Basic Swiss German for everyday use

[IsabelB]

Hello everyone

Lately there were quite a lot students from Switzerland around and I realized that it can be tough living here, even if you can speak «Hochdeutsch».
So, I decided to make a short guide about basic words in “Schwiizerdüütsch”

Please note that Swiss dialect depends very much on the region you are living in. I can only speak for my own dialect, which comes from the region of Aargau / Zürich / Luzern. Also, there are no real spelling rules for Swiss German, so I just wrote everything the way I would pronounce it.

So, it’s probably not very useful for the office, but if you want to impress your Swiss friends, co-worker or crush you will be good to go

Grüezi – Guten Tag / Hallo
Hoi – Hallo
Uf wieder luege / Adé – auf Wiedersehen
Wie goht’s / Wie häsch es – wie geht es dir
Guet – Gut
Mercii – Danke
Nei / Nai -Nein
Ned / nöd / nid – Nicht
Rüebli – Karotte (wie Rüblitorte)
Härdöpfel – Kartoffeln
Gipfeli – Croissant
Chrömli / Guezli – Cookies, Kekse
Ig / Ii – ich
Mer – Wir

Counting
Eis / zwöi / drüü / vier / föif / sächs / siebe / acht / nün / zäh

Days of the week
Mäntig / Ziistig / Mitwuch / Dunnstig / Friitig / Samschtig / Sunntig

Let me know if you liked this kind of information and if I should do more . I am open for any requests.

[AryoryKarakus]

Hi there! This is sweet, even though I live in Germany i’ll definitely try this on my Swiss friends and when i’m there next time.

Mercii

Ary Karakus - English Tutor

[Amandine]

Super interesting Isabel! While reading your words I was trying to pronounce them (with my poor notions of German) but it’s not easy haha!

[ameliea]

Salü Isabel, I really could’ve used this when first I first moved to Zurich from Munich I think it’s a great help for the German students in Switzerland! Especially when it comes to food, I was surprised by all the differences (in addition to what you mentioned, I remember being utterly confused by “Randen”, “Baumnüsse”, “Nüsslisalat”, “Lattich”, “Poulet”, etc.)

[27sp.sandra]

Mercii @IsabelB I have some students from Switzerland and now I can understand how different their german can be

[Aline4]

You raise a good point, Isabel!
Although, loooooots of Swiss words are related and similar to their German counterpart, there are some words you can not find any similarity…

Therefore, me and some of my German friends used to have fun finding this kind of words… so next to the many differences in food, we found a lot of tipical Swiss words referring to the “street”.
such as:

s Velo - das Fahrrad (I think that one, most students living in Switzerland know )
de Töff - das Motorrad
de Pneu - der Reifen
s Trottoir - der Gehsteig
d Dole - der Strassenablauf / Gully

and two others came to my mind too:
s Brüneli - das Waschbecken
s Hahnewasser - das Leitungswasser

I wish a good week to every one!

[SKrausser]

And now enjoy to eat “s Güggeli” (Hühnchen)…

[Bettina2]

Hi Isabel and Aline4

You got me inspired with the Swiss German expressions you posted . So I started to look for some more expressions together with my daughter. We found soooo many…I always enjoy it a lot when I get students living in Switzerland
I leave you a couple of words you need around the house

D Stube - das Wohnzimmer- the livingroom
D Chuchi- die Küche- the kitchen
S Chuchichäschtli- der Küchenschrank- the kitchen cabinet
De Schwingbäse- der Schneebesen- the whisk
De Chäller- der Keller- the basement
D Winde- der Estrich/der Dachboden- the attic
D Stäge- die Treppe- the stairway
S Stägehuus- das Treppenhaus- the stairwell
D Wöschchuchi- Die Waschküche- the laundry room
Chaschte- der Schrank-the closet
De Abwart- der Hauswart- the caretaker
De Ämtliplan- der zB Putzplan/der Waschküchenplan- cleaning plan or laundry room plan (very important in Switzerland if you don´t have your washing mashine in your flat!)
s Büsi- die Katze- the cat
ich gang go poschte - ich gehe einkaufen- I go shopping

There are a lot more fun expresions…

Wish you all a wonderful week and stay healthy