I have been living in Zurich for about 10 months and it is a great place. When I first got here, I tried to learn Swiss German as that is what everyone speaks here. I saw someone saying on a forum that Swiss German is to German as 'Geordie or Cockney slang' is to English. I personally think that it is more different than that; maybe like Lowland Scots is to English. I already knew some German when I got here so I bought Pimsleur's Swiss German CDs and made a start. I listened to the CDs twice and got a basic understanding of the language. The problem was what to do next as there are hardly any more learning materials available. I tried speaking to a few Swiss people in Swiss German but they just answered in high German or English. I am not blaming them, they are just trying to be nice but it makes it very difficult to learn their language. Another problem for Swiss German learners is that most of the Swiss speaking towns and cities speak it differently, some very differently apparently.
Learning Swiss can obviously be done but it would take a lot of effort. Not really because of the language itself as the grammar for example is simpler than that of high German, but because of the difficulty of finding the right learning materials and of finding an immersive enough environment to learn it.
The people in this part of Switzerland certainly do use Swiss German, you hear it constantly and I am starting understand more and more of it just by lving here but as for formally trying to learn it, I am giving up for the moment.
So I am concentrating on Catalan now!
I am actually going to Catalonia tomorrow for ten days and will probably learn more Catalan in those ten days than all the Swiss German I have learnt in ten months. The reason for this is that I will be totally immersed in Catalan for the whole time and everyone there will speak to me purely in Catalan. Theres no doubt for me that this is the best way to learn.
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Hi Jim,
ReplyDeleteYou were lucky if you got everyone there to speak to you purely in Catalan. I lived there for a few years - mostly in Girona - and it was quite common for people to switch to Spanish even when I iniciated the conversation in Catalan.
You might be interested in taking a look at my blog about Galician language issues.
http://galidonia.blogspot.com/
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteA fair few people have switched to Spanish when I start talking to them in Catalan. I think they just assume that I must be able to speak better Spanish than Catalan. When they realize that I don't, they go back to Catalan. Also, in the village where I went on my holiday, I know most of the people I spoke to and they know that I can't speak Spanish so it was Ok.
Hi Jim,
ReplyDeleteYou're right. Learning Swiss German is almost impossible because we automatically switch to ("High")-German or English when we talk to foreigners. And yeah, there are tons of dialects that vary from canton to canton. May I ask what makes you so interested in "niche" languages like Swiss German or Catalan? :)
Stefan