Swiss German
People speak German in Germany (obviously), Austria and Switzerland, right? Not quite! A small part of it resists the linguistic hegemony and has not just its local dialect, but pretty much its own unique language.
We often get questions about whether you need to learn and speak German, and in particular Swiss German, from day one or whether you can learn it over time. Or whether you can possibly stick to English forever.
Like so many times in life, the right answer is of course: It depends!
There are fundamentally three different levels:
Level 1: You can start your Swiss journey without (Swiss) German
Techies probably have it the easiest. Especially when moving to a tech hub like Zürich or Basel, English is the professional language. Team members tend to come from so many different countries and can get away with not speaking any of the four official languages in Switzerland. Somebody who speaks neither German, French, Italian nor Romansh might have issues obtaining a Swiss passport someday, but will surely be able to live well for years within their (expat) bubble. For this reason, many websites of Swiss businesses are available in English and even public offices and government employees will, at least unofficially, communicate with you in English.
So it is only logical that Standard High German (as opposed to local dialects) will do just fine for you if you belong to this group. And you would certainly be able to make new friends with some Swiss people while only speaking Standard High German. Since the German-speaking Swiss speak different dialects of German among themselves, one might say that it is not so weird to simply speak yet another German dialect (aka Standard High German or just Standard German, not to be confused with High German which is a group of dialects including all dialects in Southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland).
Level 2: Understanding Swiss German, while not speaking it yourself
No matter how well you could live inside your bubble from Level 1, one day you might end up working in a “real” Swiss company (be it an SME or a Swiss multinational) instead of the Zurich office of a US corporation. And in this case, it helps a lot to at least be able to understand Swiss German and its dialects well, even if you can not speak in that language variant yourself and don’t plan on ever doing so.
One part of that argument is that the Swiss are just used to talk to “their own” in Swiss German, the other part is that you can earn a sympathy bonus by adjusting to the local dialect a bit. In the end, like every human, it requires some additional brain power to process a different language or dialect for everyone. So many immigrants are too lazy to learn the local language just like locals find it cumbersome to speak a foreign language or dialect. Not being “that one” German guy or American in the meeting that forces everyone to speak Standard German or English (even if you are polite about it), makes you appear so much nicer and puts you on the way to winning the Swiss people’s sympathy.
Anyone who has spent a year abroad in school or university probably knows what I am talking about. This feeling of being extra tired in the evening after conversing in a foreign language all day long, that is what I mean.
It is generally advisable to get used to your local variant of Swiss German! Whenever you go to the supermarket or the bakery, people will speak to you in the local dialect first. Now you might say that the extremely polite Swiss switch to Standard German or even English immediately, which is true. But is it really practical to require them to switch language first in each case because you don’t understand the local language yet?
In any case, I can tell you, being an immigrant to Switzerland myself, that you will slowly get into Swiss German just by listening to it as long as you don’t stay in your Standard German / English expat bubble all the time.
Level 3: Learning Swiss German properly
For the power users among you, or those who really want to integrate well, the way to go is to learn Swiss German including the particularities of your local dialect of your city or village. Not only to be able to listen to it, but to eventually also speak it actively yourself.
My recommendation to achieve Level 3: Set yourself the goal to learn Swiss German including which local variant you want to learn, e.g. Züridütsch, and then go step by step. As I explained earlier, the Swiss won’t bite you if you don’t speak their language at the end of the first week or even the first year in Switzerland. And even if you occasionally have to ask again what they mean, they tend to be patient with you, particularly if you keep working on it.
There are of course many courses, but also YouTube videos, Swiss TV series and movies on mainly SRF.ch to learn the “dialect” or “foreign language”.
Leave your comfort zone and try it
From my very own experience I can tell you: Yes, you won’t understand a thing in the first week. And even after a couple weeks, you will not comprehend much more. But after a little while longer you slowly get the feeling that it can’t be that hard after all. So far, I don’t speak Swiss German much during the day. And I am not even sure if I ever will. But in and around Zürich I don’t have any issues processing the Swiss German of the local people. I don’t have to ask my Swiss clients to switch back to Standard German for the poor immigrant who doesn’t understand their lingo yet.
And all that in spite of me not putting in much active effort to learn Swiss German. No language courses, no dictionaries or the like.
Learn Swiss German with Dominic Deville
All I did was listening to colleagues and stopping to ask clients to switch to Standard German, particularly during less complex and less important conversations over lunch.
There is also a more entertaining way of learning Swiss German. SRF, the Swiss publicly financed TV station, has their own copy of a Late Night Show inspired by famous American late night hosts like David Letterman and Stephen Colbert.
Similar to the German copy, ZDF’s Heute Show, Dominic Deville’s show is also very much on the political left and not very critical of the government, but in my opinion it is more intellectual than the German copy. Deville makes many jokes about Swiss behaviorisms, especially those that are probably noticeable for immigrants and expats. This includes topics such as the occasionally extreme orderliness of the Swiss or more recently the more liberal and slower COVID response.
All that of course in Swiss German, sometimes with English (YouTube) or German (SRF.ch) subtitles. So I can only recommend to anyone interested in the Swiss language to start watching Deville for free on SRF.ch or on YouTube. You can learn so much about the language, the country and the culture of Switzerland. It will in many ways make your entry to (the German part of) Switzerland easier.
If you have more questions about Swiss German and how to get started, shoot us a message!
