aller aux Allemands

to spend a stint in German-speaking Switzerland

Switzerland runs on four languages, and for a French-speaking teenager or young adult a spell living and working among German speakers, usually in Zurich or Bern, is close to a rite of passage. Parents still say it about their children much as British parents once talked about a year abroad.

Après le collège, elle est allée aux Allemands pendant un an.

After secondary school, she went to spend a year in German-speaking Switzerland.

Origin uncertain. The custom it describes, a stint among German speakers, is old and ordinary enough in Suisse romande that the phrase has never needed explaining locally.