Thursday, January 28, 2010
English-speaking Swiss
Ze Swiss are very charming, endearing even. I know, it takes quite a bit of time before you realize but they are. But one thing they do not well is speaking English. I guess it comes from bordering to a lot of other countries and none of them being English-speaking.
A few of them speak French or Italian though.
Tonight I was spending time with one of my new neighbours. She is very accomplished and very...hang on I was gonna say Swiss...but she's actually German although she's lived many years here.
And in tonights conversation she mentioned words like know-how, action and brainstorming. Very very surprising. So while I was struggling trying to hold a conversation for several hours in German, she effortlessly brought these words into our talks. Hmmm.
Somehow I feel like ze Swiss like to make the "arme Ausländer" (poor foreigner) a bit uncomfortable...
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2 comments:
ah yes, but they use those words even when they're speaking Swiss/German with other Swiss/Germans, like think tank, email and marketing - they're those kind of words which have become recognsied words in German (and other languages).
OK, so the Swiss might not be as good with English as you Scandanavians (although what about this sentence 'But one thing they do not well is speaking English' he he). But I think you're being unfair, the Swiss are very good at speaking English, try living in Germany, Spain or even Manchester
Haha, when I wrote it I thought it didn't sound right :).
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