Alas, I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member!

Tom

Oh, so that's how it's written.

I do not have personal experience here as I speak French and am learning Italian, but to learn Swiss German, I think someone would really have to make an effort. From what native German speakers have told me, yes, some of the words are the same, but they don't understand most of Swiss German either!

I have rarely (if ever) met a German who speaks or even tries to speak Swiss-German. All other nationalities - it seems to me - take the trouble to at least try and there are many who only having ever heard S-G cannot speak high-G.
If I ever get the chance of being born again and come to life in Switzerland I hope it will be as a member of the Valais community. I love the dialect.

Here in Europe, "loud" will be the adjective more often used rather than "open", so it's really down to cultural differences.
I've found there's a few reasons for this, most of which have already been cited here, such as English being a far more useful language here, career-wise, so it's in their interests to practice it, whenever they have a chance, with a native speaker. High German is also, ultimately, a foreign language for the Swiss, that they were forced to learn in school, so there's probably a bit of negative association with it (much like your average Irishman will have for Irish Gaelic after 12 years of schooling in it).

And you have to ask yourself; is their English better than my German? If so, it probably makes sense to communicate in the former, even if it doesn't help you learn the language.

Personally I just respond in German in such situations, ignoring the fact they're speaking in English, until they get the message - but yes, it makes learning German (or even knowing what to learn) a much slower process.
Germans, unless Swabian, have a problem with Swiss German when they move over here. It comes out of the subconscious assumption that Switzerland should be like Germany because they speak 'German'. The Germans are not alone in this - how many Americans are shocked to find that the UK is culturally very different to the US and vice versa, despite sharing the same language?

However, Germans being Germans, do tend to presume that the German way of doing something must me the only correct way, so they tend to look down on Swiss German as some feeble minded dialect - I've heard it called a Krüppelsprache in the past and have been told that it 'hurts' their ears to hear it.

Given this, if they do stay here long enough, they do seem to get used to it and have known a few who have learned to speak it and even admit to it having grown on them.

Don't call their dialect that to a Ticinese - they'll get terribly upset.

As for Lombardo being "pure Italian", it's not. The closest Italian dialect to standard Italian is Tuscan (you can thank Dante for that) and even there, there are some differences.
A language is a dialect with a military.

at my little nebenjob we are a group of about 15 people. 12 of them swiss great learning group