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Native (Low) German speakers are welcome | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4534 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 17 of 26 06 February 2013 at 2:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I visited some long-lost relatives in Switzerland with my parents back in the 80s, when I was very young. We
weren't in the countryside as far as I recall, yet in order to communicate with the parents (in their 30s or so, I think), we had to play a game of "telephone." My parents would speak in English, I would translate to German, their young son translated to Swiss-German for the parents, they responded in Swiss-German, and so on back down the chain. No idea how common that level of difficulty with standard German was, or is today, but that was my (rather surprising) experience. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6749 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 18 of 26 06 February 2013 at 3:18am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think there are many people in (German-speaking) Switzerland that don't understand Standard German but there are for sure many that don't really speak it, don't want to speak it or don't feel comfortable speaking it. For many, German is a well-mastered, yet (almost) a foreign language, regardless of how educated they are or whether they live in a city or in the countryside.
I remember asking the way in Interlaken: the woman, probably an immigrant, could speak Swiss German only. Her child (not older than 6-7 year old) would intepret for me into a mix of Swiss German and German. In Fribourg where I lived there are quite many bilingual/almost bilingual Swiss German/French speakers. Those who were educated in French (which would probably be the majority) often don't speak German (they do understand some of it because of exposure, mostly in the media). I met e.g. a Swiss German/French bilingual high school student who was learning German at A2 level at school and struggled a lot with German grammar. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5931 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 19 of 26 10 February 2013 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | ||
Here in the middle of Germany they speak a Hessian Platt (which is different that Low German), and there are various dialects depending on which town you go to. Sometimes the dialects can be so different that one town won't understand the town next door. I hear my neighbors and coworkers speak Platt over the fence and in front of the coffee machine. It's a form of "equalizer"; everybody that speaks it is coming from the same place, so to speak. It's a more base level of speaking, so it's not really something they expect a foreign speaker to know or at the very least use. (When I say "foreign speaker" in this context I'm also referring to Germans from other regions ;)) A foreign Platt-speaker would probably amuse people and many would shake their heads wondering why, but if you can get past that kind of reaction it's a fascinating journey simply because it says a lot about the home life and the culture of the region. I find it pays to be able to understand it.
You might like this Iversen, fromRadio Bremen. This is a new feature, I think. I don't think they offered podcasts the last time I visted. Edited by Sunja on 10 February 2013 at 8:17pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6549 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 26 11 February 2013 at 10:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I do like it. If you once have learnt to understand a language (or dialect) it doesn't take much time to keep it alive if you just get the input often enough, and these 3 minuts news are just the right packet size for a quick brush-up.
The list with brand new news podcasts only goes some 5 days back, but the search on the same page yields a much larger number of news broadcasts. Which I didn't know about before because I normally just check the TV pages, not the radio pages. One interesting thing about these old news clips is that you get both a transcript and a link to the original spoken version. No excuse not to learn Platt now... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5931 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 21 of 26 11 February 2013 at 10:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Ah, gut das freut mich :)
@everybody interested, and I couldn't find it last night but I dug a little deeper this morning and found Bremer Radio's Plattdeutschkurs (19 lessons of Low German). I didn't listen to all the lessons but it seems A2-level German is fine enough to get some enjoyment out of these Platt lessons. It's definitely a fun introduction for those who love to dabble in dialects! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4690 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 22 of 26 11 February 2013 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
Very interesting, but unfortunately the speaker has quite a noticeable High German accent. It sometimes doesn't sound very Plattdeutsch to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6549 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 23 of 26 11 February 2013 at 1:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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When I first checked the link I used a PC without headphones so I just checked that the links worked - and they did. But after Josquin's mesage I simply had to switch on another computer where I could listen to the podcasts, and when I listened to the latest podcast (11/2) I had to agree - those words which where the same as in High German were pronounced almost as in High German, just as when English words sometimes are included in Danish speech with their original pronunciation. I then listened to an older podcast (28/1) and heard a man speaking almost in the same way. The question is whether Platt generally has been 'diluted' among those who still speak it, at least those who a chosen for the job at Radio Bremen. It might however also be an attempt to make to programs more palatable for local Germans who aren't native Plattschnackers.
Btw. here you can see the team behind the news clips. Afterwards I tried the Kurs and went directly to the Plattdüütsche Besönnerheten 1. It was nice to hear people speak Low German, but I am beyond the stage where I want it mixed with High German. However I noticed that in the Low German passages some High German words were used without being adapted - like "Lautverschiebung". Even such scientific terms should be pronounced and spelled in the language you are speaking around them - otherwise you confuse the learners. But kudos to Radio Bremen for making the course, and kudos for trying to explain the differences between between Low and High German in linguistic terms. Edited by Iversen on 11 February 2013 at 1:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6118 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 24 of 26 19 February 2013 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||
A few years ago I got on a train from Salzburg to Vienna. A family got in at a stop in the town of Wels and sat in the same carriage, and their speech was "German, but not as I know it". I could hardly understand a word. I understood Viennese dialect a little better but still struggled with it. I understand Hochdeutsch well, and the litmus test for me of a German dialect is that I do not understand it well, because it is sufficiently different from the standard language. I have never overheard German in Germany that was sufficiently non-standard to give me real comprehension problems, the way I have in Austria. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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