My notes on Zurich and Switzerland

My job does not require it as all my colleguages speak English and mine is a temporary post. But still, once you move here one of the first questions you think is obviously whether you must learn German.
Well, my answer for those who are not planning to live here for good is a cautious "no".

There are a few people in my company who worked both Geneva and Zurich and they all say in Geneva basic French is a matter of survival but here it is not so. I personally can confirm them as I did survive in the past six months easily. Even the registration process which involves the City and the Police went well as public workers seem to be comfortable in handling the process in English. There is a sizable Expat community and a large English library here as well. However learning it certainly helps a lot. But which German?

I have been to Germany many times and to my ear, the German spoken here is as different as Dutch. So some knowledge of German proper may not be immediately helpful here.

It is said that the written German is the same. I am not in a position to validate this however software companies release a different version for Swiss German and a quick look into www.autoscout.de and www.autoscout.ch reveals noticable differences. But I take it for granted.

For the spoken part, it almost amounts to two different languages. Wikipedia's detailed entry on Swiss German gives a lot of information but I found it too technical.
Most courses are for the "German" German but there are courses for the Swiss German too. If you will need it only for Switzerland you may go straight to latter option. On the other hand, the richness of German information available on the web as well as on paper impressed me a lot. If I were younger I would gladly invest my time in learning it well.

Late note on English usage here: I was at the Mark Knopfler concert the other day. He made a few jokes with his hardly articulating English and if the laughers are a clue, all the audience understood him. So again, here is not like the Netherlands where everybody seem to be trilingual, but definitely not like France either.

As you can see from the blogroll, Switzerland is an extremely well documented country. Thanks to their mature tourism industry, they have excelled in marketing everything they have. They even have an organization for national branding. (You can also check your information about Switzerland by taking this quiz.)
So instead of writing about, say, Davos, I'll try to write about parking problems there. So my hours wasted there to find a parking area will turn into a shared experience.
Similarly, English speaking communities' non-profitweb sites and a few commercial sites offer very rich information about Switzerland for those living or moving into here. A few examples:

• http://www.baselexpats.com/pn/html/index.php
  http://www.xpatxchange.ch/
  http://www.expat-expo.info/ or http://www.zurich-relocation.ch/
• There is also an English only radio station in Geneve area

however most of them seem to be addressing only British/Americans or the Europeans at best. For instance a nice web site called Comparis.ch suggests that you can replace your driver license within one year while this rule doesn’t apply to those from Turkey and Portugal (and a ton of others).
A report about the foreign population in Switzerland states that around 60% of all foreigners are from EU/EFTA countries and 40 % from the rest of the world. Including US and Japan we can say that two third of the foreign population is well covered. I will try to address the remaining one-third along with the main body. Ethno-marketing is part of my job and I notice that, that 1/3 is quite vibrant as well. They have over 100 organizations, publications and events. Of course for the first generation Turks, Albanians, Croatians and the like, English was not the most appropriate language to use but things are changing rapidly.

I have been assigned to Zurich 6 months ago and I quickly realized you need help to live better in this city. (You should read the sad tone in ETH students writings)
Locals of Switerland -including seasoned 'guest workers'- think that they have a "system" and they are happy with it. Paying huge sums for a few simple drinks then going miles to enjoy a 10% discount don't bother them. So it is advised to learn and adapt to it. (I must admit, I like the "system" today more then I did in early days, it works)

Here I'll try to share what I learned. I should say, claiming Zurich has the highest living standards in the World is possible, as it is a wonderful city, but this joy comes at a price. Also, as Mercer points out quality of life is different than quality of living and the former is up to you.

I am Turkish and English is not my native language. But at Paradeplatz, where I work, I hear English more often than any other language. So I opted to use "the most common language of the web" for this blog.

Lets see..