It occurs to me that this situation might well have been de-escalated so easily. Since the man was sitting just 2 metres away from where you were standing talking to another parent, you could simply have turned to him and said: "Ach, leider kann ich noch kein Schweizerdeutsch. Wir sind ganz neu, erst n Monaten hier in der Schweiz. Meine Frau ist Schweizerin, aber ich muss noch lernen. Zuvor wohnten wir in Deutschland, darum kann ich etwas Deutsch. Das dort, das ist Billy, mein Sohn. Spielen Ihre Kinder auch heute hier mit?"

I wish I could have been there to tell him how awful-sounding Swiss German is.

And then I would have made that nasty "chhhh" sound in his face like a cat coughing up a fur ball.

Right there, inferiority complex. You can use the guy to explain your kid how a traumatized adult looks and behaves like. Not worth to pay more attention to the issue than that.

It sounds much nicer than German-German.

Tom

Ur kidding, right? Swiss German is not even a "normal" Language, I am not expert but I assume they call it a "spoken Language" or a "dialekt"? If it was a normal one that they could actually use in School, then ok, but even locals sometimes do not understand the other person speaking to then Swiss German.

It sounds as silly as Belgium french or Belgium dutch.

In Belgium it reall hard for foreigners with the Language. In Holland, oh boy, but guess what? In both Countries you can get along with English and people are happy to speak.

And the ice gets thinner.

My 2 cents:

- The guy was very rude and should be ignored. I would have been upset that the other parents did nothing to distance themselves/deescalate. However, I as a foreign woman, would probably also not get involved: I don't want to get myself enmeshed in aggression while watching my kid train.

- You could have tried to deescalate, as detailed by some previous posters

- Whether Swiss German or German German sound better is a matter of personal opinion. I know that I will never learn to speak Swiss German, but I do know that most locals appreciate me speaking (imperfect, level B2) German German instead of English. They speak Swiss, I speak German in return, and, if I don't know a word, I put in the English or French equivalent.

- Yes, ideally all of us would learn excellent Swiss German or High German (if we live in the German-speaking part of Switzerland). However, some people just don't have the time to progress much past B1 if they have full-time jobs and families (or whatever else that make deep learning of a language at adulthood a very difficult task). Most locals completely accept that and, if you make an effort, will be gracious and understanding

- Which language you approach people in is your own choice. In the Verein where my kid trained, I always spoke to the coach in English (her English is excellent, I wanted to make sure I understood perfectly, and I was paying for the privilege). The other parents I always addressed in German unless they wanted to practice English or their native/working language was English.

-That guy is a small-minded idiot. There are some around. Don't give him more mental space than he deserves. I had an aggressive incident similar to this within a few weeks of moving here and it scared me; it never happened again.

-Switzerland is not Germany, for better or worse. They do share (an official) language, but there are big differences. You should count on some months of culture shock.

Careful here. The dialects are very real languages here, promoted and celebrated. High German is called Schriftdeutsch for a reason - everyone (in theory) should be able to write it, but it is an administrative language, not lived language of most German-speaking Swiss. Unlike many countries, where dialects have low status, here their status is high. The sooner you realize this and realize you have your own prejudices, the easier your life will be.

"careful" I liked that.

Thanks for your thoughts. Each Country has its own Language and it is cool. But being so rude to people speaking other languages, to me, just shows bad values. This is not the 1st time by the way this happens to me, I mean facing language "problem" here.

Just few small examples from our short time here:

1. My Daughter had a problem with the Ear hole and we went to several Christ and Manor and so on, all said they can not help. Finally we got recommendation to go a place where they are expert about it, in one of the small Cities around the Lake, and unfortunately they were very not nice to us (we both had Masks even my Daughter is under 12) and asked to us to wait outside the Store until they have Time for us, then both the Lady there and her Husband kept speaking to my Girl Swiss German and she just ddi not understand, even though she has perfect German, I kindly asked if they can speak German but they just kept answering in Swiss German.

2. Even though my Kids have never had problems with German, it happened already on 3 occasions that local Kids were laughing at their "German", one of them were Kids of Friends so obviously we could speak to the Parents and they took it serious and explained them. The other Kids we do not know so what can I do...

3. Recycling Center - same, no wish to speak German.

4. Other Shops / Transport Office, ect.

Hemm, do not know this expression, what do u mean ?

Thanks, you do realise I actually did not do anything, right? I did not even react to him cause I do not think such people worth it. It is not like I did something that could "harm" people believes / harmonic Life...

I just spoke with another Person, about Kids Football. Not a Crime still

Alternatively - if every where you go smells of dog sh*t, check your shoes.

Old joke - Swiss German isn't a language, it's a throat disease. But I agree, especially Northern Germany German. So harsh. I prefer to hear Swiss people speaking standard German - there's a sing song character to it.

Modern Basler dialect can be quite easy on the ear. Swiss German songs are much poetic than German-German songs.

However, once I overheard three Swiss people talking in English to each other. It turned out that they had three different Swiss German dialects, and it wasn't always easy to understand one another. Since they were fluent in English, they chose that. Certainly, many Swiss people of my acquaintance will much rather speak English than German-German.

__________________
Down with racism. Long live miscegenation!

Maybe go back from where you came from if you really find it so difficult here ?


Life is too short to get bitter and twisted about everything

You're skating on thin ice = You are putting yourself in danger.

Again, many Swiss, especially the older ones, feel very uncomfortable speaking High German simply because they don't do it well. They compensate for this by requiring others to understand their Swiss German.

If you speak high German, you will understand most Swiss German words in a short time. If you intend to live here, you'll need to adapt by speaking English or high German AND being able to understand Swiss German. Or move to Zürich, Zug or Geneva, where English is far more prominent.

It's really that simple.

Is there such a thing as 'Belgium french'? I certainly didn't notice this when speaking to South Belgians.

I guess I meant the accent