Just a quick one. Can someone please phonetically spell out the word (Shernan) ?? or whatever Swiss people are saying to me before the word Wochenende. I`m scared to ask.
Cheers
Hi all,
I think it's "schoenen" is the actual word... (my keyboard has no umlauts but the O has an umlaut, hence the "oe".)
Phonetically you've got it pretty much perfect, "Shernan" is about as close as I can come up with
Thanks. Trying to learn the local dialect to try and fit in politely. God it`s hard.
Schones Wochenende
shernes with an S, not N
Shonen abend (or sschnabiiiii )
And the standard response is Gleichfals (glikefals) which means "same to you"
They are probably saying "En Schöne" - meaning: have a nice evening/day/afternoon/weekend (literally: a nice one).
You could say "gliichfalls" (German = gleichfalls) -> you too!
Thanks again people. I have heard that this language is not written but is anyone aware of some sort of phonetic book available to help? (Would like to impress my friends when I return to the UK)
I've seen a couple of books on Swiss German in places like Orrel Fussli on the Bahnhofstrasse (apologies if you're not in the ZH area) which give you some of the common words.
The swiss seem to pronounce it:
show-na voka-enda
A good response is "ebenfalls" (even-wise) or "gleichfalls" (likewise). Often gleichfalls is pronounced "gleeshfalls", with the swiss turning the ei sound into a long 'e' sound like in English.
It is written (e.g. people write CH-German in chats, ermail etc. - but only among friends, never in business), but there are no rules for it as local dialects are too different.
The book I can recommend is called "Chuchichäschtli" (kitchen cabinet): http://www.exlibris.ch/buch.aspx?sta...51046&t_na=sbz
Ich wünsch e schööns Wuchenändi