Swiss German vs High German: What Actually Differs

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Move to Zürich, Bern or Basel and you will soon notice something odd. The letters from your landlord, the signs at the station and the newspaper are all in German you can read. The people around you are speaking something else. That something else is Swiss German, and the German on paper is its partner, not its translation.

This post sets the two side by side: who uses which and when, and what changes in the words, the grammar and the sound.

Spoken in dialect, written in Standard German

German-speaking Switzerland runs on two varieties at once. Linguists call this diglossia, and when the linguist Charles Ferguson defined the term in 1959, Swiss German was one of the four cases he built it on. The split is mostly by medium: people speak dialect and write Standard German.

In practice, dialect is the language of the café, the tram, the family table and most of the office. At work, colleagues talk through a meeting in Swiss German and then write the follow-up email in Standard German, which the Swiss call Hochdeutsch or Schriftdeutsch. Standard German is spoken mainly at school, in parliament, on the main news and in station announcements, and with people who do not understand the dialect. If a German colleague joins the meeting, the room will often switch to Standard German out of politeness.

Swiss German itself has no official spelling. When the Swiss write dialect, in a text message or a family chat, everyone spells it as it sounds to them.

One more distinction matters: the Standard German written in Switzerland is not quite the Standard German of Germany. It is called Schweizer Hochdeutsch, Swiss Standard German, and it has some words and spellings of its own. Any German speaker understands it easily. The dialects are another matter: Germans who have not spent time around them often find them very hard to follow.

Different words for everyday things

The first differences you meet are words. Many come from French, one from Italian, and the rest are home-grown:

Merci, Velo, Trottoir and Glace are all French; Tschau is Italian ciao; Exgüsi is French excusez said the Swiss way.

Here is the catch for learners. Several of these words are not only dialect. Velo, Billett and Trottoir are also the normal words in written Swiss Standard German; the Duden dictionary marks Velo and Trottoir as Swiss usage. So Swiss Standard German writes mit dem Velo where Germany writes mit dem Fahrrad. Swiss Standard German also gives some nouns a different gender: it says das Tram where Germany says die Tram or die Straßenbahn.

Grammar: three differences you will notice

No simple past in speech

Standard German has two ways to talk about the past: ich war (I was) and ich bin gewesen (I have been). Swiss German has lost the first one, the simple past or Präteritum, in the indicative. Everything in the past is told with the perfect: Ich bi gsi for “I was”, Ich bi gange for “I went”, Ich ha gmacht for “I did”. The ge- of the past participle shrinks to g- or disappears: gemacht becomes gmacht, gegangen becomes gange.

No genitive in dialect

Swiss German dialects have practically no genitive case. Where Standard German says der Zug der SBB (the train of the SBB), Swiss German uses vo, “of”. One sentence shows both of these grammar points at once:

The genitive der SBB becomes vo de SBB, and the simple past war becomes the perfect isch … gsi.

ss instead of ß in Swiss Standard German

This one is about writing. Swiss Standard German does not use the letter ß; it always writes ss. The official German spelling rules allow it in one line: in Switzerland you can always write ss. Swiss keyboards have no ß key, and Swiss schools do not teach it. So a Swiss text writes Strasse, Fuss and Ich weiss nicht, where a German one writes Straße, Fuß and Ich weiß nicht. Both are correct Standard German.

How it sounds

The ch. Swiss German uses only the rough ch at the back of the throat, the one in Bach. The softer ch of ich does not exist in the dialects, and many Swiss keep the back sound when they speak Standard German too. Swiss German also has a ch at the start of words where Standard German has a k: Chind for Kind (child), Chäs for Käse (cheese), and the famous Chuchichäschtli, the little kitchen cupboard, for Küchenschränkchen. Basel and Chur are the exceptions that prove the rule: in traditional Basel German the child is a Khind.

Long vowels where German has ei and au. Most Swiss German dialects kept the long vowels of medieval German that Standard German later turned into diphthongs. Standard Zeit is Ziit, Wein is Wii, and Zeug is Züüg. It also works the other way: where Standard German has a long vowel, Swiss German often keeps an older diphthong, so Fuss (foot) is Fuess.

Long consonants and stress. Double consonants are held: the tt in Muetter (mother) is a real pause, not just a spelling. And words are stressed on the first syllable more often than in Standard German, which is why many Swiss put the weight at the front of French loans like Fondue.

What this means if you are learning

You need both, but not in the same way. Standard German is what you will read and write: contracts, school letters, forms. Swiss German is what you will hear. A good plan for most newcomers is to write Standard German, learn to understand dialect, and start speaking it in small pieces. The Swiss words like Velo and Billett are worth learning early, since they work in writing too.

Answering in Standard German is fine. The Swiss learn it at school and write it all the time. Mixing in Standard German while your dialect grows is normal, and the effort to try a few words of dialect is noticed.

Learn the perfect tense first. It is the only past tense the dialect has, and it is perfectly good spoken Standard German too. One set of verb forms serves both.

Learn the dialect of where you live. Swiss German changes from region to region: nicht is nöd in Zürich, nid in Bern and nit in Basel. Your ears will thank you for practising the one your neighbours speak. And do not worry about spelling: since there is no official one, nobody will correct you.

Where Grüezi comes in

Grüezi teaches Swiss German with the Standard German always beside it: every word in its 1,368-word vocabulary carries its Standard German equivalent, which is where the Swiss German in this post comes from. Lesson 8.4, Swiss German Grammar, drills the perfect with gsi, gange and gmacht, and lesson 8.6 covers the French loanwords, from Trottoir to Velo. The free pronunciation guide walks through the ch, the ü, the ö and the long consonants, and the app speaks most of its vocabulary in a Zürich-dialect voice made with a Swiss German speech synthesizer. You can pick from 20 regions, so the course follows the dialect you hear. The first unit, Grüezi! Basics, is free.

For the story of why we made the app, read The Swiss German People Actually Speak. And for the written side, our app Willkommen teaches Standard German.