What's different about Swiss German? In some ways, from an English speaker's point of view, Swiss German is German made easy. Let's start with the easy bits.
Firstly, Swiss German is easier for English speakers to read because it uses the double s instead of the vertical squiggly s which most English speakers don't have on their laptop keyboard.
Swiss German speakers are likely to understand standard German, so learning German will help you to be understood when speaking, as well as helping you to read signs and menus. In fact there's a hybrid language, Swiss standard German, which is used for writing and formal situations, which is closer to standard German spoken in Germany.
Swiss German is also spoken in Liechtenstein, which is sandwiched between Switzerland and Austria.
French in German Speaking Switzerland
They use the French word merci for thank you.
The word for little is li added on the end of a word, notably for bun (little bread), kitten (little cat), puppy (little dog)
Swiss-German - English
Brot - bread / loaf
Brötli - little bread (bun?) or roll
merci - thank you
merci vilmal - thank you very much (literally thanks many times)
English - Swiss-German
bread - brot
bun / roll - brötli
thank you - merci
Useful Websites
Simple and comprehensive
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Swiss-German_phrasebook
Detailed and technical
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_German
Clear, amusing, but fewer words
https://studyinginswitzerland.com/swiss-german-vs-german-differences/
No comments:
Post a Comment