German fuming after Swiss told him to learn German
A 70-year old German seeking Swiss citizenship was told to go back to school to learn his own native tongue despite being proficient in German, a Swiss newspaper said.
The Swiss town of Dielsdorf ordered Ulrich Kring – who lived in Switzerland his entire life but is only now applying for citizenship – to take a German language course to the tune of 250 Swiss francs ($NZ290), the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper said.
The class was obligatory for all foreigners seeking a Swiss passport and the town would not make an exception for the German national, the newspaper said.
Kring had lodged an appeal against the decision with a higher local authority, but had not had a reply yet.
Roughly two-thirds of Switzerland's 7.5 million inhabitants are German speakers. Many German nationals find the Swiss spoken dialect hard to understand, although the official written language taught in schools is the same as in Germany.
There is a hot debate about immigration in Switzerland, where some 20 per cent of the population are foreigners, and some newspapers have criticised the big influx of immigrants from neighbouring Germany.
Labels: Germany, Language, Swiss, Switzerland
posted by John James at
8:13 AM
2 Comments:
Two-thirds of Swiss are German speakers? Nah. I lived there for three years, they speak a dialect of German called Schweizer-Deutsch, and it is impossible for a German speaker to understand them. For example: Ich habe noch nicht gesehen = I haven't seen it. Translates into Schweizer-Deutsch as = no nick say. The German that is spoken is a very bastardised form of the German language and sounds more like Dutch.
When the Swiss TV stations news programs are shown in Germany they have subtitles, and that is for a nation of German speakers.
The Swiss are also notoriously bloody-minded and like to do everything by the book, especially if they think it will get right up your nose.
The only foreigners they welcome are those with money. And I'm sure that you have heard of the recent black sheep/white sheep cartoon.
yea i did hear about the black/white cartoon. It was quiet horrid, but was associated with a particular party in Switzerland, as opposed to national sentiment, which is evident in all European countries with the rise of far-right parties across the place.
Stoopid stoopid Far Right.
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