I am trying to get a bare minimum of swiss german to make my life a little easier but am constantly finding myself at a loss when trying to conjugate some parts of certain verbs.
So I was wondering if we could use this thread to query swiss german speakers on the conjugation of some verbs.
I'd like to start by asking if anyone could help me with the forms of
"to have," "to be," and "to do" (machen) in the present tense
I
You (sing)
He/She/It
We
You(plural)
You (inf)
They
I realise that there are variations in dialect, so if you respond, it may be helpful to state which dialect you are using.
I have read that thread and actually have that book at home, but i was thinking that this could serve as an online reference for people, who have not yet got the resources.
Plus "Hoi" isn't as exhaustive as it could be and if i remember only has 6-10 verbs (although i could be wrong there!).
I have yet to come across a website with verb tables (i presume, due to the varied nature of "spelling") But I will look again incase some new ones have been added.
there's tons of stuff on the web, i wish i had the time to read it all, it would really help my german. but this is a rather helpful site http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~joyce1/abinitio/verbs/ and has exactly what you ask for. i also use the leo dictionary quite a lot, they have a great programme to enlarge your vocab, if only i had the time...
The thing with swiss german verb conjugation is that we sometimes put lots of information in there, eg: "Heschs gmacht?" (Did you do it?) where almost everything is in "Heschs" and there are only to tenses: present and perfect so you have to give timeconstraints seperatly.
I guess learning Swiss German is not an easy task, as it's only a spoken language, so in my opinion, you can only truly learn it by doing (which is usually hard for adults...)
You are right, it's not so easy when you arent surrounded by it all the time and you can pick up the odd phrase or too.
Maybe im being a bit too ambitious/cautious in trying to learn some constuctions before arriving and will be better off waiting the few weeks i have before arriving.
I'd say very ambitious. I'll refer you to this thread .
A bare minimum of Swiss German will not make your life easier as you state in your OP, a bare minimum of High German will. If you want to climb to reach the fruit of a tree, you have to start from the stem.
... where you could argue that swiss german and high german split somewhere after "Althochdeutsch"
But learning High German first is a good suggestion, as you'll definitely come around with it (official stuff, written stuff, and everybody can speak it (although with a terrible accent ))
In a social context I find high German useless in Schwiezerdütschland. You'll wind up with people speaking amongst each other in Swiss German and then referring to you in high German. At least with English they tend to stay in English amongst each other too.
Better to dive in with Swiss German. Knowing high German does help, but just go for it with Schwiezerdutsch and try. But you also have to tell people not to speak to you in high German. It's a Swiss reflex when they speak to foreigners.
One really needs to understand High German for the most part before attempting to learn Swiss German, unless you already speak a germanic language like Dutch, Norwegian or Afrikaans.
Learning the numbers, how to tell time and greetings in Swiss German is good though.
The verbs in Swiss German are covered in another thread already:
High German helps you understand certainly and is a lot more useful outside Switzerland. But I see no real reason why someone couldn't learn Swiss german without knowing high German. It might actually help not knowing High German as you won't start trying to apply German grammar rules and tenses which don't apply to Swiss German.
I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but i have a reasonable grasp of high german grammar and can conjugate verbs in the present, past tenses and use the future (and conditional to some degree.)
It is the transference of these into Swiss german that i was looking for.
For instance I understand that:
I am scared = ich habe Angst (HD)
which "becomes" i han Angscht (SD)
This is the type or thing i was aiming for in regards to a verb table, to show all parts of the verb.
For example: how do you say "they are scared"
I don't know that as i don't know the 'they' form of this verb. If anyone can help then that would be good
I don't think i was clear at all last night, as i was too tired and didnt really explain myself well at all, sorry!
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So what I wanted to use this thread for was for people who maybe know one part of the verb e.g. i bi, but then don't know the the other constructions, and can see the verb tables (which i haven't been able to locate in one location on line). Or for people who don't know how a verb translates. This would be similar to the 6 verbs thread, but more expansive.
Learning to speak any of the swiss dialects is without a doubt a big challenge, even for "language people". One of the problems being of course that there is no "one swiss dialect".
There are various opinions as to wether speaking high-german or not makes this endeavour any easier, I myself am uncertain. German nationals IMHO have just as much trouble speaking swiss german dialects as other nationals, so it *may* not be that important.
Many of the english friends I have, are happy if they understand any swiss dialect north of the alps while speaking a reasonable high german (the alpine dialects often being a challenge even for the Swiss ).
"They are scared" would be "Sie hend angscht" but I think I never heard anybody actually say that. You'll almost always use a direct reference to a group, eg. "Die hend angscht" (Those are scared)
i say all this swiss german gets you nowhere. you dont socialize more, they dont respect you more nor will they get your effort on doing so, because the general opinion on this issue mostly is that you should be 100% right or better leave it. otherwise its understood you making fun of swiss german. thats what i have experienced and that what colleagues and random people i have chatted with told me.
and i have to say that i will NEVER spoil my high german with these strange language. to me it sounds all wrong, but i unsderstand it and show my respect for it while not cracking jokes etc. i have got that its the very keypoint making yourself at home here, getting on with swiss people. and thats it for me.
my ex GF was once asked by my landlord where in germany she is from. she(landlord) is german, btw. she fell on her arse when my exGF told her she is swiss. apart from some minor things like "grillieren", "parkieren" noone would notice she is swiss. her high german is close to be perfect.