Switzerland: English seen as "most useful" foreign language

[Harold Schiffman]

Forwarded From edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu


Eurogates



English seen as "most useful" foreign language



A majority of Swiss reckon that English is the most useful foreign
language in the country, although it is not Switzerland's "lingua
franca" as commonly believed. A National Science Foundation study also
shows the Swiss have good multilingual skills, although the people of
Luxembourg and the Dutch show more talent for speaking languages other
than their own. In Luxembourg, people speak three foreign languages,
while in the Netherlands this figure is 2.2 and in Switzerland two.
The European Union average before its expansion into eastern Europe
was 1.14. In German and Italian-speaking Switzerland, people speak
approximately another 2.2 languages, mainly French and English. French
speakers are less likely to make use of foreign languages (1.7). The
most frequently cited foreign languages in the study are French and
German. English fails to come out in top position in any of the
country's linguistic regions. In German-speaking Switzerland, French
is the preferred option (71 per cent) ahead of English (67 per cent).
In the French part of the country, High German and German dialect are
also preferred to English (47 versus 43 per cent) while Italian
speakers put German and French well in front.



Full story:

http://www.eurogates.nl/en_european_news_education/id/839/





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