Might move to Switzerland for work

[kray]

I recently got an opportunity to work for an AI/ML startup in Switzerland based in Lausanne. I will be most probably staying there for a few months as part of the contract, is there any value in learning French or German, or will survive with just English?

[Bobby_2021]

Sounds exciting. Good luck.

English would suffice for your communications within the company. 

[kray]

1 hour ago, Bobby_2021 said:

Sounds exciting. Good luck.

English would suffice for your communications within the company. 

But even locally, say I want to go to the local cafe, would I need to learn French? Or is English good there too?

[Bobby_2021]

I am not clear on that.

I usually reach out to be colleagues and  even superiors in the company before starting work, after my recruitment is confirmed. Perhaps they could clear out the specifics of the local community. 

[kray]

17 minutes ago, Bobby_2021 said:

I am not clear on that.

I usually reach out to be colleagues and  even superiors in the company before starting work, after my recruitment is confirmed. Perhaps they could clear out the specifics of the local community. 

That makes more sense. Thanks for the input.

[Emrie]

On 24/08/2022 at 7:07 AM, kray said:

I recently got an opportunity to work for an AI/ML startup in Switzerland based in Lausanne. I will be most probably staying there for a few months as part of the contract, is there any value in learning French or German, or will survive with just English?

Dude! Come over here! I live in Lausanne as well! I love it here, I hope you'll enjoy it too.

You absolutely don't need to learn French. I know a lot of people who don't know any French and have no issues living here. You can go to any local cafe, restaurant, and just anywhere without speaking French.

German would be a gigantic waste of time as we do not speak German here.

I have absolutely nothing to back up this claim but I think we're generally friendly to English because we kinda have to use it to speak to people from our own country. Very little people learn proper fluent German, French, and/or Italian. So we just know our native language and English.

HOWEVER, if you're going to stay here over the long term, say more than 5 years, you should probably learn French. This is because that's just the language here and if you're staying long term, you should learn the language, it will make things easier. While French is not necessary, it's still a big help so you should probably learn it if you're staying.

Also I think there will be some amount of people who will automatically dislike you for not speaking French. The French speakers really hate English. Their level of English is also not great. You can understand what they're saying but it's just generally not correct English.

Personally, if I were to move anywhere with a different language, I would start learning that language from the start because it can take a long time to learn a language and I'll want to get up to speed ASAP.

[meta_male]

You'll get by easily with English. I speak German and had to discuss a project with someone from the French speaking part the other day...so we both switched to English as it was the easiest.