entschuldigung mittenand!! (ATT: Inappropriate language warning)

sälü... So sorry everyone that I kind of took this blog for granted and haven't really done much updating at all. Needless to say my swiss german as of now hasn't improved much from my last post of 6 months ago, although I just got back from CH this evening and learned a few new phrases which I would like to share with you all. One phrase is, well, a curse, so just be aware and please don't get offended! It's kind of nice to sometimes learn the things that people don't tell you in school :)

So for starters, I learned that the popular phrase in german "bis bald" which means "see you soon" in swiss german is "bis när."

So a really helpful phrase which I have known for a while is "I know" and "I don't know." This small phrase can get you pretty far, trust me. So in high german it's "Ich Weiss" but in swiss german it is "i weis," which is pronounced like e, as in e like the letter e, like in the word "he" and then vase, like the same way you say face. Then it is "i weis nid" for "ich weiss nicht" which is "I don't know."

Oh I also learned the difference between the words "einzig" which means "only" and the word "eisig" which is "ice..." although in high german you can also just say "eis."

Oh and for the grand finale..... a curse! So as I am sure most of you are familiar with the phrase "verpiss dich" which means "go fuck yourself." Well the suisse twist on that is instead "fick di is chnöi," which directly translates to "fuck yourself in the knee," but it really just means "fuck off!"

So I hope you enjoying my small random ramblings and hopefully I can keep this up a bit. I have been thinking about taking an actual high german language course to further my studies, so we will see how that will affect my bärndütsch...

TSCHUSS (Which means bye, like ciao by the way)

Verben

The verbs below correspond to the verbs in my last post. Please read my last post to get a better understanding of sentences!

Regular Verbs - regelmässig verben

swiss german/high german

heisse/heissen (literally means to mean or to be called, not to be confused with the word heiss for hot, which I do all the time lol.)

i - heisse

du - heissisch

är, si, äs, me - heisst

mir - heisse

dihr - heisset

si - heisse

wohne/wohnen (to live)

i - wohne

du - wohnsch

är, si, äs, me - wohnt

mir - wohne

dihr - wohnet

si - wohne

schaffe/arbeiten (to work... I have found that there are actually even more ways to say work depending on where within the berner oberland or bern region you go. This is just one of the, and the one that I am familiar with.)

i - schaffe

du - schaff(i)sch

är, si, äs, me - schaffet

mir - schaffe

dihr - schaffet

si - schaffe

rede/reden or sprechen (to talk)

i - rede

du - redsch

är, si, äs, me - redt

mir - rede

dihr - redet

si - rede

IRREGULAR VERBS / UNREGELMÄSSIG VERBEN

swiss german/high german

sy/sein (to be)

i - bi

du - bisch

är, si, äs, me - isch

mir - sy

dihr - syt

si - sy

ha/haben (to have)

i - ha

du - hesch

är, si, äs, me - het

mir - hei

dihr - heit

si - hei

cho/kommen (to come)

i - chume

du - chunsch

är, si, äs, me - chunt

mir - chöme

dihr - chömet

si - chöme

chönne/können (to be able)

i - cha

du - chasch

är, si, äs, me - cha

mir - chöi

dihr - chöit

si - chöi

U wär syt dihr?

Which translates in english into "and who are you?"

This entry is going to focus on being able to talk about yourself. I will cover some basic verbs and basic sentence structures. While this will not explain in depth how sentences are structured and that may still be a bit confusing, hopefully this may help to carry on a partial conversation in the meantime.

Here are some quick beginning of phrases to start with, and we can fill in the answers later.

To speak using a polite form you need to use the second person plural dihr. However, since this pronoun appears after the verb, it is weakened to 'er with an unstressed e. This is expressed by the third personal plural - as opposed to other High German and Swiss german dialects.

Wi heisset'er? - I heisse...

What is your name? (literally, how do you call yourself?) - My name is...

Wo wohnet'er? - I wohne...

Where do you live? - I live...

Vo wo chömet'er? - I chume...

Where do you come from? - I come (from)...

Wi redet'er? - I rede...

(This is a literal translation since I am not quite sure of the correct one...)

How do you speak? - I speak...

Was schaffet'er? - I schaffe als...

What do you do for work? - I work as...

Was isch öji Muetersprach? - My Muetersprach isch...

What is your mother tongue? - My mother tongue is...

Chöit'er (guet/rächt guet/schlächt/nid) Bärndütsch? - I cha...

(The literal translation would be something like this...)

Can you Bärndütsch (good, quite good, bad, not)? - I can...

(If you cannot understand my meaning, don't hesitate to ask me!)

i wärde gah nach Berlin donnschtig!!!!

Or in High german... ich werde gehen nach Berlin donnerstags. Which in english means I will go to Berlin on Thursday. At least that is what I hope it means haha. I tried to do my best translation, and wow is this stuff hard. But at least I will be in Germany for 4 days so that should help my german.

Ok so quickly before I go into verbs let's start with grammatik :)

Instead of doing a whole chart I am going to start with just the basic personal pronouns

english - high german - swiss german

I - ich - i(g)

you - du - du

he - er - är

she - sie - si

it - es - äs

we - wir - mir

you (plural) - ihr - dihr

they - sie - si

So let's take the verb "to go" which in High german is gehen and in bärndütsch is gah or gange, but I am just going to be focusing on using gah.

i gah/gange (I GO)

du geisch (YOU GO)

är, si, äs geit (HE, SHE, IT GOES)

mir göh (WE GO)

dihr göht (YOU ALL GO)

si göh (THEY GO)

Greetings In Berndutsch

So I am not going to get into anything too too crazy like grammer yet since I don't fully understand it myself. AND PLEASE, if you have any corrections for me I would love to know.

I also understand and want you readers to understand that Swiss German dialects are primarily spoken and do not really have one set way of writing things, since the majority of the time everyone writes in High German. There is not an "official" swiss german dictionary out there to my knowledge, though there are books out there on various dialects. Though a lot of my friends do write to each other on facebook and such in their various dialects with various spellings and abbreviations for things, so I am sorry if the way I write the following is not the same way that someone else writes it.

That being said, there are way too many ways to greet people, in bern or in switzerland in general haha. To give an example a difference between dialects this is a great way to show it.

In Zürich one of the main ways to say hello would be, Grüezi.

But in Bernese Oberland, you would hear more of Grüessech.

This would be considered the same thing as saying guten Tag, meaning good day, in German.

For some alternate greetings there are the following.

SINGLUAR:

guete Morge - good morning

guete Tag - good day

gueten Aabe - good evening

uf Widerluege - goodbye, farewell

guet Nacht - good night

adjeu - goodbye

grüess di - hello (informal, used during the day)

tschou - hello

hallo - hello

sälü - hello

hoi - hello

The way that I understand it, is generally if you were to greet more than one person, you would add mitenand to the end of the greeting. Therefore saying grüessech mitenand, which is guten Tag allerseits in german, meaning like hello everybody, literally translating to something like good day on all sides in english.*

*(If you are on first name terms with someone, it may be more appropriate to use grüssech zäme instead, or tschou zäme. Zäme literally means together. In german this would be zusammen. Again, translating into hello everyone. )

Grüessech!

So just a little introduction about myself...

January 14th 2011, I officially left America and moved to Europe. Had a week in France, a layover in Zurich, and a few days in Rome before my final destination of Florence. Now you may be thinking, so why is this American girl who lives in Italy making a blog about some random swiss german dialect eh? Well my second weekend of living in Florence my roommates decided to go to Interlaken, and one of my dreams was to always snowboard the swiss alps so I tagged along. Unforuntately I pinched a nerve in my neck on 8 hour bus ride and was unable to complete my dream... so a few weeks later I proceeded to go back, and go back, and go back...

Since moving to Europe, I have been to Switzerland 5 times already (If you count my layover in Zurich, lol)! My friends joke with me that I spend more time there, than in Florence. The more time I spent in Switzerland, the more it and it's residents stole my heart.

I am currently trying to teach myself the Swiss German dialect from the Berner Oberland Region of Swizterland. There may also be some slight differences from people speaking this dialect in Bern since I am learning this dialect in and around the Interlaken Jungfrau Region. Whether this is stupid or brilliant of me to try and learn some basic words in this dialect without much knowledge of the German language is besides the point. I have yet to see barndutsch to english help out there on the internet so I thought I would start a blog where people can come and try to learn a few basic phrases along with me, as well as come and talk about their adventures through Berner Oberland, and all of CH in general.

I will also now post some links to other great websites with good resources to learning Swiss German/German and general information on Switzerland.

1. http://www.englishforum.ch/

(This is probably the best forum out there for all Swiss related news, info, and help.)

2. http://www.swissworld.org/en/

(General information on Switzerland.)

3. http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/dialects/

(Has great links to various pages about all swiss german dialects.)

4. http://www.edimuster.ch/baernduetsch/woerterbuechli.htm#H

(Great german-berndutsch lexicon, you can maybe try to google translate the page to english?)

5. berndeutsch.ch

(Again, another lexicon. Just found this page so am not sure on how to review it...)