I am from Bosnia and I work for Swiss. I speak english and I would like to learn Swiss German, can somebody recommend me a German course or a summer school in St. Gallen?
Thank you

I would also like to learn swiss-german, but presently live in the states. Does any one have any resources for me either online or a subscription through the mail?

Swiss German is like learning Geordie or Cockney slang. It differs from area to area. Züri, Glarna, Appenzella its all different. The only thing you can do is practice clearing your throat i.e. making a horrible grumbling noise.

DC

although I have seen books on Baernduetsch and lots of tapes/cD's with children stories and such in the different dialects, mostly, in my experience, Baernduetsch, so maybe there's something out there, other than Pimsleur's Swiss-German. Auso, bis spaeter.

Or maybe watch Donald Duck in High German

http://www.books.ch/shop/action/quic...g=swiss+german

merci vieumals

nope, to my big big big chagrin,these tapes are more often than not in Zürichdeutsch or a similar sounding east swiss accent

in fact it's quite tricky to find storytapes/childrens songs for kids in bärndütsch ( of course the most beautiful dialect and yes i am soooooooo biased )

No, joke aside,if it's tagged as SCHWYZERTÜTSCH on the package it'll sound very 'eastern' e.g.direction zürich oder similar

for grown ups i recommend the 'Bärner Troubadoure',of which the famous Mani Matter was a founder member too,their chansons are timeless and easy to understand for beginners.

Jakob Stickelberger did a song tape for kids many years ago, called 'Musikalisches Tierbuech' also very recommendable,but ehrm contains a little bit strong language e.g dummi chue [stupid cow] and such

I have a cd-rom somewhere that is "Swiss German For Beginners." I actually knew 90% of it at the time, but my wife gave it to me nonetheless. The best part of the program was that there was a man and a woman -- they almost never agreed when it came to pronunciation. I loved it when they actually used different words.

In my opinion you can only learn Swiss German in the locality in which you live. I've come across quite a few immigrants who speak Swiss German perfectly -- so it is possible to do (I've yet to learn a dialect so well). By the way, the first "immigrant" I've ever come across with perfect Swiss German was in St. Gallen -- she was from Slovakia. It is possible, but very, very difficult, which she confirmed.

Another problem with Swiss-German is that it is a moving target. What you might learn from a book written a few years back might not be correct any more. The folks tend to change the language over time.

I've got a book in the Walser dialect that mentions that the children will often use very different words than the adults. When the children grow up, they keep using their words, and their children create still more new words. Since there's not really a written language, there isn't anything that really keeps them to a standard.

No matter how well you learn Swiss-German, if you move within Switzerland expect to have your legged pulled for speaking funny. It's the nature of the language, there is no standard form.

I was told that the Pimsleur's Swiss-German CD is mainly Baslerdeutsch. Can anyone confirm this? If it's Walliserdeutsch you're definitely setting yourself up for a hard time .

If you have iTunes, there are two audiobooks on Swiss German by Pimsleur (This might also be on any other digital download store with audiobooks). The first is Lessons 1-5 and the second is Lessons 6-10.