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A comment on Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers. Parent comment

Re:Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers by kimi on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @10:17AM (#21258584)
Citizenship is relatively hard: you have to be a resident for 12+ years to start the process. A lot of people never bother - a long term residency permit ("C") is almost as good, but you don't vote and do not have military duties.

Everybody speaks English; I know a number of people in Zürich who never bothered to learn German, as there is a large expat community and everything is multi-lingual.

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Re:Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers by lukeqsee on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @10:20AM (#21258624)
> I know a number of people in Zürich who never bothered to learn German

I think Zürich is just a typical large city exception (similar to Berlin or Amsterdam). I think German (or French or Italian) is pretty necessary outside of Zürich/Geneva.

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Re:Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers by CalChris on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @10:38AM (#21258861)
If you have children and want citizenship for them, one of the parents must be Swiss.

As for language, I took an intensive French class at the University of Geneva when I worked there. At the end of the class everyone in it, students from all over the world, spoke better English. We studied French but socialized in English.

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Re:Switzerland vs Silicon Valley for Software Developers by vinay427 on Tuesday October 15, 2019 @11:43AM (#21259661)
It's 10+ years for citizenship as of a few years ago. Also, I doubt the military duties will apply to the vast majority of people that move there as adults and then start the process of residency and naturalization.
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