Pretty early on I got that Öpfel was Apfel (apple) and Chääs was Käse (cheese), but why did all the shopkeepers keep nagging me about an öpis? (I finally found out it was etwas, something, as in would I like something else.) I find I like the Swiss Velo more than the German Farhrrad for bicycle, and who doesn't like to cheerfully say Grüezi, Mittenand to a group fellow hikers on the Wanderweg?
But I know there are just tons words to learn, and lots of them have no obvious relation to standard German. That's why I was happy to see the results of the "Best of Schwiizerdütsch" vote. Brought to you by Swissboox, publishers of the Swiss German phrase book Chuchichäschtli, nominations for the 'Word of the Day' (Wort vom Tag) were taken and now the voting for the top 50 has begun. The voting is still in process, but you can already see the current result.
I don't speak Swiss German, so I am abstaining from the Abstimmen (vote), but here are my favorites so far.
- Chrüsimüsi Durcheinander (chaos, clutter, muddle) This perfectly describes the current state of my home office.
- füdliblutt splitternackt (stark naked) There is a notable minority of hikers in Switzerland who prefer to hike the trails in the buff, which is kind of charming in a weird way. (They do wear boots, however). The folks in Apenzell Inner-Rhodes don't think it's charming and banned it in 2009. One of füdliblutt hikers was recently acquitted in an Apenzell Outer-Rhodes court.
- He? wie bitte? (What? Implies you didn't hear or didn't understand something.) Now that's useful, because that happens to me all the time. I'm not sure what the difference between He? and the separately nominated Hä (was or what) is though.

A word of warning from a Swiss girl: Please be careful with "Hä?" because it is considered to be quite rude... "wiä bitte?" is much more polite.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the warning! I'm glad I didn't test that one out today:) wiä bitte from now on for me.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good warning in general, since you can't really tell from a word list how something should be used.