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| Hi Oldhand
It`s not the Swiss German that`s the problem but High German. I thought my children were reasonably fluent in both until the decision on where they would go for Secondary School. We then discovered, rather too late, that they still didn`t have enough depth of vocabulary and understanding of grammar in their High German. If a child goes through the Swiss system here their German needs to be as good as a first language. Perhaps it`s better for the children who arrive later as they learn High German first. | |
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But then the kids learn high german, but they have Swiss German in the classroom (which technically is not supposed to happen), so it must be very hard for those kids - especially since their ability to pick up a language, while still good, declines with age.
Tell your kids not to worry - there's quite a few natives around here that don't have enough depth of vocabulary and understanding of grammar in their high German.... and by natives I mean adults who were born here... Ask any German what they think about this and they'll probably start chuckling.
I had someone tell me once that many errors have been pointed out in the high german textbooks used to teach kids (swiss kids) German. Apparently these errors remain because this is the way kids were always taught German, so it's a kind of officially swiss-ified high german. Sorry I know my capital letters are inconsistant in this message, I'm just too tired to do capitals today...
