Week 2 - Language

     Today marks my second week in Switzerland. I'm enjoying the lab work. I've spent most of my free time wandering around the city and going on runs. I don't have anything incredibly interesting to talk about this week, so instead I'll talk about the languages of Switzerland.

    Switzerland is a very multilingual nation, having four official languages; French, German, Italian, and Romansh. Fribourg sits on the border of the French and German speaking regions. Most of the city (~70%) speaks French with most others speaking a dialect of German called Swiss-German. 

 Having no French and only minimal German language skills, navigating my way in shops and restaurants has been an interesting challenge. While most people at the university have English proficiency, many natives speak only French. Swiss-German is quite different from the "High" German that I was taught. I've relied mostly on google translate and gracious french speakers. I may try to learn a bit of French in my free time. 

Here's the Wikipedia article on the languages of Switzerland and a nice picture I took while on a run a few days ago. Thanks for reading and see you next week!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland



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