All written documents in Switzerland’s Germanic cantons, from the newspaper to contracts to invoices to phone apps, will be in High German. Many teachers will recommend first acquiring a strong basic foundation in High German before starting Swiss German.
This makes the task of learning German difficult for foreigners – especially when your self-proclaimed “ear” for the language needs a lot of work.ĭeciding whether to learn High German or Swiss German is a question that plagues most expats in Zurich. Swiss German has different pronunciation, grammar, and words. The most notable linguistic fact about German-speaking Switzerland is the use of dialects (Swiss German, Schweizerdeutsch) for spoken communication and standard German (High German, Hochdeutsch) for written communication. Since I live in Zurich, I am in the German-area of Switzerland and so, that is what I have been attempting to learn! High German vs Swiss German French is spoken in the west of Switzerland, while Italian is spoken in Ticino and in the south, and Romansh is only found in the Alpine canton of Graubünden. Where you live determines what you speak. In fact, the country has four national languages: German, French, Italian, and Romansh (spoken by less than 1% of the population). And when it comes to languages, Switzerland has quite a few. As you might have guessed, learning new languages does not come easily to me. I’ve now been in Switzerland for nearly a year, and picking up German has been no easy feat. Those two words sounded exactly the same to me.
It turns out I was a crazy-sounding American who was essentially shouting “Please!” at everyone on our hike…and at the store clerk, and the post office, and to the train ticket collector. “Alex, they are saying “ Grüezi !” to you, not “ bitte.” Grüezi is the casual way to say hello to someone in German, and thus, makes a lot more sense as a greeting. My friend stared at me for a minute, then doubled over laughing. “It’s so weird, though,” I said, “that the Swiss say ‘ bitte’ to you as a greeting.” Bitte means please, and while I thought it odd, whenever someone said it to me I went right along with it, responding with a cheery and triumphant “Bitte!” right back. While on a hike a few weeks after moving to Zurich, I commented to my friend that I was proud to be developing an ear for German. Learning a Foreign Language When Living Abroad
0 kommentar(er)
