Ringing the dentist, in German

At some point after moving to Switzerland, the permit paperwork mentions A2 German and a test called fide. It sounds like something to cram for.

It’s less strange than it sounds. fide is built from situations you’ll meet here anyway: ringing a practice, explaining what went wrong, talking about where you live. fide Practise those for your life, and you’re practising for the test.

We’re not connected with fide or the State Secretariat for Migration (SEM). Everything below comes from their published material; check the current versions before you book.

Talking about your life

A colleague asks what you did at the weekend, and “not much” turns out not to be a complete answer. A neighbour wants to know how on earth you found the flat.

The test asks the same kind of question: your habits, something that happened, how you do things. In the model test, the topic is flats, naturally. fide model test

To practise: answer the weekend question properly, out loud, on the walk home. What do you usually do? What did you do last time? What do you like, and why?

Ringing the dentist

The dentist has you down for Tuesday. On Tuesday you’ll be in Bern, and the practice’s website offers a phone number and nothing else. So you ring: who you are, which appointment, why it won’t work, and could they possibly do Thursday.

In the test, the examiner plays the receptionist. Same call, fewer hold tunes. At A2, you should hang up with a new time, without the examiner doing the work. fide Testhandbuch

To practise: next time you need to move something real, try it in German first. Worst case, you still get a new time.

Describing what happened

The bike that vanished from outside the station. The parcel the neighbour signed for, possibly. The washing machine that flooded the shared laundry on someone else’s day.

In the test, it’s a picture: who is there, where, and what has happened. The examiners want a description they can follow, not a witness statement. fide Testhandbuch

To practise: describe your tram ride to yourself, quietly, to avoid alarming anyone. Who is there, what they’re doing, and one guess about why.

What A2 sounds like

Nobody at the bakery is marking you, and the fide handbook is nearly as forgiving. A2 speakers pause, start again and make basic mistakes, and still get the job done. fide Testhandbuch When you’re stuck, ask them to repeat, to slow down, or how to say the word you’re missing.

The test in brief

• Two parts: speaking and listening (40 minutes), and reading and writing (60 minutes), bookable separately. The oral part costs CHF 170 at the time of writing. fide
• Speaking: about 15 minutes, one examiner talking with you and a second taking notes. Everyone starts at A2; there’s no level to choose. fide model test
• Swiss German is fine when speaking. The written part is in standard German. fide Testhandbuch
• For a C permit: A2 spoken and A1 written. VZAE, Art. 60 More in our C permit post.

fide’s free model test comes with listening audio and suggests recording yourself and listening back. fide It’s worth a look for its phone call alone: a broken bike, a flat viewing and a property manager called Siegrist. fide also says you don’t need a preparation course, and that not every online offer promising one is reliable. Worth keeping in mind, including here.

Echoa is a speaking course built for exactly this. You hear an English cue, build the German sentence and say it aloud, and Sam, your teacher, responds to what you actually said. Fifteen-minute lessons, around fifty spoken answers each. The German course runs from ordering dinner to saying what happened and sorting things out. Real conversations in 20 hours. A2 in weeks, not years.

Siegrist, we assume, is still waiting by the phone.