The German Standard language

ich liebe dich lass uns bumsen only German phrase I know (learned it from German summer students at College)

When I lived with a host family they would occasionally switch from Hoch Deutsch to the German dialect around Salzburg. I has no clue what they were saying after barely understanding Hoch Deutsch.

I remember potato in Austria was erdafpel instead of kartoffeln. That's all I got for you.

Germans like poop

It varies quite a bit even within countries. Lower and Upper Austrian is closest to Bavarian. Swiss is similar to schwabian. Tirol is its own thing.

Lived in Vienna for two years. They have their own accent and dialect there.

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I remember potato in Austria was erdafpel instead of kartoffeln.

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Interesting. The Austrian borrows from French, or vice versa, as the French say "pomme de terre," which means apple of the earth- just like erdapfel means in German.

I know just enough German to get around town. But I did visit South Africa once, and I had Afrikaans compared to Dutch similarly to how Swiss German is described here. Afrikaans is very old, formal Dutch, where the Afrikaans speakers can usually understand Dutch speakers, but not vice versa.


The Anglosphere is highly unusual in that regardless of where the language landed globally, English speakers can all pretty well understand each other. Scotland excluded. This certainly isn't the case for German/Dutch dialects, or even French speakers.

He actually got it backwards. It is erdapfel in German and katoffel in Austria. Viennese waiters will not acknowledge you if you order erdapfel. They are assholes.

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I learned all of my German from World War II movies. I may not be able to find a public bathroom in Germany, but I can lead a Wehrmacht platoon out of an Allied ambush.

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reminds me of one of my instructors at DLI, he made sure we knew how to ask to borrow a hand grenade!!!

There's different dialects in the country of Germany: Hochdeutsch in the north, Plattdeutsch in the south.

Germany is a fairly large country in size by European standards and was formed by the unification of several kingdoms so there is some differences in dialect.

Not to mention the different types of German dialects spoken in Austria, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, and Luxembourg.

Yes