Switzerland has 4 national languages, German, French, Italian, and Romansh, making communication somewhat difficult. Switzerland also has a Swiss dialect in German, French, and Italian, making it even more difficult to pick up through classes, books, and online materials as these traditionally teach the high versions of these languages. Zürich is located in the German region of Switzerland, so most of my knowledge is of Swiss German.
It is a popular joke here that the Swiss dialects are more like their own language than a dialect. For example, in Swiss German there exists no ß symbol, and they use far more ¨ than in high German, frequently in letters in a row, which is very uncommon in high German. An example of this is the phrase you’re welcome which is Gäärn gscheh in Swiss German and Gern geschehen in high German. Swiss German also mixes French and Italian words into German. For example, bike in German is Fahrrad while in Swiss German it is the French word Velo. All these differences sum up to the fact that it is very hard to learn Swiss German outside of a formal class in Switzerland.
Luckily, the University of Zürich and ETH offer Swiss German classes for exchange students. I was able to take a 2 week intensive Swiss German class at the beginning of the semester where they taught the basics of Swiss German so that we were able to do basic things, such as introduce ourselves, order food at a restaurant, check out at a store, and ask for directions. These basics have been very helpful for living in Zürich. Even then, there have been many times when I’ve spoken high German instead of Swiss German. Luckily for me, the Swiss are very forgiving for these kinds of mistakes.
Surprisingly, it is also very helpful that Switzerland has 4 national languages. Because there are so many people in Switzerland that don’t speak the same language, most people also know English as that has become the inbetween language. It is very common here for people to not speak the native language, meaning that people are very kind about language difficulties if it is clear you have tried to speak the language and just aren’t able to convey what you mean. I find this to be true in the German, Italian, and Romansh speaking regions. The French speaking region of Switzerland is more difficult to communicate in. The Swiss French dialect is very similar to high French, and the French region of Switzerland is almost wrapped in France and the differences between France and Switzerland are more blurred than the other regions. While this is the most international area of Switzerland, they expect you to know French in all regions outside of Geneva. My French language skills are very poor, making traveling in French Switzerland outside of Geneva very difficult. My couple of days in this region I struggled with even basic tasks of ordering food and was blatantly laughed at on more than one occasion. Geneva is the exception because of the location of the UN and people in Geneva tend to be more accepting of the fact that not everyone living there speaks French.
