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Dialects you can’t understand? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5648 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes  Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 49 of 54 20 June 2009 at 6:55am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, actually, High German or Hochdeutsch is the standard dialect they teach foreigners (and their own schoolkids). In Austria and Bavaria, a lot of people speak High German too these days, but the traditional dialect is Oberdeutsch. Personally, I have next to no exposure to Oberdeutsch, nnot even enough to know how well I understand it. I do, however understand Platt and Berlinisch, and have even manage to fake the latter to the extent that a native German speaker was sure I was a Berliner. The worst trouble I have had with a German dialect was with a woman from Switzerland. I was walking home when an attractive blond woman asked me for directions. It happened I was going the same way, so we walked together for a while chatting. Then she asked where I had just been, and I replied that I had been playing Skat (a German card game). She immediately concluded, correctly, that I must be fluent in German, and immediately switched to her dialect of the language, speaking at about twice the word rate of most Germans, and I had trouble picking up the odd word. In another incident, I was sitting at the breakfast table in a B&B in Oxford, wondering what language the young men at the next table were speaking. I decided it must be a Germanic language, but not one I was familiar with, and wondered briefly whether it might be Norwegian. Eventually, with careful listening, I worked out they were from Yorkshire. After that, I had no trouble understanding them. I have had a similar experience watching a Quebecois movie on TV; it took me a long while to work out what the language was, and once I had, it was quite comprehensible. OTOH, I once had a friend from Haute-Savoie, and I could never understand him, and so we spoke German.... Later I spent a year living in Haute-Savoie (or dividing my time between there and Geneva), and it didn't worry me. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Monitor16807 Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 5697 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English, French* Studies: German, Latin | Message 50 of 54 20 June 2009 at 6:57am | IP Logged | |||||
No, I must agree with him, at first I couldn't understand them very well. But after maybe few hours I could understand them quite clearly. Of course they have their slang and such but nothing incomprehensible. Also depending on who you meet their level of standard French might change heavily, I find the urban accent way more comprehensible than the rural one. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ofdw Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5860 days ago 39 posts - 47 votes Speaks: English*, Italian | Message 51 of 54 20 June 2009 at 11:27am | IP Logged | |||||
Click here: Expanding EU desperately seeking interpreters — EUbusiness.com - business, legal and economic news and information I think this was the issue the previous poster was referring to - if you think about it, every new language within the EU requires a whole set of interpreters for each of the exisiting languages, so the numbers soon mount up! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| quetzacoatl Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5701 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Russian, Japanese | Message 52 of 54 20 June 2009 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
Eh?. I hear canny, pet, marra, hyem, craic, dollin, hinney all the time in Sunderland and then at my college in Newcastle. In fact I hear loads of old North-East Dialect slang still throughout the normal youth of the North-East not just charvers. I also know some intelligent charvers. Exception not the rule though. It's not their fault the music and dress they enjoy When I meet someone not from the North-East or I'm talking to someone on Teamspeak (Oh and for christ sake Americans, we are not Scottish. Stop calling me Scottish.) I just tone down my accent and pronounce my word's as the Queen intended :P 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6277 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 53 of 54 22 June 2009 at 1:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
I said High German dialects because I have encountered them, unlike Low German of which I have little experience, other than reading examples on the Internet. There is a distinction between the standard language, often called Hochdeutsch or High German, and the various High German dialects which are not Low German, but are often difficult if not impossible to understand if you only know the standard language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| RBenham Triglot Groupie IndonesiaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5648 days ago 60 posts - 62 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Indonesian | Message 54 of 54 22 June 2009 at 8:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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William, the fact remains that Austrian is not Hochdeutsch or High German.
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