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A comment on The Brexit hangover has left UK startups drained – Are the brains next?. Parent comment

Re:The Brexit hangover has left UK startups drained – Are th... by mike_hearn on Saturday July 09, 2016 @07:04PM (#12063734)
One weekend is not what I'd call "a lot of opportunities". If you think it is then we're discussing different levels of fluency. I'm quite conversational in German. I would not say I have a lot of opportunities to practice because restaurant and supermarket German are so simple they don't help me get any better.

Swiss people learn English in school. I have only met a few who cannot speak English well. It's a much more common issue that I want to speak German with them, but they don't actually like German (it's something of a foreign language too compared to dialect), and they prefer to practice their English with me. Linguistic tugs of war are always awkward.

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Re:The Brexit hangover has left UK startups drained – Are th... by raverbashing on Sunday July 10, 2016 @08:20AM (#12065387)
> One weekend is not what I'd call "a lot of opportunities". If you think it is then we're discussing different levels of fluency. I'm quite conversational in German

I fully agree with you, I was at a beginner's level on that occasion. Yes, if you are conversational then it's not going to change much (from your original post it seemed you barely spoke German)

And yes, the way to progress from conversational to the upper levels is mainly through classes

> but they don't actually like German (it's something of a foreign language too compared to dialect)

Ah that's true. Nobody speaks Hochdeutsch on everyday life. And Schweizerdeutsch is weird

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