4 ms·

Oh well, being officially quadrilingual, Switzerland is rather an exception in Europe.

oblio 12y ago
Agreed. He should make a visit about 500 km up North to Germany and in an average sized German town try to stay for a while speaking only English. It's close to impossible. Same for France or Spain.
- Dewie 12y ago
  > Same for France or Spain. Spain is another country with several languages; Spanish, Galician, Basque, Catalan. Those who speak the minority languages would presumably need to also speak Spanish if they want to be able to live and function beyond their own regions with a dense number of minority speakers. Catalan in addition to Spanish might be useful if you live in Barcelona, and probably even more so if you plan on staying in Catalonia outside of Barcelona. The Spanish aren't good at English (in my experience), but it is another example of a non-monolingual country, like Switzerland.
  - oblio 12y ago
    Well, to be honest, in the context of the Internet (the original topic of conversation, now slightly forgotten), "foreign language" = English. If you want to unlock 80% of the content on Internet, Spanish + Catalan won't take you very far.
    - Dewie 12y ago
      > Well, to be honest, Oh give it a rest! You were replying and agreeing with someone who said that Switzerland, with four official languages (none of which are English) is a special case. Clearly the discussion in this sub-thread was about knowing multiple languages in general, not just knowing your mother tongue and English in addition to that. And his reply was to someone who was talking about countries in Europe in which they speak multiple languages (yes, not just "mother tongue + English").
      - oblio 12y ago
        Ok.
VLM 12y ago
How exactly did we come from "The sets of problems might differ vastly from the rich people's problems" basically talking about 3rd world without calling them 3rd world, to Switzerland of all places? Not exactly the poorest of 3rd world nations. When I took high school spanish, the spanish teacher was more along the lines of multiculturalism than grammar and vocabulary. I still learned how to ask for a beer, but we spent a substantial amount of time on cultural issues, so we would actually have something to talk about. Anyway I remember that Ecuador, for example, has a way higher mono-lingual percentage than the USA, and generally speaking the USA is more multi-lingual than the entire continent of south america (if you demand a local enough small geographic anecdote, then you can find cultural border zones where 100% of the population speak Spanish and Portuguese, but that doesn't really mean anything on a large scale, like "USA" size scale) As for other 3rd world locales, I do know that people from India generally can't talk to each other unless they're from the same general area or happen to share a language (like English). This is often portrayed as a strength, although I have no idea why. I think its a classic macro/micro confusion where multiple languages is always a strength on a micro/individual scale and always a disaster on a macro country sized scale. What I'm getting at is imagine how much better Swiss bankers could do their work if they only had to waste time learning one language, although any individual banker with an unusual language skill has an automatic benefit over any individual who doesn't know an unusual language.

oblio 12y ago

Agreed. He should make a visit about 500 km up North to Germany and in an average sized German town try to stay for a while speaking only English. It's close to impossible. Same for France or Spain.

Dewie 12y ago
> Same for France or Spain. Spain is another country with several languages; Spanish, Galician, Basque, Catalan. Those who speak the minority languages would presumably need to also speak Spanish if they want to be able to live and function beyond their own regions with a dense number of minority speakers. Catalan in addition to Spanish might be useful if you live in Barcelona, and probably even more so if you plan on staying in Catalonia outside of Barcelona. The Spanish aren't good at English (in my experience), but it is another example of a non-monolingual country, like Switzerland.
- oblio 12y ago
  Well, to be honest, in the context of the Internet (the original topic of conversation, now slightly forgotten), "foreign language" = English. If you want to unlock 80% of the content on Internet, Spanish + Catalan won't take you very far.
  - Dewie 12y ago
    > Well, to be honest, Oh give it a rest! You were replying and agreeing with someone who said that Switzerland, with four official languages (none of which are English) is a special case. Clearly the discussion in this sub-thread was about knowing multiple languages in general, not just knowing your mother tongue and English in addition to that. And his reply was to someone who was talking about countries in Europe in which they speak multiple languages (yes, not just "mother tongue + English").
    - oblio 12y ago
      Ok.

VLM 12y ago

How exactly did we come from "The sets of problems might differ vastly from the rich people's problems" basically talking about 3rd world without calling them 3rd world, to Switzerland of all places? Not exactly the poorest of 3rd world nations. When I took high school spanish, the spanish teacher was more along the lines of multiculturalism than grammar and vocabulary. I still learned how to ask for a beer, but we spent a substantial amount of time on cultural issues, so we would actually have something to talk about. Anyway I remember that Ecuador, for example, has a way higher mono-lingual percentage than the USA, and generally speaking the USA is more multi-lingual than the entire continent of south america (if you demand a local enough small geographic anecdote, then you can find cultural border zones where 100% of the population speak Spanish and Portuguese, but that doesn't really mean anything on a large scale, like "USA" size scale) As for other 3rd world locales, I do know that people from India generally can't talk to each other unless they're from the same general area or happen to share a language (like English). This is often portrayed as a strength, although I have no idea why. I think its a classic macro/micro confusion where multiple languages is always a strength on a micro/individual scale and always a disaster on a macro country sized scale. What I'm getting at is imagine how much better Swiss bankers could do their work if they only had to waste time learning one language, although any individual banker with an unusual language skill has an automatic benefit over any individual who doesn't know an unusual language.