The swiss seem to be fiercely proud of being swiss and swiss germans like to separate themselves from being germans and that is great

yet I struggle to find any educational facilities where I can learn "swiss german".. as opposed to High German, no problems finding learn to speak german schools.

Is there anything out there, is there a reason why?.. After a little look I found a few other posts but would as I would be starting a new language from scratch I just want to get directly to some kind of proficiency in Swiss german.. Ill come back to German later

I understand your frustration but...

it just makes more sense to learn high German due to the fact that reading and writing is done in high German.

It's easier to learn high German and then switch it into Swiss German than vice versa.

Trust me, I know this as I took the Swiss German road first.

Here you go: http://www.swissing.ch/en/swiss.php

Migrosschule has Swiss German lessons in most of their centres.

thanks mate

They will only accept students from level B1 and above, the OP mentioned he was starting from scratch.

	Quote:
	Would you like to finally understand their Swiss colleagues, friends and girlfriends better? This course is aimed at people who already speak good German high (at least level B1) or even have German as their native language.

I would also recommend learning High German and then learning some Swiss German. My OH told me not to worry about SG when I was looking at starting. There are some SG books available, vocab etc., and I tend to look at these alongside my HG books.
Good luck whichever way you go.

I second the team: learn High German first. As an adult learner its the better option. A sort of standard swiss german can't be learned anyway - every region has its dialect. Living in Geneva how about French for a start?
when you're competencies in Swiss German are spot on try this finally: dialects.from.ch ...back to question: advertise for tandem or job offer for a tutor ...in Genève http://www.unige.ch/emploi/Accueil.html
If their competencies should be up-notch try http://www.asso-etud.unige.ch/aeti/accueil/index.php - coz the ETI alumni and students have often teaching experience in languages. I know for sure that you can find swiss german speakers there.

is there any swiss german language center in lausanne?

If you really want to learn only the dialect and not the language, then go for the immersion. Dialect is spoken only, so just learn by hearing like every body else speaking it. You can always go to chatrooms to practice your written dialect skills if you wish, but you´ll find all kind of dialects used in the same chatroom by different users and many inconsistencies in the linguistic system. If you can deal with that without high german, go for it. Or start an intense sms-exchange with Swiss friends.

I don't judge, so you are welcome to avoid high german if you can. However: even the dialect speakers learn high german whole their lives. The influence of high german on the dialect and daily speech should not be underestimated. I watch Arena regularly, and as soon as the vocab is not related to Heidi's life but to modern urban and social reality, the words are taken from high german and made sound dialectal. I have nothing against it but the dialect speakers do understand this part of the dialectal vocab only because they know high german. Even among the younger generation, you hear sometimes nouns ending with the suffix -ung, which is -iig in dialect.

But I am not forcing you to believe me. You are free to do what you please.

Here is a breakdown for you:

1. Learn German -learn the basics, the cases, conjugation, how to pronounce etc...
2. Interact with Swiss Germans: they will speak to you automatically in Swiss German, tell them High German please especially if you're at a public facility -they have to speak to you in proper German.

3. After doing this for a few months, you will find yourself understanding every colloquial Swiss German word there is...once that is accomplished you'll start using yourself...

You can't learn Swiss German without knowing the basics of high German

S-G is merely a dialect...You can't learn a Boston accent if you don't speak English...

Not entirely true. If you learn your English in Boston your likely to have a Boston twang. I learned my German in Switzerland, hence my Swiss accent when speaking high-German.

If you want to speak with a Boston accent, you will have to first learn the English everybody speaks, then the Boston accent will come later...
Did you learn your cases in Swiss German?

?? which 'everybody'?

To us, non-native speakers, there is an English that one should know before getting fancy with the deco. To natives, of course, this level of language command is baby-talk, but we non-natives have to go through it first. This is exactly what the OP hast to go through in German first, whether he wants to get a Swiss twist to his German or sound like a northern Frisian fisherman is really far to early to debate.

Standard English is proper English, that's what I meant.

In conclusion, one must speak High German before he/she switches to Swiss German if they don't want to turn into a parrot that repeats things like wie gahts, chunsch du mit ois id Schwyz... had he learned German, he/she would know that it is colloquial for wie geht's dir & kommst du mit uns in die Schweiz and would have an easy time picking up locally spoken sentences.

There are exceptions Lejoker. I came to Switzerland without any German, what so ever. I worked in the mountain region of Graubunden and never went to school for German. I learned spoken Swiss German first and as my vocabulary grew, started to read more. I have no problems communicating with high-German speakers.

None of the immigrants who arrived in America in the early years would have learned English if they first had to learn school English. It may not be the best road in some peoples opinion but it is very doable.

My cleaning lady is like that too. If you only want to communicate then yes, dialect or not doesn't matter. That will be basic communication level and that can be enough. It depends your life. My cleaning woman is very happy too.
If you want to actually speak the language, then dialect does not cover it. Goalsetting is the key.

I do speak the language Faltrad.

I entirely acquiesce.