Languages of Switzerland? | Antimoon Forum

Hello there, I was wondering if anyone native to Switzerland, or who is familiar with the country, can answer a question for me. I am looking to visit the cities of Berne, Zurich, and Basel in Switzerland, and was wondering to what extent I'll be able to use French in these places? I know that in the cantons of Zurich and Basel, German is the official language, but I don't speak that yet, so I'm hoping to be able to get by in other ways.

Also, I am fluent in English, so will that come in handy in my travels to Switzerland?

Thank you!

I don't know what language it is which they speak in Switzerland, but I know which is that they SHOULD speak. That is spanish definately, the language of the future

I think that English is better, if you don´t speak German.

After that, French, Spanish or Italian, but these languages are spoken by minorities in these towns.

<<I don't know what language it is which they speak in Switzerland, but I know which is that they SHOULD speak. That is spanish definately, the language of the future>>

Spanish is the language of the future of the lower-class. That's something to be proud of!

Also, maybe you silly Hispanophiles should worry about getting everyone in your own country to learn Spanish before you start telling others to adopt your shitty language!

<<After that, French, Spanish or Italian, but these languages are spoken by minorities in these towns.>>

You've got to be kidding me, this is more Hispanic propaganda! Certainly far more people in Zurich and Basel speak French than Spanish, and it's not even close. If you're going to Europe, and want to speak Spanish, you're stuck using it in Central and Southern Spain. If you go anywhere else in that country, you better know Galician, Basque, or Catalan!

Why do you people hijack every thread?! This poor guy just wanted to know what to speak in Switzerland, which is not a Hispanophone country in any regard.

1000 million people speak Chinese as mother tongue, 420 million people Spanish, 400 million people Hindi, and after these languages English with 370 million people. English is ONLY 4TH, and in the near future 5th-6th (after Arabic and Indonesian)

<<After that, French, Spanish or Italian, but these languages are spoken by minorities in these towns.>>

You've got to be kidding me, this is more Hispanic propaganda! Certainly far more people in Zurich and Basel speak French than Spanish, and it's not even close. If you're going to Europe, and want to speak Spanish, you're stuck using it in Central and Southern Spain. If you go anywhere else in that country, you better know Galician, Basque, or Catalan!

Why do you people hijack every thread?! This poor guy just wanted to know what to speak in Switzerland, which is not a Hispanophone country in any regard.

<<1000 million people speak Chinese as mother tongue, 420 million people Spanish, 400 million people Hindi, and after these languages English with 370 million people. English is ONLY 4TH, and in the near future 5th-6th (after Arabic and Indonesian)>>

It's not about the number of speakers a language has, it's the relative power of those speakers. It's all about quality over quantity.

English, and French to a lesser extent, have something that Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, and Arabic do not have, and that is STATUS! English first and French second are far away used more in the important world organizations than all of the other languages, and it's not even close. Sure Chinese and Spanish have a lot of people using it as a mother tongue, but when the Chinese and Hispanics want to go out and communicate with a great numbers of people around the world, they do what everyone else does--learn English and/or French, which is why those are the top two most spoken second languages in the world by a landslide!

Resident foreigners in Switzerland: 21% of people.

Italian-Spanish-Portuguese speakers in Switzerland: more than 10% of people.

If you speak one of these languages, you can understand each other.

>>Resident foreigners in Switzerland: 21% of people.

Italian-Spanish-Portuguese speakers in Switzerland: more than 10% of people.

If you speak one of these languages, you can understand each other.<<

Can you share your sources please? I know that 4% of the Swiss population are native Italian speakers.

However you are really stretching it to say that Portugese and Italian are mutually intelligible. Even Spanish speakers can't always understand Italian speakers, and vice versa.

You can see that in Wikipedia, for instance. There are native Italian speakers and you need to add Italians that live there.

There are a lot of Spaniards, Latin Americans, Portuguese and Brazilian people.

At the same time a lot of people of the German Switzerland study Italian or Spanish.

<<There are a lot of Spaniards, Latin Americans, Portuguese and Brazilian people. >>

Yes! There are lot of French and English Africans too! And I think there are many more African immigrants (of Maghreb, and Sub-Saharian Africa) than Hispanics in Switzerland!

German is spoken by about 70% of the Swiss. Another 20% of Swiss speak French. About 8 or 9% speak Italian. The remainder speak a minor Romance Language called Romansh, which is spoken in the more remote mountain valleys of the Canton of Graubunden in Eastern Switzerland.

Hutch, those are the percentages of native speakers, correct? My question is that for those 70% of German speakers, do some of them, like in the cities of Zurich and Basel, speak French? Will I be able to communicate with people in those cities in French?