The traffic policeman came to my son's Kindergarten this morning - seems to have made a good impression - he had a gun!!
My son has been given a book with the phrase Warte-luege-lose-laufe in it - relating to crossing the road. I don't understand 'lose'? Can anyone help me?
Thanks

Go! .........

Thank you - we will now be able to go across the road safely!

Sorry to contradict, but 'los' means go in high German.
'lose' in Swiss German means listen.
So, wait, look, listen, then go.

Thanks - that makes more sense actually, stop,look and listen is what we were taught at school.
As an aside, would 'Los' be understood as 'go', as in achtung, fertig,los?

"Jetz geht los" , It's is going to happening... So not really Go as in cross the street...

I give up

yes, exactly :-)

sh!t! I told my kid it was drop and roll....

A wonderful example of how the Swiss and Germans are separated by their common language. "Los!" means "Go!", both in Swiss German and in Standard German, but "lose" (different pronunciation of the "o"!) in Swiss German means "listen." "Laufe" in Swiss German means "to go" or "to walk," whereas in Standard German "laufen" means "to run." So, in Swiss German, the kids are not told to run across the street, as one might conclude after looking things up in a dictionary.

So yes, it is, "Wait, look, listen, walk" (preferably while the crossing is free, of course).

By the way, just to make things a bit more confusing, "lose" in Standard German means "loose"; "los" in Swiss German can have the same meaning, depending on the context. Now, if you think this is complicated, just look up what German translations a big dictionary has to offer for the English word "slip." Mine lists 28 possible versions.

If I may just butt in... About the word "luege", whenever I am in a shop in Zurich, a shop assistant approaches me, asks something in Swiss German which contains the word "helfen" (possibly), to which I answer "Nein, danke". She then will always go on to say something containing the word "luege", which, as I infer from the context, might mean: "You are just looking then".
What is the Swiss German phrase? I think I've heard it a hundred times already, but still can't repeat it...

My kids learned the same phrase except with a "auf die Rädli luege" at the end. This means look at the wheels and make sure they are no longer moving before crossing.
Apparently, there is always some confusion with many drivers just slowing down and giving a wave of the hand to indicate a child should cross the street. Since a young child can't estimate the speed of a car, they started to add this last bit to the saying.
Our policeman said we should "spread the word" to other drivers that it is up to the kids to decide when to cross and not to give any wave of the hand, just stop the car completely.

I guess they say: "Sind si noch chli am luege"

The thing is (as it was explained to me) that young children could interpret the hand sign as "you can cross the street (both sides)" when drivers just want to indicate that it is okay to cross their side of the street.

Just say from the get-go, "Ich bi nur am umeluege." If you dread the throat-splitting "ch," just omit it; that's OK in most dialects, and in Bernese it would be "Ig" anyway.

Oh, and the "ue" is a real diphthong, i.e. a (German) "u" followed by a (shwa-like) "e." It should sound a bit like the same "ue" in "cruel." It has nothing to do with the use of "ue" instead of "ü" on a non-German keyboard.

Besides giving out books, were the children not taken outside and instructed how to cross? Today I saw a policeman with a group of what appears to be 1st year kindergarten kids at one of the crossings near the village centre.

I think it is important for kids to be shown how to cross, a book is just not enough.

This is true - kids are taught here to only cross the road when the cars are actually completely stopped, not just slowing down. However, this is not generally what car drivers expect.

As a car driver, you see someone waiting to cross, quite a long way off, you slow down a bit, expecting the person to cross, but they don't. Because you already slowed down enough to give them time to cross and they didn't, you then assume that in fact they are just hanging about by the crossing and have no intention of going, so you just continue, over the crossing.

Of course as a parent as well as a car driver, I'm aware how the kids are taught, so when I see a child waiting I know that I must completely stop. But other drivers aren't. To be honest I'm a bit annoyed that there isn't more publicity about such things because it's confusing for everyone - for kids when cars don't stop for them and for car drivers expecting them to cross and they don't. Maybe they should replace some of those posters telling people "beginning of school, look out for kids" with something a bit more specific about full-stopping at crossings when kids are waiting.

Sorry this is not quite on topic, but thought it was an interesting point brought up.

I think the "listen" part in the OP has already been cleared up

In Germany either. Laufen lernen means to learn how to walk, not how to run. Everywhere up to Sylt's northern tip.

Los means any kind of start, as you let it "loose" or the "off" in the expression "off you go".

Two specific dialect words are luege and lose (although lugen exists in lower Rhine, but not in Dutch for some reason).

I agree, but cum grano salis. For instance, in Standard German, "Lauf!" mainly means "Run!" In Swiss German it doesn't. Here you'd have to say (or yell), "Renn!" or, even more vernacular, "Seckle!" Folks, please don't ask me to explain the origin of this one.

Oh, and there also is the Standard German "lauschen" as the ethymological sibling of the Swiss German "lose." I didn't list that to prevent even more confusion.

To me, restricting laufen to run in Germany is plain wrong but that's not what you are actually doing, so no problem. Your pinch of salt is of course welcome, but speaking natively also French, I can tell you that I genuously think that I don't make that difference as a concept at all: in German, not the speed is relevant but the verb of action vs verb of mouvement.
In sports, athletic walking is das Walking, cross country sky is neither run nor walk but still Langlauf. To my German head, the word laufen just doesn't fit run/walk categorizations. My French head however understands you perfectly and even agree with the appropriateness of your questioning.

They were taken out, seem to have had fun and learned a lot. I was just looking at the book, saw the quote and wanted to make sure I was giving my son the same instructions as the policeman did.