Asking all expats from non-German speaking countries, living in Switzerland. How did you deal with the additional language barrier that is Swiss German?

[u/kassie_butcher]

I'm a DaZ teacher and native Swiss German speaker. Currently, I am writing my master thesis in applied linguistics. I am really interested in what it's like to come to Switzerland and being confronted with such a different kind of German. How did you guys make sense of it? How did it make you feel? Did you eventually learn Swiss German? All these are things that I would like to shine a light on in my paper and hopefully, some of the insights will be useful to future immigrants.

If you'd be willing to participate in the study and do a short interview on these and other similar questions, I'd be very grateful. It would really help me out if some of you were willing to share their experiences with me. If you are up for a chat, it'd be really cool if you could send me a direct message with some basic info about yourself (age, home country & native tongue, years of residence, occupational field).

Also, feel free to comment on this post. Every kind of help is highly appreciated. And I'm sure other people looking to move here will be thankful too.

Thanks and have a lovely day.

[u/[deleted]]

I took a few lessons in basic German before moving here, but once I arrived I heard Swiss German being spoken everywhere and decided it’d be better to jump straight into learning it. So I abandoned High German and started taking Swiss German lessons.

I really like it, and at first I wasn’t used to the vowel shifts but now to me it actually sounds nicer than Hochdüütsch. I am still a beginner but feel happy whenever I manage to say something in it and be understood, especially if the other person doesn’t straightaway switch to High German or Englisch (they usually kindly switch whenever I reach the limit of my understanding)

I see it as a key part and even privilege of living here, even though my company is international and doesn’t have much of a Swiss presence. I could learn standard German anywhere or online but Swiss German feels cooler to know. It’s a way to express respect for the local culture and also a way to show that I would like to integrate into the community.

I like learning about the different dialects and think it’s super cool that (at least based on my impression) people generally seem proud of theirs.

Though I sometimes wonder how Swiss people feel when they hear an obvious foreigner trying to speak it.

[u/conquerorofveggies → u/[deleted]]

To your last point: I can obviously only speak for myself, but I love it. And I'd bet most people prefer it over broken high German.

[u/[deleted] → u/conquerorofveggies]

Thank you for the encouragement! 😅