course). Similarly, if you speak slowly in German to a French-speaking Swiss, it's pretty likely that they will understand a lot of what you say (again, if they are familiar with the context).

It's just harder to speak in another language than to understand it, so if you ask someone to speak...

Next time, ask them if they understand French :-).

by redsocksfan453 hours ago|

prev|

[-]

[dead]