Lunch is dinner, and dinner is supper

Romand French follows the grammar of France almost to the letter, so what stays hard is what is hard in any French: masculine and feminine nouns, verbs that change for every person, and a written language with many more letters than the spoken one. What catches visitors out in Switzerland, though, is the handful of everyday words that mean something different here, and they are the ones on menus, invitations and shop signs.

The meals have different names. In Romandie, as in Belgium and Quebec, breakfast is le déjeuner, lunch is le dîner and the evening meal is le souper. A colleague who invites you à dîner means midday, and turning up at eight in the evening means you missed it by seven hours. Restaurants list a plat du jour at lunchtime, and that is usually the best value meal of the day.

Some words came over the mountains from German. A mobile phone is a Natel, a cash machine is a Bancomat, a hairdryer is a foehn, named after the warm wind, and to clean is poutzer, from the German putzen. In shops, a special offer is an action, and a plastic bag is a cornet.

Some phrases exist only here. Ça joue? means does that work for you?, and ça joue means it does. À tout bientôt is see you soon. Tout de bon! is all the best, said at the end of a phone call or as you leave. And if someone tells you il n'y a pas le feu au lac, there's no fire on the lake, they mean there is no need to hurry, which in Romandie there rarely is.

Thank-you has a Swiss reply. Thank a waiter or a shop assistant and you may hear service!, short for at your service, where a French person would say de rien or je vous en prie. In parts of Vaud, Valais and Fribourg, especially in villages, older people also use adieu as a greeting, not a farewell. If someone says adieu as you arrive, it simply means hello.

The same French, at walking pace

If you have learned any French, you can already read every sign in Geneva and Lausanne: the spelling, the grammar and almost all of the vocabulary are the French of France. What changes is the music. The Romand accent is slower, the vowels are held longer, and the voice tends to rise and settle on the second-to-last syllable of a phrase rather than snapping up on the last one. To an ear trained on Paris it sounds calm, even sleepy; to a learner it is a gift, because the gaps between words are easier to hear.

Start with the numbers and the greetings. Before you fly, learn septante and nonante and practise saying prices out loud, because those are the words you will hear first at a kiosk or a market stall. Then learn bonjour, merci and au revoir with a title after them, Madame or Monsieur, and say them slowly. Nobody in Romandie will hurry you, and a clear, unhurried French with an accent is far better received here than a fast one with mistakes.

Six things that catch visitors out

Wait for everyone before you eat. At a shared table, nobody starts until everyone is served and the host has said bon appétit. At a fondue, do not dip your bread with your lips touching the fork, and if you lose your bread in the pot, tradition says you buy the next round or the next bottle. Keep your hands above the table, wrists resting on its edge, rather than in your lap.

With fondue, wine or tea, not iced water. With fondue or raclette, Romands drink white wine or hot tea, and many will tell you that cold water makes the melted cheese sit like a stone in your stomach. Whether or not that is true, ordering a large glass of iced water with your fondue will make the waiter smile.

Keep your voice down in public. On trains, in restaurants and on the street, Romands speak quietly, and a loud phone call in a train carriage draws looks. Many trains have quiet zones marked with a symbol; in them, even a conversation should be soft. Children are expected to be calm on public transport, and parents will apologise if theirs are not.

The 24-hour clock is the only clock. Timetables, invitations and shop hours are all given as 18h30 or 20h, never as six-thirty in the evening. When someone says à quatorze heures, they mean two in the afternoon, and they mean it exactly.

An empty glass is a request. At an apéro, your host will keep filling your glass until you leave a little in it. An empty glass means you would like more. If you have had enough, leave it a third full, and say merci, ça ira, thank you, that will do.

Buy the ticket before you board. On Swiss trains, and on most buses and trams, there is no buying a ticket from the conductor: you need a valid one before the doors close, from a machine or the SBB app. An inspector who finds you without one charges a fixed surcharge on top of the fare, around ninety francs the first time, and explaining that you are a tourist does not change it. A demi-tarif card, which halves most fares for a year, pays for itself quickly on a long stay.

Romandie, the French-speaking quarter

Nearly a quarter of the Swiss speak French as their main language, almost all of them in the west of the country: the cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura, most of Fribourg and the lower half of the Valais. Together these are called la Suisse romande, or Romandie, and the people les Romands. They are Swiss first and French speakers second, and comparing them to the French is a quick way to cool a conversation. Romands tend to describe themselves as more relaxed and more modest than their neighbours in Paris, and they are rarely wrong about it.

The language border runs through the middle of the country, roughly along the river Sarine, which German speakers call the Saane. The canton of Fribourg sits right on it and is officially bilingual; so is the town of Biel/Bienne, and in both you will hear people switch languages mid-sentence. The Swiss call this border the Röstigraben, and you can sometimes see it in election results, when the French and German halves vote in opposite directions.

English is widely spoken in Geneva, which hosts the European headquarters of the United Nations and dozens of international organisations, and in Lausanne, home of the International Olympic Committee. Elsewhere, and especially in the Jura and the villages of the Valais, French is the language of daily life, and a visitor who starts in French, even badly, is answered with patience. A Romand will often reply in French slowly rather than switch to English, which is the best possible lesson.

Polite, a little reserved, and very warm underneath

Always say a title with your greeting. In shops, cafés and offices, bonjour on its own sounds a little short; bonjour Madame or bonjour Monsieur is the normal form, and when you leave, merci, au revoir and often bonne journée or bonne fin de journée, have a good rest of the day. After about five in the evening, it becomes bonsoir and bonne soirée.

Vous lasts longer than in France. Romands are slower to move to tu than many French people, and an older neighbour may keep using vous with you for years without any coldness intended. Young people, students and sports partners use tu almost at once. The person who is older, or who invited you, usually offers it: on peut se tutoyer, we can say tu.

Modesty is a social skill. Romand culture values understatement. A Romand who says something is pas mal, not bad, may mean that it was excellent. Boasting about money, success or how much something cost is quietly disapproved of, and the wealthiest people in Geneva are often the least showy. If you compliment someone's home, expect them to play it down.

Agreeing does not mean deciding. Romands often avoid saying no directly. On verra, we'll see, or c'est à voir, it remains to be seen, frequently means no, or not yet. Decisions, especially at work, are made slowly and by consensus, which reflects the way the whole country is governed. Pushing for an immediate answer usually produces a polite delay rather than a yes.

From Geneva to the Jura

Geneva is the most international city in Switzerland: roughly two in five of its residents are foreign nationals, and you will hear dozens of languages on the tram. It is the city of Calvin's Reformation, of the Red Cross and of watchmaking, and its symbol is the Jet d'Eau, a fountain that throws lake water 140 metres into the air. On 12 December, the Escalade festival celebrates the defeat of a night attack in 1602, and children smash chocolate pots filled with marzipan vegetables.

Vaud stretches along the north shore of Lake Geneva, which the Swiss call le Léman. Lausanne is steep enough to have its own metro climbing the hill; Montreux has its jazz festival every July and the Château de Chillon on a rock in the water. Between them, the vineyard terraces of Lavaux drop to the lake in stone steps and are a UNESCO World Heritage site. In the wine villages, a carnotzet, a small cellar room fitted out for tasting, is where friends meet over a bottle of Chasselas.

The Valais follows the Rhône up into the Alps. Its lower, French-speaking half, around Sion and Martigny, grows apricots, makes raclette and hosts cow fights, the combats de reines, in which Hérens cows lock horns to decide which will lead the herd up to the summer pastures. The Great St Bernard Pass to Italy gave its name to the dogs that once guided travellers through the snow.

Fribourg, on the language border, is the home of Gruyère cheese and of the Bénichon, a harvest feast of many courses each autumn, eaten with sweet, spicy mustard and saffron bread. Neuchâtel, further north, is the cradle of Swiss watchmaking along with the Jura, the newest canton, created in 1979 when it separated from Bern. Its cheese, tête de moine, is not sliced but scraped into thin rosettes with a turning blade called a girolle.