I think he means he has been here 2 weeks but will stay 2 months in total.

(or maybe I don't understand his English. )

I once went to Bern. I couldn't find anyone who spoke English either.

Mainly because it was Saturday afternoon. Everything was closed and the place was deserted.

I used #3 to good effect in France. I asked in French, and when I got a reply in English, I switched to Chinese and she decided French was not such a bad compromise

Bern is Bern and NOT "a lot of the world"


and THIS here for whomever thinks that "accents" do not matter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1TnzCiUSI0

That you are determined to learn German and Swiss-German to some extent is nice and commendable. You however ought to realize a few realities :
- Bernese speak BäRNTüüTSCH and NOT Swiss-German
- Bernese are not keen on "interaction"
- Bernese take it slowly. When they started to reply you already had dashed to your lodgings to torture your computer

True, but it's one thing to expect to find people who speak English in a country, and another to expect to find a job only knowing English if you go to a country where the official language is NOT English!

You mean züri-style "interaction" which basically consists of talking about oneself?

So Bernese Swiss-German isn't Swiss German, but Zuri Swiss-German is?

Amazing....

Where for example does Basler Swiss-German fit into your very strange view of the world?

I missed the bit where he said that. Could you quote it for us, please?

Is it the fault of the Zürcher, when the Berner still are reconsidering their replies when the Zürchers already have boarded the train back to Zch

> ZüRI-TüüTSCH of course, what else



> they in Baaasel speak BAAASLERISCH or
BAAASEL-TIITSCH

The thing with the Zürcher(s) is that you guys consider it actually necessary to fill in the gaps between two important pieces with white noise...

The Z:

Yourblablablablablatrainblablablablaleavesblablabl ablaatblablablabla8.02blablablabla.
ablablatrainblablablablaleavesblablablablaatblabla blabla8.02blablablabla.

The B. understands:

Yourblablablablablatrainblablablablaleavesblablablablaatblablablabla8.02blablablabla.

No wonder then that the O.P. misses the "interaction"

Wiki can sort that out for you.

Basler fits with Alemán Coloniero from the canton of Venezuela .....

You are correct. He didn't say that.

My post was made under the mistaken assumption that Wollishofener had a point, other than increasing his post count.

My bad, sorry.

I dunno, you think he wants to hear about the new shoes you bought when he wants to know when the train leaves?

Old one, I know. It does take us some time to memorize these jokes...

The "point" you apparently fail to see is that to speak Bärntüütsch in places like St. Gallen or Schaffhausen will not help you at all but rather make matters more complicated. And Zürchers do not exactly appreciate Baaasel-Tiitsch. In Basel (one big point for those folks ) they, at least most of them are relatively tolerant, except that they feel sooooo superior above the Alsace people.

And what results from this for immigrants ? Simple. That they in the first case should concentrate on the Standard Language as the basis, and then, when having a kind of basis, carefully venture out into the local or regional dialect(s).

As soon as you in another language understand the local dialect (without speaking it) you at least have "won the battle" even if possibly not yet the war

Ancient !

I don't think its so simple.. whenever I asked that it seemed nobody respected that I wanted to speak german.. I lived in a WG of ski instructors in Berner Oberland. Most of them spoke Bern deutsch, but would only speak to me in english (they wanted to improve their mostly already fluent English too!). The problem came when we all had dinner: they all sat around chatting away to each other, and I had no idea what they were saying. Even when i asked them to speak Hochdeutsch so i'd understand they'd always slip back into it...

After 6 months of teaching swiss kids to ski from all over CH i can pretty much understand a one on one conversation spoken to me in most swiss dialects (nearly even grindelwald deutsch, which seems to most messed up of all..) but still have huge issues with group situations, or with loads of background noise..

OP: keep at learning hochdeutsch since everyone CAN speak it when they choose. Swiss german takes time..

Group situations in combination with background noise are a problem in all languages, made worse by people who do not care about speaking clearly, or people who are "speeding" when speaking as they primarily want to hear themselves.