In Switzerland we have 4 national languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh. We know that languages are important for communication. My parents have two different nationalities (Frenchspeaking Swiss and Austrian) so I grew up speaking French and German. At home we mainly spoke French, but I also spoke German with my grandparents, which helped me to learn this language and not fall into the trap of speaking only one language.
I'm studying architecture in Fribourg on a bilingual course so that I can have more opportunities in my future professional life. To validate my Bilingual Bachelor's degree, I was given the opportunity to do a semester in a German-speaking school. Liechtenstein seemed ideal to me because it's a country that lies between my two nationalities (Switzerland and Austria).
To my surprise, a lot of people speak English at this university. Communication was very difficult for me because I had compulsory English lessons at school but I was very bad. The school programme for learning a language doesn't suit me because I have severe dyslexia. From week to week, by listening to my flatmates talk, I started to understand words, then topics of discussion. At first, I had the "DeepL" application by my side, and gradually, as I gained confidence and with the patience of my flatmates, I was able to start talking to them. We often have 'Film' evenings, so we watch films in English, but they put the German subtitles on for me to understand. I also installed the Duolingo application to learn English, which allowed me to dare to speak with them.
I have my lessons in German at university. I've never heard a dialect in my life. Between the Germans, Austrians, Swiss Germans and Liechtensteiners.... A real fair. I even wondered if they understood each other, and at first it was complicated because you need time to adapt and understand the difference between the dialects. I was very surprised at how understanding the people were, when they speak to me directly they speak to me in 'hoche Deutsch' which helps me a lot. They compliment me when I speak, so I don't mind speaking in German in front of them, even though I still make a lot of mistakes. The students also correct me when I make big mistakes, which helps me to improve. Some even say a few words in French to help me. I realise that day after day, I'm speaking more and more "flüssig" without thinking too much. I'm surprised that I've already experienced this in such a short space of time.
I'd like to share an adventure I had with my flatmates. I went skiing in Malbun with a flatmate from the Czech Republic (who speaks Czech) and another flatmate from Scotland (who speaks English). We went skiing together, and even though we don't speak the same language, we managed to understand each other by saying simple words like "take the left slope...right slope" "blue slope" "red slope" in English. On the way home from our sports day, we met a little lady (a young pensioner) on the bus. She spoke to each of us in our native language, with me in French, with Abbie in English and with Karin in Czech. I found it impressive that an older woman could speak to us in so many different languages. That's when I realised that languages are very important and that I have to keep at it to learn as much as I can.
Now my biggest fear is losing what I've learnt here when I go back to Fribourg.