Can people from Zurich speak french?

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Goddess of Grammar

Well, first of all, French is (I think) the third most common FIRST language in Zurich (after Swiss-German and Italian)-Zurich apparently has the fourth-biggest French-first-language population in Switzerland (after Lausanne, Geneva, and...not sure, Basel probably). (People from France, the French part of Switzerland, Africa and even the odd Canadian)

Then, the kids do learn French in school from 5th grade on, but a lot of them don't bother much with it after they graduate.

Keep in mind also that very many of the Swiss-Germans I've met are very modest about their language abilities, so just asking them "Do you speak French?" is likely to give you a "no" or "only a little bit", but if you actually need help from them and you can only speak French there's at least a 2/3 chance that they can do it.

Santero

Bien sur! Il y a beaucoup de gents qui parlent le francais!
As Zurich is situated in the German part of Switzerland the people in Zurich speak German.
But in the German part of Switzerland French is the first foreign language the children are taught in school. So everybody at least speaks a little french. Some people speak it better some less. But you won't have any problems by talking French there.
Besides Zurich is very international. There are all sorts of nationalities here and you will be in good company.

Best regards from Zurich!

trav'ler

About a fifth of them should be able to, as it's one of their 4 official languages -- see

http://www.all-about-switzerland.info/swiss-population-languages.html

madonna_toller

Many do, of course but youngsters prefer english even though they learned french in school. In most upperclass shops/department stores french is spoken and for business man a must.

Irish

Mostly German, but French and Italian as well.

Arrays

I was just in Zurich for the holidays, and encountered many people who speak French. You need only ask. I found the younger set spoke mostly Swiss German, English, Italian - if you ask to speak in French odds are good someone does. About a third (the younger crowd) when I inquired did speak French. The older crowd (60 and older) spoke mainly Swiss German alone.

The further West you travel in Switzerland the more French will be spoken. Geneva...mostly French spoken for example.

Vice Squad

of course!

sitandthink

They widely speak german. A lot of them speak english and some french or italien.

Shannen

i went to zurich in third grade, they do speak some french, but not a lot. there's some mixed english and a lot of german. It's actually easier to understand what people are talking about there than in other countries.

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