What language do they speak in Switzerland?

The Awful German Language by Mark Twain
Audio book.

While I was recently in the USA a whole bunch of people ask me. What do they speak in Switzerland and are you going to learn it? Well here's your answer. Here is a picture of Switzerland over the US. it is tiny. And in that tiny country, they actually have 4 different languages. French, Swiss-German, Italian, and Romansch. Swiss German is the most common language spoken by about 63% of swiss. And a spoken primarily along The northern part of Switzerland. Along with Germany and Austria both German-speaking countries. But it's also spoken in central Switzerland and a little bit in the South. The next language is French spoken by about 23% of the Swiss. And is primarily spoken along with France On the Western side of Switzerland. Next, we have a Italian which is spoken by about 8% of the Swiss. And is spoken on the Southern side of Switzerland like where Italy is. And the next language is Romanish. It is a pretty cool language that was Left Behind when the Romans occupied Switzerland. So it is a mix of from the Latin that the Romans spoke but also takes a lot of grammar from German. And also take some words from the languages spoken before the Romans. However, there are only about 40000 people that speak It makes up about 0.5% of the people in Switzerland

[jurilamprecht]

As a Swiss i have to say he is very accurate😂 the only thing i dont agree is the Part where he says that we cant understand each other.

[UliMeyer]

Don't worry about messing up the "Artikels". Everyone here is going to admire you for taking the challenge speaking German. Enjoy.e

[anthonywhitehouse]

The odd thing is that the Swiss French and Swiss Germans communicate together in English.

[thomasw]

I’m an extremely weird case. I grew up in Canada with Swiss parents (I’m actually Swiss). I can speak decent Swiss-German and understand it perfectly. I rebelled against German School as a kid, so I never learned German. It freaks people out that I can speak passable Swiss-German but I can’t speak German.
When I’m in Switzerland and I stumble with words people automatically switch to German which is worse for me. Even my relatives forget themselves and do it and then they switch back.
I’m really good at a language that is only useful in central Switzerland.

[loutsch]

dude what u mean we need to learn 1 language?!?!?😂 we need to learn english and french too☠

[swissladydriver]

People definitely do write in Swiss German, especially on social media, etc.

[danilo]

its funny because in school during class we always speak german, sometimes if there is a special program (like workshops or smth like that) you know its gonna be chill if the person that leads the workshop asks if everyone understands swissgerman 😂

[TheTravelingSwiss]

I studied German for years in University, even did a semester in Berlin - I just moved to Zurich and am having a TOUGH time understanding Swiss German lol!

[andreasmetzger]

Most germans do have trouble understanding the Swiss but if you're from the south it's easier (especially when you're from the border region like me) bc the dialects are similar.

[Damian-ekmw]

Really funny as a swiss person 😂👍🏻👍🏻 very well explained

[marcmonnerat]

This is the good thing about the German language, you may butcher it, nobody cares. Insider trick: use the diminutive -li and a word turns neutral.

[trekadouble]

Just one thing about the langage barrier. There are also biliingual ans trilingual regions in Switzerland. A french speaking person who comes from Fribourg/Freiburg will probably has a better level in german than someone who comes from Geneva, because Fribourg is a bilingual town. It's not like the four bilingual regions are nicely cut off each other.

[III-jkdz]

I live in the french speaking part of Switzerland (more precisely in Neuenburg), and all of the residents of the french speaking part has to learn german.

I have studied it since 10 years, and I still hate it.

[sachinbhattarai]

I find the Swiss people really amazing. They are a perfect example of a multilingual. I have a friend, who is Swiss, she can of course speak Swiss German, the high German, Perfect English, French, Italian (Perfectly), and could understand everything about Dutch. I mean, most of Swiss people can at least understand and speak 3 languages depending where they come from. It’s truly remarkable 🤩

[catwoman_]

There are no official rules for Swiss German (because it‘s only a spoken language), but there are a lot of *patterns* . F. e. tenses:
- only 1 past tense: present perfect simple
- no future tense: present simple + when/time
Etc. 😊 Greetings from Switzerland 🇨🇭

[FaXxZ]

one of the big differences between german in switzerland and german in germany is that in switzerland we use so many french words instead of german ones: for example a bicycle is typically called a velo (french) here in switzerland. In germany it's Fahrrad. They're called Helvetismen if u are more interested in it. Swiss german on the other hand is the wild west.

[hanspeterpitsch]

I can only imagine how frustrating the article thing must be, because there's no rhyme or reason to it, you just have to brute force learn them, so to speak.

[AlexanderOnFire]

It's like a secret language only there to mess with people from germany

[catwoman_]

In Switzerland it‘s a boy potato because Härdöpfel = Erdapfel (potato of soil) -> *der* Apfel (apple). 🤓

[pati]

I'm so happy to have Swiss German as my first language, it's much easier learning other languages 😂