Now in my second year of studying Japanese at an actual school, after trying to teach it to myself (with a modicum of success) for about 15 years.

I spoke more Yiddish as a kid, but I still use it from time to time. Like at Passover, when I go the Shmura Matzoh in W'burg. Makes the bubbe and zaydie types a little uneasy.

diego wrote:I've learned 8 years of German,but here in Switzerland it's pretty difficult to practice german as the majority of people talk swiss german which is more of a dialect.It sounds very different from german and really unpleasant.In addition to that,swiss german from Bern is different from Zürich,which is different from Basel and so on.....
Switzerland is weird because you drive only 30 minutes and you're in a city where you understand nothing,but it's still the same country.
Last week end I went to see Dead Meadows and ...Trail of Dead in Zürich and it was a fucking pain in the arse to order a beer at the bar......again.

Being swiss and having grown up with this weird language I have to admit that I too need a minute to adjust my brain to the respective dialect when i visit another city. The time taken to adjust is usually diretcly related to the level of my intoxication. And yes, i agree that swiss german sounds unpleasant, barbaric and uninviting and in some dialects just ridiculous.

Which swiss german dialect do you find the funniest Diego? Ever been to Wallis?

cheers

Dominic

I used to speak alot of Czech when i was a kid but I can't remember because I havent spoken it in like 10 years

agentanalog wrote:

diego wrote:I've learned 8 years of German,but here in Switzerland it's pretty difficult to practice german as the majority of people talk swiss german which is more of a dialect.It sounds very different from german and really unpleasant.In addition to that,swiss german from Bern is different from Zürich,which is different from Basel and so on.....
Switzerland is weird because you drive only 30 minutes and you're in a city where you understand nothing,but it's still the same country.
Last week end I went to see Dead Meadows and ...Trail of Dead in Zürich and it was a fucking pain in the arse to order a beer at the bar......again.

Being swiss and having grown up with this weird language I have to admit that I too need a minute to adjust my brain to the respective dialect when i visit another city. The time taken to adjust is usually diretcly related to the level of my intoxication. And yes, i agree that swiss german sounds unpleasant, barbaric and uninviting and in some dialects just ridiculous.

Which swiss german dialect do you find the funniest Diego? Ever been to Wallis?

cheers

Dominic

Apart from the Visp-Zermatt area,I've never really been to the swiss german part of Wallis.As every swiss man's duty (and fucking stupid....but that is another long and controversial subject) I had to endure the military service and I was amongst more than 500 swiss german guys. I remember one guy coming from the Basel countryside.That probably was the funniest swiss german dialect I've ever heard!!!!! He looked like S.Stallone (very short and very very fit) and had that so low voice coming out of that body.He was a mixture of stupidness,weirdness and so fucking muscled!!!!! Hilarious!

Fairly advanced in German, usable knowledge of Czech.
My Russian and Spanish are too pitiful to warrant a mention.
So I guess I shouldn't have mentioned them.

the guys in wallis just have the funniest dialect ever. i have a hard time understanding them... people from basel sound pretty funny too.

i live in luzern which is acceptable dialectwise

i was lucky enough not having to do my military service and i'm so glad. i faked some health reasons so i got away. i simply didn't have the time to do that crap so i had to get away somehow...

cheers

dominic

I only speak german and english. Had latin in school but finished with a rather bad mark. At least I know a lot of latin word roots of european languages now. Wish I could speak some more languages, like russian or french.

I'm German and I speak German pretty fluently.
I taught German in Liverpool to English kids for about a year.
I studied English at a German university, so I guess I'm pretty fluent in English as well.
I live three miles away from the French border and I do speak a bit of French, but not very well.
My ex-girlfriend is Ukrainian and she taught me a bit a of Russian. Most of it just nasty words. But she was a pretty nasty girl. Oh boy, was she nasty, she would do things...
A couple of years ago I lived in the only non-italian apartment of the house along with three Italian families. I spoke much of the German-Italian of the Italian peoples who live in Germany. I learned some of the real Italian, too

agentanalog wrote:

diego wrote:I've learned 8 years of German,but here in Switzerland it's pretty difficult to practice german as the majority of people talk swiss german which is more of a dialect.It sounds very different from german and really unpleasant.In addition to that,swiss german from Bern is different from Zürich,which is different from Basel and so on.....
Switzerland is weird because you drive only 30 minutes and you're in a city where you understand nothing,but it's still the same country.
Last week end I went to see Dead Meadows and ...Trail of Dead in Zürich and it was a fucking pain in the arse to order a beer at the bar......again.

Being swiss and having grown up with this weird language I have to admit that I too need a minute to adjust my brain to the respective dialect when i visit another city. The time taken to adjust is usually diretcly related to the level of my intoxication. And yes, i agree that swiss german sounds unpleasant, barbaric and uninviting and in some dialects just ridiculous.

nothing is funnier than those schwabische. i those fucker sound almost swedish with their yorkborps and the whole "borpborpborp!" thing!

i remeber the first time....

eeeeeeech kin nacht versteeeeeeeeheeeeenn yu

I am shocked and disappointed that neither binary nor 1337 were on the list. Needless to say, I am fluent in both.

(And french, but French is sort of rubbishy, b/c it only works with a gay accent. Mind you, my gay Italian accent is second to none, so I love to give it a go.)