This is hard.

A nice female German Radio speaker(moderator) has a lot of problems
in Zurich because she speaks in the radio High German instead of Swiss
German. For example: she received unfriendly letters, her car was damaged and so on.

Promblem was described that in Zurich lives too much foreigners, especially Germans.

However: the radio star is sick and I assume she has enough from Switzerland. Without Swiss German she has no chance. One message in a a letter was: WE do want to have Germans here, cancel your job.

I think some are strange, they want to hear Swiss German only and are
afraid that more and more High German spread out.

She is sick now.

regards

http://www.20min.ch/news/zuerich/story/27872376

http://www.20min.ch/news/zuerich/story/27872376


Oh my god !


P.S I meant German radio star, not a HIGH German radio star/speaker

Second link does not work.

Maybe she took off as sick to look for another job?

here second link, of course in Hochdeutsch.

http://www.20min.ch/unterhaltung/people/story/10224182

I think the problem is:

She is the first radio moderator who speaks in Zurich in High German. That makes some people very agressive, I am convinced.

However: She could come home to Germany where she is now popular because a lot of German radio stations feel with her.

Thanks for the link.
I have been living in Germany for a long time. I have heard of such cases in Germany too. I think the Swiss are very conservative on their views and they like things to stay that way. I am sure she can continue her career in Germany. I wonder if it is only the way she speaks German or let's say it is the way she addresses her Swiss audiences. Maybe they got offended by her jokes? I am just guessing here. I wish I could listen her radio programme.
There was this German lady on a German radio channel and she made jokes about foreigners but after a while some of the jokes she did were not jokes anymore but insults. So she got kicked out of her job. Some people thought she was a nice lady but obviously her jokes did not come across as nice.
I guess you also heard about the German TV Moderator who made very awkward comments on a German TV show. She lost her job too. http://http://www.berlinonline.de/be...en/191344.html

she is just three weeks in Switzerland, impossible for Germans to
learn Swiss German in this short time. She can not make wonders.
And why should she learn Swiss German when everybody understands her ?

By that way: she is for the 18.000 Germans in Zurich very popular,
they want that she stays.

She is young (23) and therefore not experienced in her job, it must
be very hard for her to get these letters.

Yes, in Germany or other countries could be happen the same, but here
is Switzerland the topic. I think they are very conservativ and have in general a problem with foreigners. More than in Germany where we have for example millions of Turks etc. Or lets take London, a very multinational
and open-minded city.


P.S now your link does not work

That's sad. chaot is right, the swiss are very closed to foreigners. If they do not accept germans, who are their closest neighbors and culturally closest to them, how on earth do you think the swiss will accept asians, or indians, or africans?

I feel sorry for this poor girl, I wish i could send her a message to make her feel better. In reality german people are much more open-minded and accepting than the swiss, and i am sure if a swiss radiohost went to germany they would never be treated in this way. Shame on racist Switzerland.

I'm not defending the idiots who damaged her car.

She wasn't the first person to speak high German on air, the language is used in radio news, traffic informations and the like but usually absent in chats because high German has a formal or foreign impression to the Swiss German listener. Apparently some listeners set value on local dialects in their local radio's morning show (and a minority even might understand it better). And if you're a radio moderator your dialect is an essential qualification.

It seems like she got lots of fan mail, too - not just negative reactions. As I see it she probably was surprised by the polarisation she caused.

You people make it sound like the audience should deal with her dialect out of political correctness but if a listener switches to another station because he doesn't like it this is not racist.

It's not just her, a lot of germans i know have been subject to social ostracisation in switzerland just because they were german

We're finally arriving at the root issue. Swiss-Germans have always had a prickly relationship with their neighbors to the north, and that hasn't gotten any better with the influx of Germans in recent years.

Putting a German radio presenter on the early shift is a daring move, one that makes me wonder whether the station didn't want to whip up some publicity to get more listeners.

I think if a Brit, Australian, Canadian etc. would work in US as a radio moderator, nobody of the listeners would complain about the accent/dialect.

But that is another story, US is not Switzerland. Same for England or Ireland, if someone from Germany or Switzerland with good English would work there for a radio station nobody would complain for the accent.
Or ?

We had in Germany for example in TV Dutch people as moderators but nobody expected 100 percent
High German from these people, they have a nice accent.

Americans have little or no chance on the Radio in the UK...

Yes, but the difference is a Brit or an Aussie would have novelty value in the US. Think Hugh Grant, Jude Law or Russell Crowe (rrooaar). If they have radio equivalents, their schtick would be the cute accent, like Dutch people on German television.

By extension of my earlier post, there is little novelty of Germans in Switzerland. Swiss-Germans typically don't find the German accent or pushy forwardness cute whatsoever. And the market - listeners and advertisers - decide what works or not, simple as that.

First of all the pictures tell more as the voice only. How many German speaking actors were synchronized in an English movie? Is that now racism? No, it is proper use of voices.
I feel sorry for the German girl but could you imagine an Irish local radio presenter with an English accent? Energy is a local radio channel and it is not a national radio.

In generell: it depends how tolerant the people are.
In Germany we would not have problems to hear foreign accents.
In the 70ths there was an english native speaker as radio moderator
in Frankfurt, he was popular and we loved his German accent.

If a swiss german works in Germany as an radio moderator nobody would complain or damage the car.

That makes the difference. I assume it could be the same if energy hires
an english native who speaks excellent High German as well.

A lot depends on historical context. The Germans might not have a problem with the Swiss but the Swiss (Germans) have major issues with the Germans.

The fact that 25'000 Germans have poured over the Rhine in recent years and that most of them are concentrated, and very noticeable, in Zurich adds fuel to the flames. It's so bad these days that you hear High German all over the place and are liable to be unable to order in a restaurant in Swiss German because all the waiter/waitresses are German.

WTF

That's seriously disturbing.

Supergau - what's so disturbing about hearing High German in and around Zurich?

And more importantly, what's so disturbing about seeing blonde German waitresses in cold swiss restaurants?

I think you are intentionally missing my point about the novelty in favor of a blanket Swiss-people-are-so-intolerant here. Foreign-accented speakers in Germany such as the English speaker or the Dutch presenters are a novelty, part of their value is their scarcity. Germans in Switzerland, by contrast, aren't that scarce. They now account for the largest group of foreigners in Zurich.

Add that to the fact that most Swiss-Germans don't like speaking High-German and tend to be ill at ease with Germans, at least initially, and you begin to realize why her audience didn't break out a welcome wagon for her. Again, I think the broadcaster was hoping to whip up a stir, knowing some people would have a strong reaction.

Why is that disturbing, just because you hear certain dialects or accents you don't like, or that you consider "foreign" to you? Get over it, it's 21st century, you don't live in a cave anymore.

Believe me, it goes both ways. Some Germans in Germany have problems with the Swissies, too. Ask anyone who has driven on A81 between Stuttgart and Singen only to be endangered by Swiss drivers that think it's an F1 race track.

I initially thought it would be a good idea to pick up a few bites of Swiss-German when I initially moved here, but decided to give up on it beyond the occassional Grüezi or Hoi ... no need to cloak my heritage.