Bernese German Phrases: Everyday Bärndütsch to Start With

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The Bernese German phrases to learn first are short ones. Say Grüessech to greet someone politely and Grüess di to greet a friend, ask Wie geit’s? for “how are you?”, and leave with Adie. When you are lost, I verschtah nid means “I don’t understand”. And in almost every sentence you will hear nid, the Bernese word for “not”.

Below are the everyday Bernese German phrases, Bärndütsch as the Bernese call their dialect, in one table. After that come the polite Dihr, a handful of words that sound like Bern, three sound rules that turn the Swiss German you may already know into Bernese, and a word on why there is more than one Bernese.

Everyday Bernese German phrases

These are the forms our app Grüezi gives for Bärndütsch. Swiss German has no fixed spelling, so you will see other spellings on signs and in messages.

Several of these are written exactly as in Zurich: Merci vilmal, Wo isch…?, Was isch das? and Guet Nacht. The spelling is the same, but the melody is not, and a Bernese speaker will not sound like a Zurich one saying them. Exgüsi comes from the French excusez, one of many French loans in Swiss German.

Notice how often nid turns up: I verschtah nid, I weiss nid, Gar nid. Grüezi’s own notes call it the single clearest marker of Bärndütsch.

Polite Bern: Dihr instead of Sie

Standard German addresses a stranger with Sie. Bernese German does it the French way: the polite “you” is Dihr, the plural form, much as French uses vous for one person. So Grüessech is the greeting for anyone you would address with Dihr, and Grüess di is for someone you call du.

For more on greetings, where Grüessech comes from and how it differs from Grüezi, our post on how to say hello in Swiss German covers it.

Bernese words you will hear every day

A few short words do a lot of the work of sounding Bernese.

Nid you met above: Das stimmt nid is “That’s not right”. Zurich says nöd, and everyone understands both.

Äuä is often called the most Bernese word of all. In the middle of a sentence it means “probably”, with the speaker fairly sure. Said on its own as a reply, it usually means a disbelieving “no way”.

Gieu and Modi for boy and girl come from the Matte, the quarter on the bank of the Aare below Bern’s old town, which had a dialect and a secret language of its own, known as Mattenenglisch. A few of its words passed into everyday Bernese, and these two are still heard in the middle of the city.

Ghüder is what goes in the bin. Other regions have other words for it, but in the canton of Bern, as a former editor of the Idiotikon, the Swiss German dictionary, puts it, Ghüder dominates.

Zwöi is Bernese for two, and traditionally it changes with the gender of the noun. Our post on Swiss German numbers has the whole count.

Three sound rules that make it Bernese

If the Swiss German you are learning is Zurich-based, three changes take you a long way towards Bernese. Our post on Zurich vs Bern German sets the two dialects side by side; here is the short version as rules you can apply.

An l at the end of a syllable turns into a u sound. Milk is Miuch, a donkey is an Esu, salt is Sauz. Once you hear it, you hear it everywhere.

nd turns into ng. A child is Ching, and in much of the canton a hand and a dog are Hang and Hung. The cities of Bern, Biel and Thun traditionally keep Chind, Hand and Hund.

Many au sounds become ou. That is where Überhoupt nid in the first table gets its sound, and why a woman is a Frou. Let the vowel glide from o to u rather than flattening it into one sound.

There is more than one Bernese

The canton of Bern is large, and the dialect changes inside it. Most people who say “Bernese German” mean the speech of the Mittelland, the area around the city. The Bernese Oberland, the mountains in the south, sounds quite different, and it is the exception to the first two rules above: there the l stays an l and the nd stays nd. In the north of the canton, in the Oberaargau and the lower Emmental, a long a often sounds like o, though this is slowly receding, as in Strooss for street and Hoor for hair. Grüezi’s Bernese card for “message”, Nochricht, shows the same dark vowel.

For a newcomer the practical answer is the same as for Swiss German in general: listen to the people around you. If your colleagues in Thun say Chind, say Chind.

Where Grüezi comes in

When you set up Grüezi, you choose your region from 20, and Bärndütsch, the Bernese Oberland and the Emmental are among them. The app treats these, together with Solothurn, as one dialect group, so all four see the same Bernese forms. The app’s own words then switch to Bärndütsch: the home screen greets you with Grüessech!, and the Next button says Wyter.

The lessons themselves are written in a Zurich-based Swiss German. When the word you are practising has a Bernese form, a card headed So seit mer’s z’Bärn shows it with a short note. For Bern there are eight of these, among them Grüessech, Miuch, Ching, Gieu, Modi and nid. The Dialäkt-Charte, the dialect map, puts 22 words and phrases side by side across the regions, including all but one of the phrases in the first table. Unit 1, two dialogues and the first three comparisons are among the free parts; the rest of the course needs Premium.

One thing to know: the app’s audio is generated speech in Zurich dialect. The Bernese forms are shown in writing, so for the Bernese sound itself, your neighbours are still the best teachers. Grüezi runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android.