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| That makes me wonder, what are the criteria for a native Swiss German speaker to speak in High German to a foreigner? Do they reply in swiss-german because the person is a foreigner from "a less desirable country"? Is it becase he/she doesn't speak high-german very well? Or is it because it's hard to speak high-german for the swiss and they mind the effort? Or is it because they just want to annoy? Or is it... Ok, enough.
So what are your experiences on this, could any other high-german speaker living in swiss-german area provide an insight? Can you get by with high-german and how (in)convenient is it? | |
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Hi baris
This is an interesting topic and no doubt one which will run and run!
I can only speak from my own experience. I am a high German speaker who has lived in Switzerland for four years. I have never had a problem getting people to understand me, and I have never been told by any Swiss person that it's a problem for them to speak high German to me. Nobody has ever even mentioned it! Invariably when I speak to a Swiss person, they ask me if I would like them to talk in high German, and I always reply that I don't mind. They usually switch to high German anyway, and it seems they do this naturally and without much effort. Maybe I've just been lucky? I speak to people in high German wherever I go, and it just hasn't been an issue so far.
I have picked up a lot of the dialect, and although I never speak it, I can undertand much of it. The only time I have problems is very occasionally when I speak to a Swiss person on the telephone, but this gets rarer the longer I'm here.
I really can't comment on whether the Swiss use the dialect deliberatly with people from 'less desirable' countries or not. I would like to think not, but who knows!
So, IMHO, if you can speak high German, and you are polite and friendly, you'll always get by...........
