i guess it is just a common sense -
1. Stealing is not good.
2. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West.
3. Everybody will die.
4. Sugar is sweet.
5. French sounds beautiful and melodic.
6. Swiss German doesn't sound beautiful and melodic.
voilà.
I have the impression that many Swiss people do not like to move out of their hometown region just because of this peculiarity of character. You gather your friends at school, apprenticeship, work, being in some "Verein", and as I see often, it stops around late adolescence/ getting married and starting a family.
They know is quite hard to build up a new circle of friends elsewhere and that makes them stay at their "birthplace". I discussed this topic it with many friends and they all thought it very courageous of me to move away and "to start a new life".
Most of them live still around where I originally come from and it is even "too much trouble" to visit me, but they always love to have me over and tell them from my adventures in Zürich...
It was kinda easier in Zurich, because I always had jobs where I meet many people. But it took time anyway.
It was always easiest with those who had also moved from another city, they were more open in acquiring new friends. Being vouched for or hunting down other newcomers is most promising then.
It is either you don't have an ear for music or ...
Sure , you enjoy listening to all those KKKHHHHH sounds ( sore throat sounds) a lot.
German has many dialects besides Swiss German that differ far enough from the standard to be very difficult to understand, some perhaps even more than Swiss German: Friesisch, Plattdeutsch, Berlienerisch, Bayrisch, Kölsch, etc.
I'm certain most everybody on here who didn't learn German until grownup (except probably those speaking Letzeburgisch) understand barely a word of what BAP sing (I assure you, it IS German).
Or try some bayrisch:
Also, Swiss roll their Rs whereas Germans make that weird sound that is generally associated with a speech defect in Russian .
Next, Letzebuergesch, while geographically close to BAP home land (Köln / Cologne) has different roots (mosel-fränkisch) and serious influx of French (and a bit of Flemish), so does not contribute all that much to the ability of understanding the Kölsch dialect (i.e. vocabulary is off and pronounciation and intonation, too)
Just for the record.
As for the mutual intelligibelity - oh yeesssss.
Disclaimer: Not a linguist. Just a "victim".
Although I can read and translate any text and understand everything that's said, I still have issues with grammar. The Swiss German always creeps back in.
Hence, here I've focused on learning to write High German, understanding Swiss and High German and speaking mostly High German with increasingly Swissified elements when I speak with Swiss people. It's working, and frankly it's not much more work, you just eaves-drop on everyone around you, watch television and try to soeak as much as possible; hiking alone in the Alps helps with the latter, you ALWAYS meet someone. Hopefully one day I'll achieve a good level in both.
My theory is that the only reason Swiss German isn't qualified as a language is that it hasn't a written form. But frankly, if Alsatian and Luxemburgish are languages (which they apparently are), I might as well treat Swiss German as if it was a language with a relation to High German somewhat similar to Danish/Swedish vs Norwegian.
It's one thing for people who already know hochdeutsch or High German to move to Deutschweiz and slowly learn the local Swiss German dialect that everybody else speaks. (It helps that although Swiss may not LIKE to speak hochdeutsch, most of them in this region ARE able to understand and answer in that language.)
But it must be difficult for someone who doesn't even know standard German to learn it in a region where nobody else is speaking it and you don't hear anything in real life close to what you hear in audio recordings. What is the best way for THAT person to learn German or dialect? (Feel free to post a link to another thread.)
Nonetheless Letzeburgisch (Moselfränkisch), like Kölsch, is part of Mittelfränkisch. They're not just geographically close, but also linguistically. As for influence from other languages: Which western or central european language does that not apply to?
Move to North Dakota where German is the 2nd-most spoken language after English
Joking aside, the usual forms of distant learning are probably at the core of your efforts, perhaps including listening to german songs or tv/radio broadcasts - with movies I'd go for original german stuff only because lip-synching is absent with material produced in English, which imho is an important help when learning pronounciation. For me the biggest part in advancing my English post-school (6.5 years, probably more than a thousand lessons in total) was reading literature in English almost exclusively (Stephen King got me hooked) - I used to look up unknown words and learn them by ordinary learnign by heart, still do, perhaps that works for you also.
In order to practice you might look for German speakers near you e.g. in meetup, possibly including playgroups - while I didn't get the impression that you are in the age group that has small children they may still provide valuable contacts as there probably are many native German speakers among them. And listening to somebody reading to 5-year-olds may be exactly what you need in terms of simplicity of language, language melody and precision in pronounciation.
Also good for my German, as she can't deal with the German paperwork!
Tom
eddiejc, get a native german girl/boyfriend, preferably one who doesn't speak your mother tongue - immersion squared coupled with utmost motivation
"The Zürich Bible ( Zürcher Bibel , also Zwinglibibel ) is a Bible translation historically based on the translation by Huldrych Zwingli . The translation of. Martin Luther was used as far as it was already completed. This helped Zwingli to complete the entire translation five years before Luther." Source: Wiki