There is no official spelling: everyone writes the way they speak. A few habits are shared: a doubled vowel is long (Ziit, Huus, Lüüt); ie, ue, üe are said as two sounds (li-eb, gu-et, mü-ed); ch is always throaty, even at the start of a word (Chind, Chäs); ä is an open e as in « bed ». No ß, and nouns usually take a capital letter. The articles d and s are written apart (s Huus, d Frau).
Why these differences? Swiss German kept old sounds that standard German changed about 500 years ago: in the Middle Ages, everyone said « hûs » and « zît ». Once you know the correspondences, you can guess many words:
| Hochdeutsch | Schweizerdeutsch | examples |
|---|---|---|
| ei | ii / i | Zeit → Ziit · Wein → Wii · mein → min |
| au | uu / u | Haus → Huus · auf → uf |
| eu, äu | üü / ü | heute → hüt · Leute → Lüüt |
| u | ue | gut → guet · Bruder → Brueder |
| ü | üe | müde → müed · grün → grüen |
| k | ch | Kind → Chind · Küche → Chuchi |
| st, sp | scht, schp | Fenster → Fänschter · Post → Poscht |
| -en | -e | machen → mache · Garten → Garte |
| -n | – | Mann → Maa · Wein → Wii |
Hüt isch schöns Wätter.
The weather is nice today.
D Lüüt im Huus sind fründlich.
The people in the house are friendly.
S Chind isch müed.
The child is tired.
Translate the words from your reading, review them as flashcards and practise with gap-fill sentences.
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