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LIVING IN SWITZERLAND

Eight ways to annoy your Swiss friends

From dropping by unannounced to not mastering wine etiquette, here's how to annoy your Swiss friends (although we advise you not to!)

Published: 3 December 2021 15:52 CET
Updated: 21 December 2022 13:03 CET
You need to master the wine drinking etiquette in Switzerland. Photo by Zan on Unsplash
You need to master the wine drinking etiquette in Switzerland. Photo by Zan on Unsplash

You may want to think twice about annoying your Swiss friends, as Swiss friends are very difficult to find.

In fact, it probably took you 150 arduous steps to get Swiss friends in the first place, and it takes only eight to p*ss them off.

But if you are really committed to doing do, just for the fun of it, here are some ways that are sure to make many locals wonder why you were allowed into their country.

Drop in without prior notice

The Swiss are very organised, live by the clock, and tend to micromanage everything around them.

Popular lore has it that this habit is not as entrenched in Italian and French-speaking regions as it is in the Swiss-German part.

But if you want to irk people, regardless of the geographical area, drop in announced. Don’t call or send messages telling them you’re coming — just show up at their doorstep.

And if you do tell them you’re coming….arrive late. Few things irritate Swiss people more than tardiness.

READ MORE: The pleasure of punctuality’: Why are the Swiss so obsessed with being on time?

Insult their national pride

If you tell a friend they are not really ‘Swiss’, but German, French or Italian (depending on the region in which they live and the language they speak), you will annoy them terribly.

The Swiss are very patriotic and proud of their country (sometimes even to the point of arrogance) and they will not take to this remark kindly.

Make fun of their army

To tell a Swiss person their military is not a ‘real army’, is sure to rub them up the wrong way.

They regard army service not only as their patriotic and civic duty, but also as a rite of passage of sorts.

True, not every country’s military has army knives, cutlery, watches, travel gear and fragrances attached to their name, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t fight if they had to.

They probably could fight if they had to. Photo by Fabrice Coffrini / AFP

Laugh at their language(s)

One foreigner we know told a Swiss-German friend (now an ex-friend) that his language sounds like “bastardised Dutch”.

Let it be a good lesson: making fun of someone’s native language is a definite ‘nein-nein’.

‘Just so fun to say’: Are these the best Swiss German words to learn?

On the other hand, if you learn to speak it, even imperfectly, you might just make a friend or two.

Not master the proper wine etiquette

Switzerland is a nation of wine drinkers. To Swiss people, French wines are, needless to say, inferior, and don’t even try to sell them on Italian or Spanish wines. They will, literally and figuratively, turn up their noses at them.

Also, if you drink with a Swiss friend, you don’t unceremoniously chug your wine down and ask for more. You have to hold your glass by the stem, look into your friend’s eyes, preferably without blinking, for at least five seconds, then clink your glasses.

Only then can you sip your wine, praising its fragrance, aroma, depth of colour, and the Swiss region it came from.

Not appreciate Aromat

The Swiss love their Aromat seasoning and there’s hardly a household that doesn’t keep it on their spice rack.

It goes on everything from boiled eggs to meat and fish, and some people even carry it with them when they eat out or go on holidays.

As a foreigner, you may not understand what all the fuss is about, but to say outright to a Swiss that Aromat tastes awful or that it shouldn’t be sprinkled on everything is almost as offensive as criticising their language and army (see above) .

Disrupt peace and quiet

If your Swiss friends are also your neighbours, you are sure to irritate them by being loud on inappropriate days and at inappropriate hours.

READ MORE: Nine ways you might be annoying your neighbours (and not realising it) in Switzerland

All apartment buildings in Switzerland have a noise ordinance in place, which bans loud noises after 10pm. You might have heard that you are not even allowed to flush your toilet after this time, but in most buildings this is not the case, unless your toilet sounds like a jackhammer.

However, loud music, TV, and other noises are strictly ‘verboten’.

And Sundays are considered rest days so your neighbours’ peace and quiet should not be disrupted by a sound of a lawn mower, hedge cutter, or nail being hammered into a wall.

Never on Sunday. Photo by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash

Not support Swiss national football team or Roger Federer

When it comes to sports, the Swiss are firmly behind their teams and champions.

If you tell a friend you are a fan of another team or tennis player, expect to become an outcast in your social circle and maybe even the whole country.

READ MORE: ‘We don’t like France, Germany or Italy’: How linguistic diversity unites Swiss football fans

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LIVING IN SWITZERLAND

REVEALED: How Switzerland’s native-English speakers are growing in number

Some Swiss cities have higher concentrations of foreign residents than others. A new study reveals where most of them live and interestingly how more and more of them are native English-speakers.

Published: 23 April 2024 15:21 CEST
Updated: 28 April 2024 08:45 CEST
REVEALED: How Switzerland's native-English speakers are growing in number

Foreigners who move to Switzerland like to settle in the cities.

This is what emerges from a new study published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on Tuesday.

Surprisingly, the municipality with the highest number of foreign residents is not Zurich or Geneva, but Kreuzlingen in canton Thurgau, where 56.3 percent of the population are foreigners.

Next is Rorschach in St. Gallen, where just over half (50.6 percent) of residents are foreign.

In terms of regions, however, more towns in the French-speaking part of the country have a high proportion of non-Swiss.

In the first place is the Lausanne suburb of Renens, where 49.3 percent of inhabitants are foreign.

It is followed by Geneva (49.2 percent) and its districts Meyrin (45.4 percent) and Vernier (44.8 percent). Next are Vaud municipalities of Montreux (44.2 percent) and Yverdon (37.7 percent).

The study doesn’t indicate why exactly so many immigrants move to these particular towns, but generally new arrivals tend to settle in or near places where they work.

Another interesting finding: English language is gaining ground

“If we consider non-national languages, it is striking to see that English has developed significantly,” FSO reports.

“It is today the main language of 8.1 percent of the resident population.”

This has also been shown in another FSO study in March, which indicated that  English is not only the most prevalent foreign language in Switzerland, but in some regions even ‘outperforms’ national languages.

In French-speaking Geneva, for instance, 11.8 percent of the population speak English — more than 5.7 percent who speak Italian. And in the neighbouring Vaud, 9.1 percent of residents speak English, versus 4.9 percent for both German and Italian.

In Basel-City, where the main language is German, 12.5 percent speak English, 6.1 percent Italian, and 5 percent French.

And in Zurich,10.8 percent speak English, versus only 5.8 percent for Italian and 3.2 percent French.

The ‘ winner’ however, is the German-speaking Zug, where 14.1 percent of the population over the age of 15 has English as their primary language. 

READ ALSO : Where in Switzerland is English most widely used? 

What else does the study reveal?

It shows to what extent Switzerland’s population ‘migrated’ from rural areas to cities over the past century.

While only a third of the country’s residents lived in urban regions 100 years ago, the 170 Swiss cities and their agglomerations are now home to three-quarters of the population.

As a result of this evolution, “new cities sprang up, many political and spatial boundaries were moved, and the country became increasingly urban.”

With a population of 427,000, Zurich is still the most populated city, followed by Geneva (204,000) and Basel (174,000).

And there is more: Fewer people practice religion

The proportion of people who feel they belong to a traditional religion is generally falling, FSO found.

This downward trend concerns all religions, but it is strongest among people of the Reformed Evangelical faith.

In six towns in particular — Bussigny, Crissier, and Ecublens (VD), Kloten, and Opfikon (ZH), as well as Oftringen (AR) — the drop was of more than 70 percent.
 
 READ ALSO: Why so many Swiss are quitting the church and taking their money with them

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