Of course this is not true. As one example, this guy writes in Swiss dialect (mundart). http://www.pedrolenz.ch/ . One of his best known works is "Der Goalie bin ig"
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and even private correspondence is done in Standard German
and you are encoraged to speak to People in Schaffhausen, Kreuzlingen and StGallen in the dialect of the Bärner Oberland
I did the Migros Klubschule beginner Swiss German course in Zurich City about 10 years ago. I was sent on it by my new (and very Swiss) employer at the time after my pretty decent high German that got me flying through the hiring process got me absolutely nowhere and left me scratching my head clueless in most team meetings!
The course book used was this: http://www.zuerich-deutsch.ch which contains a lot of phonetically written texts and vocab & verb lists translating between high German and 'Züritüütsch'.
There was I believe a good mix of reading and speaking in the course. The teacher was young and enthusiastic and the other course participants were majority foreign partners of locals, with OK high German but trying to integrate themselves.
In my view the course was good and bad....
What was good was that afterwards I had a much better understanding, mainly because of several lightbulb moments during the course such as learning simple vowel changes or other small changes from high German to Swiss German that opened whole new world of 'so THAT's what that means!'. Also some Swiss German vocab that is of course totally different.
What was bad is that it totally messed up my spoken high German! In my best attempt to practice my new found but very limited Swiss German skills I ended up speaking a complete mish-mash of high German, a sprinkling of correct Swiss German, and some attempted Swiss German guesswork (based on that limited new found knowledge) that duly ensured that no one tended to understand me at all!!
I think the follow on from that beginner course was a conversational course, which since I didn't enjoy the job anyway, I fairly quickly moved on.
Since working with largely swiss German speaking colleagues my understanding has improved a lot over the years, but I've remained pretty much only high German speaking. However, now with young kids in the local kindergarten, I increasingly find myself attempting Swiss German when speaking with their local friends, and importantly being understood (!! ) more and more. Who knows, maybe there's hope for me yet
I attended a Swiss German Migros Klubschule course in Baden. I stopped going half way through due to 2 reasons:
- I realized that as an adult I will never be able to make my mouth make those sounds. Impossible. The muscles need to have been developed as a child.
- The traffic into Baden where the course was held after work was a nightmare.
It was informative to find out that there are actual rules and structure, but disheartening to find out how different the various regional dialects are. There is no "single" Swiss German. And dialects change over short distances.
Have you considered private lessons?
While I obviously don't have to study Swiss German (native), I have taken a number of courses in several languages over the years. In my experience, A1 (i.e. everyone knows literally nothing about the language) is the only one that works in a class setting. People learn at significantly different speeds and I found that as of A2 at the latest, the differences in level of knowledge of a language are just too extreme, even if they seem to be similar based on some standardized test. I am a quite fast learner, and also very diligent and interested, and when I took a Russian course a few years back, was able to read the alphabet in a week or so (because I studied it every night). Three months in, others had still not figured it out. In a Spanish B1 course, I found myself among a group of people that could barely muster the most basic introduction sentence. I quit the course after a few weeks.
With a private tutor, while typically expensive, you can learn more effectively and at your own pace. Another option is a tandem partner, someone who wants to learn whatever language is your native one and in exchange, you learn Swiss German.
P.S. The dialects are different, yes, but we understand each other even if we're from different cantons. There are special terms or words that are only common in certain areas, but not all, but in general, a Swiss from Bern will always understand the one from Luzern and the one from Thurgau will always understand the one from Basel. So it doesn't really matter much which dialect the tutor or teacher speaks.
And of course yes, there is a written form of Swiss German, albeit not an official one and one that is only useful in a colloquial setting. I NEVER text or e-mail or chat with my friends or family in High German, but always Swiss German. There's no point learning the written form imo, though.
I have taken private Swiss German lessons for a couple of years now, and find it invaluable. Sure, my writing reads mostly like Züritüütsch and my teacher's like Bärndütsch, but we somehow seem to manage.
Reviving an old thread here.
I'm considering a course in Swiss German. The two options I'm looking at are the Migros school group offering in Zug (23 x 90 minute weekly evening lessons starting in January) and something more tailored from a local teacher ( https://www.sproch.ch ).
Anyone have experience of either, or can suggest alternatives?
My friend is learning SG per Skype with the owner of the YouTube channel es bits Schwiz . The channel itself is also quite useful for people learning Swiss German.