I grew up in Geneva, and I blame this on way German is taught over here. What you learn in middle-school is fairly casual, but it doesn't go very deep. Then hi

I grew up in Geneva, and I blame this on way German is taught over here. What you learn in middle-school is fairly casual, but it doesn't go very deep. Then high-school switches to a more academic approach even though you're still lacking conversational skills. While I loved reading Zweig or Kafka, this was an extremely inefficient way to teach me the language. I'd have had a lot more fun focusing on speaking in German (and Swiss German). It might have been a little hard back then, but nowadays it'd be fairly trivial to have regular videochat sessions between students on both sides of the language border. English is a lot easier. First, whether you want it or not, you'll get exposure and interaction, especially in a city like Geneva. The learning curve is a lot less steep as well. I could read proper, non-simplified books after only 2 years of high-school classes. I believe some cantons are doing better (Fribourg, Bern, maybe Jura and Valais). But nothing beats the system in Luxembourg where a good chunk of classes are taught in German during middle-school, then French in high-school.