How to Learn Romansh: Which Variety and Where to Start

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To learn Romansh, first choose which Romansh. There are five written varieties, called idioms, and you should learn the one spoken where you live or visit: Sursilvan in the Surselva, Vallader or Puter in the Engadine, Surmiran in Surmeir, Sutsilvan in the Val Schons. Then train your ear with Romansh radio and TV, keep the Pledari Grond dictionary open, learn the handful of spellings that trip up every beginner, and use what you learn with real people every week.

This post is for anyone curious about Graubünden or moving there who wants a plan, with the Surselva as the main example. If you want the background first, read The Language Switzerland Voted to Keep. If you want your first words today, start with Romansh Greetings.

Step 1: Choose your Romansh

The five idioms are written standards, each with its own spelling and dictionaries, and the spoken dialects vary further inside each one. Here is where each is at home:

The differences are real. “Dog” is tgaun in Sursilvan, tgang in Surmiran, chaun in Puter and chan in Vallader. “House” is casa in Sursilvan but chasa in Vallader. A learner in the Lower Engadine and a learner in the Surselva should not use the same book.

Then there is Rumantsch Grischun, a shared written standard drawn up from 1982. The Confederation and the canton write their Romansh in it, and so does the website of Romansh public radio and TV. But it is nobody’s home language, and after 2011 almost every commune that had brought it into school went back to its idiom. Today it is used in school only in the bilingual classes of Chur and Domat/Ems and in the school of Trin. So a child at school in the Surselva learns to write Sursilvan.

Learn Rumantsch Grischun if your work needs it: today it is used mostly in administration, the media, language promotion and higher education. Otherwise, learn your valley’s idiom. We compare the idioms word by word in What Language Is Romansh Closest To?

Step 2: Get your ear used to it

Romansh public radio and TV let you hear the language every day, and they are easy to find online. The news that is read out follows Rumantsch Grischun, but reports, interviews and the other programmes are in the speakers’ own local Romansh. That is good practice for real life, where you will hear Sursilvan from one person and Vallader from the next. Look for speakers from your valley first.

Listen out on the train, too. Since 2020 the Rhaetian Railway announces the next stop first in Romansh in the Romansh-speaking area, and in the local idiom: proxima fermada in the Surselva.

Keep each piece short and hear it twice: once for the topic, once for the words you know. Don’t worry about catching everything. Your ear needs time with the sounds before the words come apart.

Step 3: Keep a good dictionary open

The reference is the Pledari Grond, the dictionary the Lia Rumantscha maintains, online at pledarigrond.ch. It is the largest Romansh word database, built for Rumantsch Grischun, and you can also search it in Sursilvan, Sutsilvan and Surmiran, so choose your idiom before you look a word up. The two Engadine idioms have dictionaries of their own, linked from the same site. Some entries have a sound button, which helps with Step 2.

The dictionary works between Romansh and German. If German is not your strong language, keep that in mind: an English word has to go through German first. And look at the meaning, not only the spelling. A real Romansh word can still be the wrong one for what you mean.

Step 4: Learn the spellings you meet first

A few letter groups are worth learning before anything else. The examples below are Sursilvan words from our app, with the app’s spelled-out hint for each, stressed syllable in capitals:

Three things to watch. First, tg is not the same as tsch. Linguists describe it as a separate sound, made further back in the mouth, and in the upper Surselva further back still. The Engadine writes this sound ch, which is why Sursilvan tgaun is Puter chaun.

Second, ch itself is a false friend between the valleys. In Sursilvan, cheu starts with a k sound; in the Engadine, ch is the tch sound. Third, gl keeps its “ly” sound at the end of a word, where the app’s hints write a plain l: fegl (son), fehl. The ü and ö of the Engadine do not exist in Sursilvan: “moon” is glüna in the Engadine and glina in the Surselva.

A simple weekly routine

A Sursilvan proverb in our app says Tgi che va plaun, va saun, “Who goes slowly goes safely”. A little every day is easier to keep up than a big effort once a month. Here is one way to fill a week:

If a week falls apart, keep the daily part and drop the rest.

How to practise with people

Romansh speakers are widely bilingual, and German is always close at hand. So when you try a few words, the other person may switch to German to help you. A few things keep the conversation in Romansh.

Say what you are doing. Jeu vi emprender romontsch means “I want to learn Romansh”. It tells people why you are struggling, and what kind of help you want.

Ask for help in Romansh. Discuora pli plaun, per plascher is “Speak more slowly, please”, and Co di ins quei en romontsch? is “How do you say that in Romansh?” Both bring the conversation back.

Go where Romansh is spoken. In the Surselva from Ilanz/Glion upwards, more than half the people name Romansh as a main language. Large shops in and around Ilanz/Glion have put up Romansh signs since 2017, so even the weekly shop is reading practice. And you don’t have to be in Graubünden: at the last full census, in 2000, about a third of the people who regularly spoke Romansh lived elsewhere in Switzerland.

Find someone who corrects you. A course or a private teacher gives you what reading and listening cannot: someone who hears your mistakes. Before you sign up, check which idiom they teach. Your commune is a good place to ask what is on offer nearby.

Where Allegra comes in

Allegra is our app for the daily part of this plan. It teaches Sursilvan only, so it suits the Surselva and not the Engadine. The course has 85 lessons in 17 stages, laid out as a climb from the valley floor to the summit, with 1,535 words, each with its meaning, a spelled-out pronunciation hint and an example sentence. There are 24 conversations, at the restaurant, the station, the doctor’s and more, and you can take a part in them. You also get a dictionary of every word the course teaches, flashcards with spaced repetition and a word of the day.

Practice mixes matching, filling the gap, typing the word, multiple choice, masculine or feminine, and putting a sentence back in order. Every word is checked against the Pledari Grond, but no native speaker has reviewed the sentences yet. There is no sound in the app, so pair it with the radio and the dictionary’s sound buttons. The explanations read in English, German, Italian or French.

The Basics chapter, with five lessons, is free. So are the first two conversations and one daily challenge a day; Premium opens the rest. Allegra runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android. It will not correct you the way a teacher does, so use it beside real conversations, not instead of them.