I'm looking to study or work abroad in a few years and am in the process of figuring out where I want to go. Initially it was going to be Germany, because I love everything about the country and language and am fairly proficient in German, looking to improve greatly.
However, I am also interested in learning French. And so I was wondering, is there anywhere I can go where I can improve my French (after having learned the basics beforehand) while at the same time being able to improve German? I know that 2 of the 4 official languages of Switzerland are German and French. So I have a few concerns.
1. I'm learning "high German" or hochdeutsch, for those familiar, is this spoken in Switz. or is it mostly dialects?
2. Same thing with french, but I don't know the proper term for the official language one would learn in school.
3. Is there anywhere in Switzerland (or any other country, for that matter) where both are spoken fairly commonly?
Thanks
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
1.It's swiss german in Switzerland, which sounds considerably different, so you'll need time to adapt.However,
written language is the same and high german is spoken on tv etc.
2. Don't know for sure, but it should be standard french.
3. To my knowledge, there is only one other country were german and french are official languages, and that is Belgium.There is a small (70.000 people) german minority in the east of Belgium, and the southern part of Belgium is french speaking.However, there is, as far as i know, no german speaking university in Belgium.All in all I think Switzerland is your best best.