According to a Swiss newspaper a native German guy of 70-years seeking Swiss citizenship was told to go back to school to learn his own native tongue despite being proficient in German.

The Swiss town of Dielsdorf ordered Ulrich Kring — who lived in Switzerland his entire life but is only now applying for citizenship — to take a German language course to the tune of 250 Swiss francs ($222.6), the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper said. (Reuters)

It is told that the German class is obligatory for all foreigners seeking a Swiss passport. Kring however is challenging the decision and had lodged an appeal for which he is yet to receive a reply.

About two-thirds of Switzerland’s 7.5 million inhabitants are German speakers although the dialect is a bit different from the German language in Germany.

There is a hot debate about immigration in Switzerland, where some 20 percent of the population are foreigners, and some newspapers have criticized the big influx of immigrants from neighboring Germany.