Peter
That's a joke - I'm Swiss and I spoke High German when I was 3 - my parents are teasing me to this day that my brother and I always spoke High German when we were playing. We never spoke High German at home but everybody picks it up from watching TV. High German is more closely related to most Swiss dialects than the dialects to each other.
Must have been my younger cousin she's 192 and even I feel small next to her (I'm 179)
But wouldn't you agree that that's not the norm? BTW one of the people who told me that German is a foreign language was a Swiss who is a German teacher.
I actually read not so long ago in a newspaper of a study which shows that first graders while speaking standard German have an accent which is quite closer to a German accent. In 2nd or 3dr grade their pronunciation has became much more "Swiss". The reason given for this, is that the students imitate the way their teachers speaks to them, whereas preschool children are mainly taught by German-language TV programs.
By the way its extremely common that Swiss children, while playing things, that are related to TV (pretending to be a character from a cartoon or something like that) speak standard German with each other, simply because the characters in TV speak in this way.
in my company work so many german and so little swiss that this is happening so much and i find it kind of "stupid" (i know the swissies cant help it). but this back n forth, this jumping from one foot on another is ridiculous, honest! hahaha! some swiss i speak to reply swiss german (only the confident do and keep that up!), great. but some speak high german to me (some with little swiss emil accent) and switch as soon as there is another swiss for back up...and best of all: both in the same convo speak swiss german to each other and back to me in high german... sorry...sometimes its unbearable!!
I did not mean "General" but "generous"
50 Liberator bombers (or rather 48) means two units
that the factories you mention were only "mildly" hit or in most cases not at all, shows that it indeed was NOT planned
That Swiss industrial companies had a considerable market in Germany for its products is nothing secret, and the Germans were good payers. Business is business.
Immoral ? You may have heard people in Switzerland excusing this business line with the danger of a German invasion in case CH was not delivering. This of course at best is a half truth. Reality is that this for many companies in Switzerland, cut off from the outside world, was the only market which had remained
That banks in Switzerland accepted deposits from the German Reichsbank may not have been "noble" but was normal business practice, far worse however was that the banks before about 1938 had accepted vast deposits from German Jews, and then after the war only were ready to pay back if the survivors could show PROOF of the death of the account-owner !
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That's absolutely not true. I have spoken to many Swiss who keep insisting that for them, German is a foreign language. Even if they know you speak German but not Swiss German, in a group of Swiss they WILL NOT speak in German continuously. They will keep switching to Swiss German because, whether it is classified as a dialect or not, it is their mother tongue, not German. If you want to function in Swiss society, understand what the mad man on the bus is blabbering about, or participate in group conversations, you need to know Swiss German.[/QUOTE]
If anybody makes notes about anything, the notes are not in dialect but in the official language, generally known as Schriftdeutsch (Written German). To describe Standard German as a "foreign language" is a notion which was brought up in the 1930ies and somehow survived, but is wrong, and people who say it have not yet arrived in the modern world and ought to realize that Nazi Germany came to an end 66 years ago.
The CH-constitution is plainly clear about the topic :
Art. 4 Landessprachen
Die Landessprachen sind Deutsch, Französisch, Italienisch und Rätoromanisch.
No dialects are mentioned
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Age 3 and Standard German ? Using Standard German when playing as kid ?
True, neither is the norm. But children learn Standard German between age 7 and 8, and right from the start of the 2nd primary-class, all lessons are in Standard German and the pupils are not allowed to use dialect during lesson-time. THIS is the norm.
No, I am totally and absolutely sure that the German teacher you mentioned did NOT say what you (mis-) understood. Or meant it as a joke. What he referred to is that for him, teaching Standard German to kids (in the first primarly-class is like teaching a foreign language.
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Of course, playing kids will say "Hände hoch" and NOT "ue mit de Pfote"
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This is a result of all those stupid "Lokal-Radios" where texts first are written down in Standard-German and then read out in dialect And the TV "DRS" first using Standard German for the news, then switching to dialect for the weather, etc, does not make things better !
Please let this be a very early April fools day joke or I need to consider to find a different nationality http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...urovision.html
I had a side gig for more than a decade as an interpreter for Coberco Kaas importer, it was fun. I still retain that little bit of Dutch my colleagues drilled in me. I generally agree with the obviously lightly made stereotypes here, I found the folks warmer, down to earth, ready to laugh any sec. The accent was a little hard at times, but who's isn't. It's a completely different place. The attitude was more palatable than here at first, maybe because I found folks generally more prone to rip a joke on their own account, they allowed themselves easily to laugh at themselves..it wasn't too kosher to obviously marvel at their own culture or anything that would make them better than other places. Low key, good sense of humor. My best friend from there was a Tai-chi instructor, 5ft3 though. Funky dreadlocked libertarian socialist.
That said, cold crankiness...here and at home, same thing. Once you break in the circles, find great friends or colleagues, people are super dependable and warm. I think social ease and spontaneity might be defined differently in different cultures.
But where exactly is the problem ? True, the man is visibly aging, but he is an experienced actor and entertainer. Non-citizens of a particular country working for the country in culture or /and sports are quite common nowadays.
A pity that he chose NL and not CH, as he might have spared us from the yearly "national identity crisis" coming up each time after the Contest
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. I agree with wolli. He should represent switzerland and spare us the humiliation... !
verdorie....although do you really think he would do worse than toppers?
I mean in a country like CH where 4th class entertainers (mediocre DJs) are celeberated as "word stars" he would be miles above average !
You forget the main ingredient in this soup: national myths and popular science. Nothing to do with linguistics and human science methodology. Chinese teachers will all tell you that cantonese is a dialect, that does not replace the linguistic research and definitions on that matter even if they really believe their assersion to be a fact. You can also hear a lot of plain wrong things about France from French, about Germany from German, about Switzerland from Swiss, about Japan from Japanese etc... From what I've read on this forum, only the Brits are perfect.
good point, you guys can keep him then
I am sure Glennis won't have him
I like living in this modern-day tower of Babel, and I contribute to the linguistic chaos in my own little fashion on a daily basis.
The Swiss give each other hard times about their dialects--they don't often understand each other well, so I feel right at home when the repair man rattles off something about needing to come back tomorrow in his thickest dialect, and I answer him in hochdeutch that I didn't understand a word he just said.
The lady who cuts my hair goes on how she haaaaatees when French speakers refuse to speak a word of German when they speak to her, so sometimes I throw a beaucoup after my Merci instead of vielmal just to throw them off their game.
In our local cafe I will hear Swiss German Hochdeutch, English, Spanish all within 30 seconds of each other, so I often make incoherent grunting noises just to add to the variety.
I love playing the goodbye/hello game. I know this one from Germany and I'm a pass master. This consists of using a different greeting to no mattter what form is used by the other person. I like playing this game. Sometimes when I've been trumped I'll throw in my best "see-ya" which usually gets me a smile.
The Swiss are great, I love to listen to their dialects and try to make heads and tails out of it all.
And just for the record I call me German wife "Sommervogel" now instead of "Schmetterling."
Paul
Do you often hear Swiss German in Berlin or is your location misleading me on this one?
Wolli does think he represents Switzerland
No, I'm not sure why this doesn't change! I've never lived in Berlin in my life, and I would have never even chosen it at random.
We're in Basel..........
Paul