Die Sprachstandanalyse

The Sprachstandanalyse is the language test and is, after the basic residency requirement, the first prerequisite in the Swiss citizenship process.  At the Federal level they don’t get more specific than simply “language” because Switzerland has four official languages; German, French, Italian and Romansh and while you’ve probably heard of the first three, the last may not sound familiar.  Romansch is the predominant language for roughly 35,000 Swiss citizens, most living in Graubünden, a canton in eastern Switzerland.  They’re a proud bunch that no one wants to offend and even though you won’t find it used on products in the grocery story it retains its official status.  Fortunately, we won’t have to master it.  Our obligation is to demonstrate competency in only one of the four which, for us, in Basel, is German.  In developing our test strategy, Lisa and I decided that I’d take the test first so I could scout it out and give her a summary of what’s involved.  No need to sweat away time drilling on the genitive if it won’t be on the test.  Paige, of course, places out by virtue of having done all of her schooling in the Basel school system.  So, I signed up for one of the Saturday morning slots, paid my CHF 180 and boned up a bit on the grammar (including the genitive).   As it turned out, any anxiety I might have felt was unwarranted as the test was much easier than expected.  I would even go so far to say that it was fun as the oral part was just a twenty-minute conversation with two nice ladies during which we got carried away and almost went overtime.  We laughed and clucked together like a couple of old hens.  After hearing this, Lisa permitted me to register her and this past Saturday killed it.  It was pass/fail but I’m sure she got an A+ so now, at least from a language perspective, we’re good to go.  The only hole remaining in our full application package is an updated birth certificate confirming that Paige was born.  Come on, Pennsylvania.  You’re holding us up!