I left my iPad in a coffee shop & someone came out to the sidewalk to give it to me! Don't miss the cable car and the National Maritime Museum, you can get discounts for the cable car if you have an Oyster card, the museum is free and it is unforgettable.
Basel EuroAirport. Journey time to Zermatt is shorter by 20 minutes than from Zurich, but the train station is not in the airport, so you need to transfer by bus or taxi. The bus from the airport to the main train station, Basel SBB, leaves every 10 minutes, and takes 20 minutes.
So really no need for you to learn it also regarding the fact that almost everybody in Zermatt related to tourism will speak English (or at least what they think is English)! Zermatt is actually on the edge of the Swiss-German speaking area. If you ski down to Cervinia they will speak Italian and just one valley to the west they speak French.