I don't know if I'm the only one, but ever since I've been living for a while in an English-speaking area (the US specifically) I prefer to speak, think and write in English even though it's my second language.

Now, I was wondering if there are other Swiss natives here or if you know of any who have the same preference for English correspondence only?

I still speak Swiss German with family and other people back home, though, but I feel much more comfortable expressing myself in English.

Don’t worry you’re not a freak I am Polish and I often feel the same, especially after my stay in New York English is a dazzlingly beautiful language. Being a student and a teacher of English I combine work and pleasure – it’s great

cheers

Icelandic here, and after the Icelandic language I am most comfortable with English. I work for a multi national and knowing German is good, but knowing English is better. It is the business language of today.

Stet. Sorry _ posted wrong message

I'm dutch myself but on the internet I use english 95% of the time. It's the language to communicate with the world.
However, I do wanna improve my german and maybe learn some swiss-german, I don't think it would be easy without these languages while living in CH.
It's true that you can get very far with only the english language in switzerland, but I think you should better change yourself to the swiss and not the other way round, if you're going to stay there for a long time.

But the idea of english correspondence only would solve a lot of problems and makes things much easier. I think it would be a very good thing if every child/student learns proper english at school, as a second language. (if english ain't your first language)

You’re perfectly right about the importance of speaking German while living in Switzerland.

However, we are devotees of English – it’s a great pleasure to be able to use it

Yeh . Well I like english a lot too, I also rather speak english besides my first language, it's also a nice language and I was used to speak it with my former girlfriend all the time.

But I would feel bad if I will only speak english when I go to Switzerland for a long time, I would feel a bit egoistic if you know what I mean. I dont like it when people have to change to me while I'm from somewhere else.

You’re right again it is a bit selfish However, acquiring German is a time-consuming task. As I speak neither German, nor French I encountered lots of problems while my last visit in Basel (for example I got lost ) and I really appreciated that people in Basel speak very good English

Same to me - I really like to talk English; I'm having a hard time at each visit to the US or UK to "get the flow" again. However, when there for a couple of days, I even start to think in English.
But in my opionion this effect concerns every language - when you start to "feel" the language, you really start to love it. Learning it in school does not cause such effects (unfortunately).

Specifcally to see the content of a packed food, you should know german...

Cheers

Yes that must be of the up most importance.

I only switch to French when in Geneva, otherwise it's all in English in my brain, I enjoy writing in English too, I find it a more precise language than French (and others seem to enjoy reading me, grammatical quirks included ) although French seems better when you try to write something less analytical, it's a more "confused" language in a way....

	Quote:	Samora
	Specifcally to see the content of a packed food, you should know german...

Yep, you're right I remember cooking seafood. The instruction on the package was in German, French and Italian. I read the German one, but understood nothing. So I read the French one, but still the same. And only because I speak a little Spanish I could make out something from the Italian recipe. But the cooking was more a guesswork than following the recipe.

yup same here swiss by birth, whilst the bernese dialect is my mothertongue,english is the language of my heart!I even write and publish articles in english (Well,big thanks go to my trustworthy PA's who edit my mistakes and such )

I find now, that often I would be quicker and it would be easier for me to explain/tell something in english than in my mothertongue, how crazy is that??

I think I was born in the wrong country........................

you are not alone ... I have numerous conversations in German with my Swiss friends, who insist on speaking English with me in return, can get quite amusing at times ... especially after a few brews.