Vivre à GenèveDesolée, cette page n'a pas encore été traduite en français. Voici la version anglaise. Of course, one of the main reasons I learnt French was because I moved to Geneva, and one of the main reasons I wanted to move to Geneva was to learn French. But although I see plenty of signs and other things around in French, I don't get much French practice here. My colleagues all speak English, my friends all speak English (although I'm finally starting to find people who at least pretend not to.) Geneva is an international city. According to this most awesome book, Geneva is the canton with the largest percentage of people who do not speak any of the four official languages of Switzerland natively. A higher percentage (16.6) of people speak an 'other' language in Geneva than speak Rumansch in Graubünden (14.5). If you include the native speakers of other Swiss languages, 24.2% of inhabitants of Geneva are not native speakers of French. So it is very likely that if I go into town and speak French to a stranger for whatever reason, that person will hear my accent and respond in perfect English. It takes a lot of willpower to force them and myself to switch back to French, particularly when there's a one in four chance that my interlocutor is not a native French speaker either.
When I first got here, and also when I visited Germany, it was a thrill to get through a conversation without asking whether the other person spoke English. Now I don't ask, and it's such a thrill to get through an entire conversation without the other person spontaneously switching to English. I wish it happened more often.This page has been accessed  times since 2024-11-22 15:11:30 Last updated: 2007-01-05 07:09:54
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