Good morning,

In the middle of the night last night, a woman screamed for help in the street. I immediately jumped out of bed and called the police. My German was admittedly poor from being woken from a deep sleep. The policeman screamed at me on the phone that he could not understand me. After multiple attempts to explain myself, I kindly asked him if he spoke English, only to be told a firm "NEIN". Once he could finally understand me, he switched to perfect English and thanked me for helping and that they were already on their way from other multiple calls.

This isn't the first time this has happened to me here. I also received the treatment when I turned in a found wallet. Treated initially with scorn only to be thanked in perfect English upon my departure. I understand that I should speak the local language and I do enough to get by...but in call for help, shouldn't the police or emergency services be prepared to adapt accordingly?

Probably higher up the chain, the Stadt and Kantonal police all speak good English but you probably called the local plod, right? Maybe the language requirements for the Gemeinde Polizei aren't so stringent?

Find it odd that he "screamed" down the phone, though. As in literally a girly "I've seen a spider in my shoe" kind of scream? Very odd for a copper.

Police officers don't tend to be recruited from amongst the most pleasant members of our community, let's be honest.

I try to keep my dealings with them to a minimum.

No, it was the main city - same with my experience in Basel. Well, perhaps "scream" is a stretch. Barking would be more accurate. Someone barking at you authoritatively in German in the middle of the night can feel like being screamed at.

To be a Policeman in ZH you need to of finished your education & in ZH that includes English.

Is there any other way of speaking German?

Turns out he did speak English though

I'm not saying they don't have to speak ANY English, just the language requirements might vary the higher up the chain you go. Guess I wasn't clear.

Reminds me of this.

Point here is:

-Not speaking english when someone tried to reach out for help
-Speaking english very well after understanding what was going on

If he really didn't know how to speak english, then OK, I could understand some frustration on his side, but like this I can't. This is the typical central european behavior that is stuck in a few decades ago

It's not the first time I live abroad and this is very familiar to me, I've learn not to be too much affected by it, but I wonder if I ever face a real emergency how I'll be treated.

What would be the expectations for languages for such services:
German
French
Italian
Romantisch
English?


Good luck with recruiting the people.

The next time you see a police officer, ask them politely about the issue of English in an emergency situation. I think you’ll be surprised by their answer.

I was involved in a minor car crash in deepest darkest Wallis. The other driver was an absolute arse about it despite being at fault and called the police. The police spoke awesome English and were super nice to me..... which was totally unexpected!

I agree with this to an extent...but, for the person who answers the emergency line, basic English should be expected?

But the issue isn't so much that he could NOT speak English, it was that he COULD and didn't want to even in an emergency situation.

also my recent experience, crashed into, other driver called the police, they came, spoke perfect english to me, where perfeclty pleasant and charged the driver who hit me

I've often wondered if its the job that makes them like that or if they where like that to start with??

Having had a lot of dealing with the police in the uk I always found the lowest level PC's to be, well, how do you say it nicely?? ermm mentally deficient

If you had read the OP's post you would realise he switched to perfect English, so he did speak English, just did not want to.

Seems I'm not, though...

Thinking of the people I knew at school who joined the police... um, yeah...

Same in Basel. Except you need to have finished you education.

We had a similar experience with a primary school teacher. He spoke English perfectly, but refused to engage with us except in German. As we hadn't been in the country long this was a struggle. It seems that educating us was more important than the education of our daughter.

He put her into Realschule. Four months later she was in Secondär, and from there went to Gym. With the best will in the world I can only put it down to him being an arrogant git. Funny thing, during one meeting he couldn't remember a German word and had to resort to English...

__________________
Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

The Stadtpolizei Zürich has a reputation to be rude and overly agressive for decades. There were many complaints, TV discussions and what not on the topic. Partly due to the sort of employees they attract (as DB pointed out), partially due to the sort of "customers" they face compared to some village cop in the mountains and a third part due to their management and the policies they set (the riot police for example does in no way try to de-escalate but follows a "zero tolerance" regime with violence).

All in all: its the rule, not the exception. No point in making any complaint...

I am friends with a number of Swiss cops for decades, including undercover ZH Kripos, that I know speak English, just never to me!

Tom