Learning Swiss German

For those who did not know, Swiss German is very different from German. I did not understand anything the first time I came here. The good thing (for us foreigners) is that Swiss German is only a spoken language which means they all know German as well. In school they learn German because that is the written language also used in the German part of Switzerland. So if you don’t understand what they are on about you simply ask them to speak German and you are fine. During the years I have known Andy I have picked up some Swiss German and by now I usually understand the topic of the conversation but not the details. Thankfully many words are similar to German so when you learn how the Swiss pronounce things you can figure out what it means. They say it takes about three months for a German to fully understand Swiss German but believe me if German is your third language it is a bit harder.

Now when I am living here, it is time to learn more though… Since it is only spoken it becomes more difficult for me. Usually I learn languages through texts, I find it easier to remember words and expressions if I can see them written. Now I have to ask Andy to write down things for me which leads to the next problem. When they write Swiss German, like they do in emails and on Facebook etc, they write like it is spoken. There are no rules! This sounds lovely for someone who ever had to learn German but now you have to be aware that the words can be written in many different ways depending on who is writing them. The problem here is that every village has their own dialect (including different words!) and it becomes very difficult to learn to understand all of them completely.

I will mainly be learning the Lucerne version and hopefully I will then be able to understand most of what I hear. Also first I will be concentrating on understanding what they say, speaking will have to come later. I don’t want to confuse my German due to the fact that I will have to use my German for working. I need to keep focus on speaking and writing that properly and not mixing it up with the local dialect (which already has been proven difficult). The grammar is of course also completely different so let’s leave that for later…