I found it odd that many of the characters would randomly speak English for a sentence or two and then revert back to German. Is this a common thing in Switzerland and/or other parts of Western Europe, or is this just a movie affectation, or what?
share[deleted]
I believe Vitus's mother was English and if I'm not mistaken the few english phrases and words only occurred in scenes where she was present. For example, in the scene where she meets Vitus's principal after the math class incident the principal starts to speak in English and Vitus's mother tells her she can go ahead and speak in Swiss German.
shareIt is a very common thing. Switzerland is a melting pot. I'm a German native but I've been to Switzerland and they all speak at least 2 languages, most speak 3, and some speak up to 5 or 6. They all speak German and English, then it varies from French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Turkish, usw.
shareWhile that is true what you said (ich bin auch Deutsche und kann es daher bestätigen), the fact that the english mother falls back to english here and there has nothing to do with the european multi-use of languages.
It is quite normal to use languages randomly the more you have of them available. I speak 2 languages well, and 2 others decent and 2 others half-decent, and it happens often that words pop up randomly of another language that is being spoken at that time in that situation.
Only people with just one single language in their heads (common Americans) can ask a question like the OP.
Fascinating for me is to watch scandinavian movies. I speak swedish and understand the spoken swedish words in a movie. But funny when a Swede interacts with a Dane - I have to read subtitles to understand, while the Swede is understanding every danish word.
Maybe that is similar to our use of High German and other german dialects. Or when a Swiss speaks schwyzerdütsch and the othe person is replying in High German or another german version.
I mean, I can understand bavarian when it is spoken really slowly, but I could never reply in that language. Maybe it is something like that?
thought it was fun
& like shum don't wanna thank any whey
K?
so if u got 2 or 6 to choose from
u might find just the rictig vorten
mucho ricky-tic
scissors 2 banjo
banjo scissoroo
"Only people with just one single language in their heads (common Americans) can ask a question like the OP. "
Wow. Did you mean this to be as arrogant as it sounds?