What you can learn from a Swiss newspaper

Do the Swiss more resemble each other or their respective language groups? Despite speaking German, French, Italian, and Romansh, surely the Swiss have some common thread that binds them to each other culturally? Their fondness for yodeling and cuckoo clocks? Their love of melted cheese, perhaps? These are questions that keep me up at night. OK, that was a lie, but I did have a blast noting certain differences on a recent trip across the Röstigraben.

Now I don’t want to brag, but for someone who has never purposely attempted to acquire any knowledge of the French language, my fake French is pretty damn good. I can hold entire conversations in the language (as long as my half of the conversation primarily involves saying ‘oui’ and giggling uncomfortably). And thanks to my knowledge of Italian, English, and Pepe le Pew cartoons, I can read certain French texts with a shocking level of comprehension (and by ‘certain texts’, I mean menus and tabloid newspapers that contain lots of pictures).

Which brings me to my profound observations of the day: the results of a meticulous study of Switzerland’s two largest language groups, as represented by their free morning commuter newspapers (20 Minuten and 20 Minutes). Note: all translations are sloppy and approximate, but I swear I am not making this stuff up. OK, maybe I made a little of it up.

Tuesday, 21 August 2007

Front page headline

• German: Swiss alarmed about products from China
• French: Passive smoking is bad for you, so let’s all smoke first hand instead

Front page photo

• German: a satellite photo of Hurricane Dean
• French: a tiny little dog dressed up in a sparkly dress participating in a dog fashion show

‘People’ section

• German: Oliver Stone will be coming to Zurich to discuss his very serious, depressing movies; Tom Cruise’s bad luck continues as people are hurt on the set of his film, which he probably caused because he’s in that freaky cult and all.
• French: Mena Suvari may have shaved her head, but at least she still looks hot in a string bikini (with photo); Paris Hilton offered lots of money to appear on Big Brother (with photo)

Wednesday, 22 August 2007

Front page

• German: after years of angry complaints from citizens, the menace that was the ugly Bahnhofstrasse Christmas lights has almost been eradicated, although they will make their last appearance this year (haven’t the people of Zurich suffered enough?)
• French: Ohlala! John Travolta dressed like a woman! He’s a man, but he’s wearing women’s clothing! Tee hee! Tralalalala!

‘Tendances’ section

• French: new high-tech sex toy for men (with photos and lots of details)
• German: um… no such section

‘People’ section

• German: Important blurb about K-Fed’s up-and-coming acting career.
• French: Important blurb about K-Fed’s up-and-coming acting career.

So the two sides do have something in common after all.