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by lajosbacs 354 days ago
I know, but on the other hand you have many Swiss who, when spoken to in perfect Hochdeutsch, prefer to reply in English. No way you're gonna win over these people with autotranslate to what they consider a 'foreign' language.
1 comments

Switching to a even more foreign language is a bit weird - in my experience the concern about English is much greater than about German. I'd expect people would just only speak swiss German (deciding between talking swiss German or standard German with a standard German speaker is a bit of a difficult question as well). Can I ask about your background? Switching to English is usually a tourist/clearly not german-speaking thing.

Disclosure: I do consider standard German a semi-foreign language.

As an Austrian, I consider the way Germans (with the exception of Bavarians) speak our language highly grating and painful to listen to.

I'd rather hear them speak in English than having them butcher the melodies of my language.