By nolinguist - 22/11/2009 17:39 - Austria

Today, I arrived in Austria. Within about an hour, I realized that I couldn't understand any "German". Turns out they have a totally different dialect here to anything I was taught in school. I'm here till May. FML
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Same thing different taste

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Top comments

allmidnighteyes 10

"ich liebe meine scheide" just say that everywhere you go

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badbunny 0

remember, the universal language for ordering at a restaraunt is point at the item listed.

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Comments

blackseminarian 0

You'll learn! That's the joy and pain of travel....

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Kar98 6

No no, it's not the dialect. It's the German you learned. In other words, it's not them, it's you. You'd have the same problem anywhere in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein. I've met people who had university degrees in German and I couldn't understand a single thing they tried to say. /German native

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theteal 0

Totally! I learned German from my family and it is completely different from what I am not learning in Uni. I find what I got at home is more beneficial than what I am learning at school.

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europe_rocks 0

Every Austrian understands "normal" German. It's just the dialect we use when we don't speak "officialy", but you can communicate with us in the German you learned. Glaube mir, niemand wird dich komisch anstarren und denken, du sprichst eine unbekannte Sprache. Viel Spaß und nicht vergessen: Oachkatzlschwoaf.

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gigi2009 0

OACHKATZLSCHWOAF! :D haha, sehr gut, des hob i lang nimma ghört

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XFlyingxPiranhaX 0

Was ist oachkatzlschwoaf? /NOT German native. Second year German student in America.

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dutchproudd 6

ehh i didnt get that last scentence. i've had 4 years german at school though. (:

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cecilk 29

"oachkatzlschwoaf" (Eichkätzchenschwanz) is a schibboleth. We use it to 'torture' foreign friends to say it which is rather difficult for people not from the AustroBavarian region.

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badbunny 0

he's not lazy, he just got the language wrong a bit. at least he tried.

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somefacts 0

What you know is Hochdeutsch or high German. It is what most official documents are written in in Germany at least and everyone in a German speaking country should understand it. They sound a lot different variations of Osstereich (Austrian) Deutsch are common in southern germany as well, and if you pay attention aren't that different, but will have a strong accent. Its not as bad as Schyzerdutsch though many dialects vary a good deal. If your good at german you'll be fine.

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RKC21 0

Where in Austria are you? I'm going there soon and i have a feeling ill run into the same problem!

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lolsan 0

You should have done a bit of research before you went.... Go see Mozarts tomb :D

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johnkzin 0

The good news is: most Austrians speak High German (what you learned in school) AND English. So, you should be able to ask your hosts how to adapt to Austrian German, and learn it over time. By May, you'll probably be MORE fluent in Austrain German than High German ... and may even have mostly forgotten English. (I had a HS friend who did a study abroad program, in that area, and said that when he came home, the 1 or 2 day conference they do with all of the study abroad students was invaluable, because he needed that time in order to re-learn the habit of speaking English instead of German) Good luck :-)

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Mary_Poppins_fml 0

Indeed she will probably be more fluent in "Austrian-German" than "Hochdeutsch" after this time, but I doubt she will forget her English : it's now almost three years that I live abroad and I did not forget my language. It's true that it's hard to switch though, and some words just come automatically in the wrong language.

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onigiriqueen 0

I agree. You don't just forget your own language in less than a year. I've been in Japan for just over a year, and I still totally remember English. Sometimes I forget a certain word I'm trying to think of, but that happened even before I moved away from the US. Sometimes Japanese slips into my English, but after speaking English for the first 18 years of your life, you don't just forget your native language. Young kids might forget if they never, ever hear their native language again, but not adults or teenagers.

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europe_rocks 0

I knew a guy from New York who used to live in Austria, and after not even two months he understood everything that we spoke in our dialect. So don't worry, it's gonna be fine.

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