What EVERYBODY Gets Wrong About Germans 🇩🇪 

Does anybody have a favorite accent? Doesn't necessarily have to be German! I recently was watching a show and found that I love accents of people from Manchester 😅 Thanks for watching, guys and I hope you enjoyed! Be sure to subscribe if you did, it would be a huge support 😊

I went to the university of Kaiserslautern for four years. But I am originally from the Rhenish Westerwald, our home dialect is Kölsch - but not the original Kölsch from Cologne. It’s a special version called Land-Kölsch or Platt (but not the northern “Platt”). When I moved to Kaiserlautern - or as the locals call it: Lautre - I sometimes reached my limit with the Pfälzisch. The best way to stop the locals speaking Pfälzisch was to start speaking Kölsch. That was a kind of reminder, that not everybody is fluent in Pfälzisch. After these four years I adopted some words form Pfälzisch. Now I’m living in the Eifel region for more than 10 years and I’m working at the Moselle valley. And I’m often near or in Mainz. Nowadays it feels like I speak and understand every dialect in Rhineland-Palatinate. But when you just feel safe in a new kind of dialect, an old local will come along and will teach you, that you understand absolutely nothing... 😄😉

Fun fact….I as a german have very little problems understanding several english dialects. It always amazes me how difficult it seems to be for native speakers, especially from the US. Maybe, as it is my second language, it is just processed differently or we germans are just a lot more used to varieties and dialects in general.

Dialects are an enrichment of the language. For me I speak rheinhessisch, sächsisch and schwäbisch, but a few days ago I phoned with a colleague who lives in bayerischer Wald and doesnt understand anything. problem was: he cant speak hochdeutsch. So we both decided to write emails 😂

So, I'm from the north, and go to the Mosel area once a year on vacation. It took me like six visits until I realized, the the wine from the "Kirschbärg" was from the hill the the church on it, and not from a hill with a cherry tree.

As a Pfälzer I can confidently say that my English is better than my Hochdeutsch. (I'm fluent in English but it feels weird talking in Hochdeutsch.)

Hello from Mönchengladbach, close to the Dutch border and only 50 km away from Cologne. That means that our dialect is both similar to the one spoken in Limburg, the southernmost province of the Netherlands, and Kölsch which is spoken in and around Cologne. I love the Kölsch language and I think the people in Cologne are still proud of their dialect. Here in Mönchengladbach only the generation 80+ speaks 'Jlabbacher Platt' (the dialect spoken in Gladbach). In August 2000 I spent my holidays on the island of Norderney that is part of East-Friesia. As long as you are a tourist the locals talk to you in Hochdeutsch but one evening I took part in a public Skat tournament (Skat is a very popular card game in Germany) and I was one of the very few tourists. And of course the locals spoke East Frisian to each other. I think that I generally have a soft spot for foreign languages, but most of the time I only understood "Bahnhof und Kofferpacken" (train station and packing suitcases). That's the weird way of us Rhinelanders to say that we didn't understand anything. All in all, it was a fun evening and I even won 10 DM as the best woman (DM = Deutsche Mark, the currency we had before the Euro). Greetings and love from MG/NRW - and MG doesn't mean machine gun... 😜

To be fair, dialects in germany are insane. Like from my personal experience: i grew up speaking mostly standard german with a few words of dialect here and there and some pronounciation differences. My grandparents live +- 70km from where i lived the first 20 years of my life. When they visit and speak in their dialect with my mother, i'm literally not able tofollow the conversation. And i'm confident in saying: i speak german at C2 level, including the ability to understand scientific and most legal texts. Still... no chance, not even 100km apart, i can't even understand enough of the conversation to get the context.

What fun! Thanks, Donnie - I was stationed on the Donnersberg near Dannenfels/Pfalz in the mid-60s at a US Army communications station (now closed, I hear). We frequently heard many, many versions of German from the "Wanderer" who came by on nice days. I also studied Hochdeutsch, but struggled with "Paelzisch" (sorry - can't do accents with this computer). All that remains now is "Guukemol - mir gehe haeeeem ..."

Niederdeutsch is actually the father of today's English and dutch. It was spoken by the saxons and when they sailed over to the island they became ANGLOsaxons. Later on a lot of old norse and french mixed into it. But the Anglo-Saxon is still the backbone of modern English and having a conversation without it's vocabulary would be impossible

My experience is that others don’t understand me!! I speak a strong south Badish dialect that I learned from my grandparents with whom I grew up with. Other than one special pronunciation (e in special words) it’s the dialect of people who were born around 1920. I’m totally proud of it and I lOVE it❤. We can communicate very well wit the people in the Alsace in France who speak very similar. It’s part of the Alemannish language family.

Dialects in Germany have not only different words and grammar but different rhythms. But I learned that the Irish too do speak another melody when they speak English.

I live in a very urban part of Germany, basically in the heart of urban nrw... We don't have a dialect here, because all the different dialects that used to be here all averaged out so now it's just perfect hochdeutsch

The standard German you are taught is the Hannover region dialect and, of course, you will learn a rather formal and polite version of it.

Mach doch mal bitte eine komplette Episode in deutsch. Besser noch auf Pälzisch! 🤩

Burger King my dialect contribution: back in 1987 I was in the german army training to become a tank commander. It was a dedicated training center for the leopard commanders and in each class you'ld have guys from all over Germany. One day we were out with the tanks on the range and we had to perform assistance on the radio for a neighboring tank shooting a target. That kind of radio comms follows a certain protocol. Even the words used in that kind of dialoge are more or less given. So one tank had frisian guy from the coast, the other one was a guy from bavarian forest, Deggendorf area. Both of them couldn't understand each other. Everybody on the radio listening to their attempts to communicate broke in tears of laughter .... I knew both dialects and had no problems understanding them. I lived in several federal states and picked up the different dialects - to a certain level, but some of the stuff you hear in your Pfälzer dialect I would have to pass, too ... though part of my family is from Pfalz and Baden-Württemberg.

Plattdeutsch (Frisian dialects), tend to be so different between islands, or local regions in Niedersachsen and Schleswig-Holstein that even locals living close to each other can switch to their dialect and have some difficulty to understand each other. As an outsider (though at least understanding some basic Plattdeutsch) you struggle hard with those regional dialects. Bavarian is a close second.😂

Burger King. I'm feeling deeply with everybody who has to suffer through that. But the funniest thing I've experienced is, when the children of Turkish or Italian immigrants went to school with the local German kids and, thus, brilliantly learnt the local dialect but not so much Standard German... when I was travelling across Slovenia years ago, we wanted to get Chinese takeout someplace along the road. While we were waiting for our order, we cane to talk with another local patron who said he had worked for BMW in Ingolstadt and spoke German. Then our food came and we wanted chopsticks with it, but the restaurant owner didn't understand us. Thus we asked the other guy if he could translate "Stäbchen" for us. He stared at us blankly. Then it clicked. Ingolstadt -> Bavaria -> dialect. I asked for the translation of "Staberln". He grinned and translated.

This makes things sounds so much more complicated than they need to be. It's the same for all Germans, pretty much everybody speaks Hochdeutsch anyway, those who do speak dialect still understand Hochdeutsch, and they normally 'tone it done' when they talk to somebody who comes from elsewhere (unless they don't want them to understand). People who unable to speak Hochdeutsch are really rare now - those who are elderly and let very isolated lives. And this is the same all over Europe where languages have developped over thousands of years. I came as a C2 Englisch speaker to the UK 20 years ago and felt like I was starting all over again. Mancunian was fairly easy to learn, Scouse and Scottish took much longer. The US accents have only had 300 years to diverge and it's population is so much more mobile, which prevents dialect formation.

I am from Saarland (Saarbrücken) and I was laughing my a.. off when I read all those Pfälzisch words like Grumbeerkichelcher and Baurehewwel and Schiggelscher and so on! All these words are used here as well (with a slightly different pronunciation). Too funny. 🤣🤣🤣 (Would have loved to hear you saying them!)

I grew up speaking nearling no dialect. My mum on the other hand can speak a very regional dialect (only spoken in one little City) from the middle of Germany. I noticed that my mum can understand a great variety of german dialects whereas I struggle a lot understanding them. I think if you have learned a dialect in addition to standard german you can have the capability to adapt rather quickly.

Congrats on your C1, that is really awesome! Well, don't worry about having an accent. Or understanding every German. Even we can't really do that. And yes, I moved from Austria to Saxony and the difference was huge. Neither Burgerking nor McDonald's. The best burgers you get in a nice diner.

I grew up in Baden-Württemberg. Our state once had an image campaign with the claim: We can do everything except High German (Wir können alles, außer Hochdeutsch). But that's not true! Of course we speak High German very well - almost perfect! It's just that nobody else notices when we do. 😂😂 Seriously: I mostly speak High German - with a more or less pronounced South Baden accent. At home we spoke 2 Alemannic dialects, High Alemannic (almost Swiss German) and Low Alemannic (almost Alsatian). As a small child, standard German was what the invisible people on the radio spoke. I could understand it but it was completely useless and not really real. That only changed when I went to elementary school. There were also children who spoke in a more Standard German style. (the teachers anyway), Today, as soon as someone speaks dialect, I switch over in my brain and also speak one of the two dialects depending on how far away this dialect is. This happens completely automatically, without thinking. Just like it used to be at our dinner table: our parents and grandparents spoke in their respective dialects, we Kids in both and sometimes High German among ourselves. This type of switching sometimes happens to me with English too. (Although I can't really speak English very well). If someone wants to learn German, this is of course inappropriate. So let me know if you want to speak in German. I will do my best to speak standard German as clearly, distinctly, easy, accent-free and slowly as I think is appropriate for our conversation.

I‘m originally from northern Germany and have been living in Switzerland for 18 years. It took me months to understand Swiss German. It‘s always funny for me, seeing the confused look on the faces of my friends visiting from Germany… 😊

I'm Swiss and live in the German speaking part of the country. Nearly everone speaks in dialect, and growing up you get used to understand other dialects. It's a dialect continuum from east to west and from north to south. Most of the time you don't need to understand every single word to get the meaning and keep the discussion going. If it's important you ask for the meaning. And a fun fact: Standard German is not only called "Hochdeutsch", but referred to as "Schriftdeutsch", written German. Which means we are able to speak written German in Switzerland 😉

One of our customers comes from Nordfriesland and has his shop at the North Sea too. When he's in a hurry and/or needs material urgent, he often switches to Plattdeutsch mid-call and we have to remind him that we can't understand him. Sometimes his customer is still present and he starts speaking Platt mid-call to tell the person about what options there are or how long it might need to get the material. Dialects are a nice thing. But for communication with other parts from Germany is it nice to have a standard. I'm born and raised dialectfree in Lower Saxony btw - you guessed it, Hannover isn't too far away.

This is the most serendipidous YT video I've clicked in years. This week the Arbeitsagentur sent my application to learn German C2 at the local VHS (the school for people who seek hope in life, like those who would like to learn knitting and Indian cuisine...as well as computer skills and languages). I arrived and realized my classmates had a lot of trouble speaking German. But this was a C1 class, I'd been sent to the wrong class? I'm not sure if I qualify for C2 and my repeated emails have been ignored. The VHS seems like a scam to me, if they won't respond and give me the results of my placement tests. We'll see.

Yaaay, Hannover mentioned! I haven‘t moved around Germany much (🇪🇺 tho!), but Low German actually died out in Hanover 200 years or so. So I am actually learning (passively, for now, as I live in Brussels) other Low German and Low Saxon dialects. Low German grammatically is its own language, btw. (Functionally and vocabulary wise less so).

Naja, die aktuelle "hochdeutsche" Ausprache ist im Jahr 1898 durch den Germanistik-Professor Theodor Siebs "erfunden" worden, der besonders die "Bühnensprache" an den zahllosen deutschen Theatern vereinheitlichen wollte. Über den Rundfunk und später das Fernsehen hat sich diese Aussprache als "Standard(aus)sprache" in Deutschland durchgesetzt.

I have been to Germany many times, absolutely convinced that I had forgotten everything from the lessons of the german language we had at school. Most of the times me and my wife went to Berlin. But once we took a train and had a conversation with an elder german couple sitting next to us, and to my astonishment I experienced that I understood them to 95 %. When I said that to the old man he answered: "That´s probably because we are from Hannover. In Hannover we speak standard german, and it was almost certainly standard german you were taught at school". The mystery was solved. I simply don´t understand weird dialects. Not just german dialects, but also some british and even some very crazy swedish dialects, in spite the fact swedish is my mother tongue.

One of the funniest thing i ever heard was when the Critical Drinker (scottisch) tried to explain the fabel of Snow White by reciting the German original diecription. Also funny is my Cousin who grew up in central Germany (Nordhessen) and then moved to Munich as she married. Now she speaks bayrisch, still sound strange.

We (mother tounge germans) are living in the Rhein-Main area and lived a few years in Freiburg (a little bit more south west) and had this trouble of understanding allemanisch speaking Bardener. I often had to ask: "wie bitte?" 😂 I totally agree with this dialect topics. it can be hard to understand.

Back then when I (from Dresden) did my civil service I shared a dorm room with a guy from Aue (small town in the Oreal Mountains, an hour's drive from Dresden) - I'm not exaggerating when I say that I had to ask him to repeat every second or third sentence because I couldn't understand anything he said.

Dude, I couldn't even understand some old people from my native village when I was young admittedly, my parents came from West and North Germany, whereas I grew up in South Germany. Even as a middle-aged linguist, I sometimes fail to understand some people of my age in the county I have been living in for 11 years!

At 9:03 you slipped to German for a second ("here/hier and da"), it seems that you are adapting our language. ;-) To answer your question: even as a native speaker it´s not impossible to understand another dialect. My uncle was from another region and he spoke like we did. But when he was drunk, he switched the dialect and I couldn´t understand a word.

If you're a historian and deal with ancient documents, some now-obsolete variants of German might surprise you. Today's "Hochdeutsch" is in fact "Neuhochdeutsch" (Modern High German) as opposed to "Mittel-" (Middle) and "Althochdeutsch" (Old High German). Respectively, variants of "Niederdeutsch" or simply "Platt" (Low German) exist, behind closed doors affectionately referred to as "Neuplatt", Mittelplatt" and "Altplatt". Hell knows how much of that can even be reconstructed at all. But there is one funny thing I know from my own experience: I grew up without dialect, speaking only Modern _High_ German; I've never had any trouble at all with reading Middle _Low_ German sources; and Middle _High_ German to me is completely incomprehensible gibberish.

reminds me of the random Couple from niederbayern in interviews which generelly answers any quiestion with "wir sind aus niederbayern"

Omg... I remember in my previous job taking a call for a colleague from Switzerland... I do not understand anything, not even when they tried to "buchstabieren"... Living in Berlin, another dialect that I have struggled is Sächsisch... 😅

Here in the Ruhrgebiet there is a distinct dialect, but you don't hear it very often in an extreme way. Mostly what you will hear will be fairly close to Hochdeutsch. We had great difficulty, when we visited friends in the Schwarzwald who talk "allemanisch-schwäbische Mundart" at home amongst each other. Born and raised in Germany, German being my native language, my comprehension of what they were saying to each other was very close to zero. But for them it was quite normal to switch between dialects. Always when talking to us and most of the time when they spoke to each other and we were around they would switch to "schwäbisch" which is still a severe dialect but much easier to understand for us. But when the parents came around it was "allemannisch" all the way and we didn't even have a rough idea what the general topic of the conversation was.

"Salat" can be just "salad", a secondary meaning could be described as "chaotic mix", so you get i.e. "Kabelsalat" (Cable-Salad), which means you have several cables mixed and struggle to understand which cable ends where. Or "Kopfsalat", which might be the standard green salad OR a total confused mental state. "Obstsalat" has no salad either, just "chaotic mixed" fruits. "Sprachsalat" (no used very often) means talking a mixture of several languages in one sentence to a degree thats almost not to understand. Bohnensalat, Schinkensalat, Gurkensalat... all without actual "green salad", cold juicy dishes with their ingrediants chopped to small pieces. "Eisbergsalat" is not made out of Icebergs by the way. Shouldn't it be "Icemountain"? I start to get "Kopfsalat".

i live in hamburg and it wouldt call it a dialect here. there are some influeces from lower-german but most of it ist just different pronouciation. some words from lower-german that are still used are: Schnacken/klönen (unterhaltung), Büx(hose), backsig(Klebrig) , buddel(Flasche), daddeln(spielen), lütt(klein), mors (po), plietsch(schlau). but compared to some other dialects there are maybe 100-200 words, most younger people maybe know 20 of them. "wat is dat denn schonwedder fürn schietwedder?"

Hardest dialect for me to understand would be „Schwyzerdütsch“ or „Swiss“. That’s almost like understanding Dutch. Along with some regions mainly in the south - if they talk fast. I think the North of Germany is easier or clearer to understand - unless you get too far north, where they talk Plattdeutsch or Friesian.

In my village an American solidere married a woman and learned our dialect as German. He understands of course standard German , but can’t speak it. My nativ dialect with an American accent is so funny and nice.

I grew up in berlin with a mother that came from the Phalz and a father from Baveria my godfather is from swabia so I was around a lot of diffrent dialects since jung which means I have less trouble understanding them. for example if I am alone my goodfather speaks with a much more swabish acent then when my fater is there. I think it realy helped me with learning foring languages

You can draw 2 lines through Germany to distinguish the area where they speak high German, the Southern border I call Klops-Buletten-Äquator,.

For the last on topic part of the video: Swizzerdütsch is nice, but Platt is basically a different language (it really is on the border of wether it can be considered just a dialect or actually a different language, mostly you can guess from similarities between dialects, but that doesn't work with Platt that well and guess what, it's not from Switzerland or Austria, but Germany)

When I applied to the University of Oxford to do a postgraduate degree in my chosen subject I was told in no uncertain terms that in order to do so I needed to be able to read German. So I got myself a book and arranged to spend a month in Germany living with a family. I had a great time and learnt enough German to do my degree. Luckily I have always enjoyed languages but looking back that was amazing. I did also buy a big German-English dictionary which was invaluable.

Honestly dialects are the same for almost every german like for you I'm from north germany so every dialect is like a new language

I come from Bavaria and normally speak Standard German (yes, that exists! 😉). Years ago, I was on a cycle tour in Schleswig-Holstein. I asked for chilled drinks in a small shop. The owner there was very nice, but I didn't understand her. She repeated her sentences a few times - absolutely nothing! We then communicated in sign language and I got my chilled drink 😂 I worked at the Goethe-Institut for a long time, and I maintain that an estimated 40% of native German speakers would not pass the C2 exam. But of course it's worth learning German. It encourages precise thinking. And you can read Goethe, Heine, Hegel and Kant in the original 😉

I was raised only speaking Hochdeutsch and couldn't understand my own grandpa at times cause he only spoke Plattdeutsch. 😅

I'm from a little Village from the south west of Germany(Division of Baden and Württemberg) and we have a grande diferente with the dialect. In rest of Germany is more dificult, for this motive there invent "Hochdeutsch" what is a "Dialect" who everybody understand.

probably from Grund (ground) + Beere (berry). Of course, not to be confused with "Erdbeere" Earth berry.

Kommt gerne mal nach Schleswig-Holstein wo wir eine Mischung aus Hochdeutsch, Plattdeutsch, friesisch und vielen vielen dänischen Wörtern verwenden. Und dann bin da noch ich, die viel in Deutschland herumgekommen ist (meine Eltern zogen oft um) die dann einfach fliessend zwischen Berlinern, Westfälischem Platt, Hochdeutsch und tausend anderen Dialekten hin und her wuselt oder sie einfach alle quer durcheinander spricht und mit dem hiesigen Gebrabbel verbindet 🤣

Disclosure: the girl in the clips is not German but Swiss. Her name is Hazel Brugger. (Not a typical Swiss first name though.) That's why when she started talking in her "dialect", a (at the beginning at least) very tuned down Swiss German, the two Germans didn't understand anything anymore. Swiss "German" is not just another German dialect but a language, high allemanic, with several distinct dialects of its own. There is even highest allemanic spoken in some alpine regions, which is hard to understand in turn for allemanic speakers as well...

I´m from Cologne. Try to listen to some local Bands (most related to Carnival), It is very influenced by the French because we were "visited" by Napoleon some time ago. ;-) Bands: Bap, De Höhner, Black Föös and many more.

I (German) learned English mainly by exposition (reading, TV Musik, etc.). The trick is to start thinking in the other language instead of thinking in your native language and then translating it into the foreign language. Something that surprised me was that I have less problems understanding somebody from, for example, Scottland than somebody from the deepest forests of Bavaria. 😂

First of all, C1 in german ist really impressive. I'm german and I can only speak Kasselänerisch (a dialect in northern Hessen) besides Hochdeutsch. I do understand most dialects enough to get through, but no german knows all that different slangwords in more than maybe one or two dialects. And in fact a lot of smaller dialects are on the brink of extinction (Like the one in my current hometown thats only spoken by maybe 15 people).

Don't worry, while I am from Oberfranken (northern Bavaria) and can speak with southern Bavarian (Waldler and Oberbayern) tribes quite well, I have yet (after 20 years) problems to understand my neighbour in the Pfalz ) (Landau, SW over the mountains from K-town).

I am from Lower Saxony/Dutch border, studied in Rhineland, worked in Friedrichshafen, Singen, Swabian Alb, Munich and Frankonia. The only one I would have needed subtitles for was the Badenser janitor

The way wrong aspect ratio at 5:24 bothers me. (Sorry, photography and film major.) And "y'all'd've might have been understood in context. (Note to Germans: that's a Southernism. And "Southern" in the US means the Southeast and over through Texas or the Confederate states, not the rest of what is actually South.

Congrats on getting C1! But most of us know that internationals tend to struggle a bit with dialects, so me and my friends only talk in dialect to amuse our international friends. And we are also teaching them „schiach“ instead of „hässlich“ because we want to spread the word😂 I actually live near Hannover now, but I grew up around lower Franconia, and most people who grew up around Hannover struggle to understand ANY dialect. Which is actually kinda sad. Sometimes me and my Bavarian friends make fun of them. Also fun fact: I actually grew up in an area where a variety of Grumbieren was used: Krummbeern!

I am German and married to a spaniard from the Canary Islands (which also have their own Spanish dialect). Before moving back to the Canaries (with me) she lived 4 years in Germany and speaks the language very well. But when we visit my family who is from the lower rhine area just short of the Netherlands, we use a lot of "Niederrheinisch" mixed in when we talk. It's not pure Niederrheinisch but something that is called Regiolekt nowadays. But it's enough so that my wife does only understand half of it. Especially because Niederrheinisch mixes in a lot of Dutsch words and grammar.

I can figure out our dialects pretty quick and mimic them. But I've always been raised in standard German. I could have a strong Ruhrpott dialect or a strong swabian one. My mother is from the first, the second was the region I grew up in first. My father has always been speaking in normal German. And surprise! He's from Hannover. I think Hannover is pretty much the core of Germany. Easy Autobahn connections anywhere.

I come from Hessen, which it' s in the middle of germany, and I understand nearly everything from the other dialects in germany. It could be that I don"t understand a single word, which I don't know, but the sense almost. In our region we have a strong dialect too and there are differences from village to the next villages. Nowadays the most people under fifty don't speak the dialects anymore, which I regret because it helps to get a feeling for learning other languages. I learned in my youth first "high"german and our regional dialect, then english, french, a little bit latin at school, later a little bit italian and spanish. This is very helpful for vacations in Europe, for example if I' m reading a portugiese word, I understand it sometimes, too. Only in Greece I understand nothing, because they have another letters.

I have Austrian and Swiss friends, and when we meet, it's still pretty noticeable that they are so - their standard German is more different than between German dialect groups. However, I can mostly understand the Austrians when they code switch. The Swiss? Not a chance. That's why Swiss German is actually considered a language of its own while Austrian German is a dialect. My (former) roommate who is from the Rhineland says it's funny when I talk to my dad on the phone, my Swabian dialect becomes so much more pronounced. He didn't want to believe it at first when I told him it's the same when he talks to his mom (with the Rhineland dialect, obviously, not Swabian - even after 15+ years of him living here, his attempts to speak Swabian still make me cringe) .

I used to work for a company with headquarters in switzerland. Every time we had a teams call with swiss colleagues involved they were like oh we need to speak hochdeutsch now. But actually they still have a very big accent then, but at least they are using the same words.

As my swabian dad likes to say: the first foreign language for most of us is standard german 😂 which we have to learn for like 10+ years So you're doing fine 😊

Check out „Hiwwe wie driwwe“ our connection between PA Dutchees and the Pälzer 👍 PA Dutch is americanized Pfälzisch actually….

The German I really struggle with as someone from Berlin is Nederduits, but it often makes some sense after all. The Rhinelandish and such dialects make more sense to me in either spoken or written form. Though, I have been to Switzerland and Austria somewhat frequent as a child around locals speaking local dialect, so that might be some advantage. It seems like the skill to understand dialects of a language transfers across languages one speaks fairly well, though, as I do much better with English dialects (as in US English, the accents and dialects across the British isles from Cornish across central English, Yorkshire English and Scottish even up to Indian English) than many native speakers I know. Aber allet zusammen: Da jewöhnste dir dran, dat dit mit de Dialekte in unsern Land een wenij wild zujeht.

I love how german television sometimes puts subtitles to people speaking in their local dialect. :)

Stuttgart native (Swabian dialect, south of Germany), dialect joke time: Three men take their seats in a train from Zurich to Stuttgart, a Swiss guy, a guy from Stuttgart and a guy fom the north of Germany. They sit in silence, then the Swiss guy wants to break the ice and start a conversation. He asks the guy from north Germany: "sind Sie in Züri gsi?" The north German guy looks at the Swiss guy puzzled. The Swiss guy repeats: "sind Sie in Züri gsi?" The north German guy still doesn't get it, so the guy from Stuttgart steps in to help and says in Swabian dialect: "Er moint gwä". (Punchline being that both the question in Swiss dialect ("Have ou been to Zurich") and the Swabian dialect paraphrase by the second guy are equally unintelligible for the guy from north Germany)

Let's get this out of the way: Burger King, by far 😀 Regarding dialects: I have the most trouble in Bavaria for sure, but the area around Stuttgart can be challenging as well. I have relatives in the Freiburg region, so I was able to adapt to that as much that I can understand it, but cannot talk in that dialect myself. I'm from the Ruhr area, where the original dialects (called "Platt" like in the north of Germany) became extinct after WWII unfortunately.

I'm so sorry, but it triggered me, and it took me quite some time to figure out, why it sounded wrong: it's not "Ver-ein", it's more "Ve(r)-rein". SCNR On dialects: I still struggle understanding the (hard) dialect spoken by older people in the region I was born and grew up...

I was surprised to learn, that apparently some of Grims Märchen are written in dialect. I have to read them loud to understand. Understanding different dialects can be challenging be reading them is a nightmare. I have even problems reading the dialect of my own village.

I haven't been to a Burger King for years. I always prefered a Whopper over a Royal TS. On the other Hadn McD got better over the years. They really improved quality. So I cannot say if this was still valid today for me.

Regarding your question of the day: Burger King. (in Germany that is, I didn't do any comparisons in this regard in other countries).

Congrats on your C1, well done. My accent is much better than my actual competence. It gets me in trouble, Germans hear my accent and assume I speak German much better than I actually do.

i recommend the documentary hiwwe wie driwwe. its about the similarity of pfälzisch and pencylvania dutch.

Born in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, moved to Schleswig-Holstein with 19 and the first thing I realised was the people here do not know what a "Bulette" is, it is called "Frikadelle" and having relatives in Bavaria did not help me at all to understand Bayrisch :D Pfälzisch sounds even worse to understand tbh xD

Dont worry. I was born in Munich 60 years ago. I once met a guy from east of Passau (Bayrischer Wald). Roughly 170 km to the east. I had really problems to understand him.

Es gibt ja nicht nur Dialekte in Deutschland. Es gibt auch eigene, anerkannte Sprachen, die dem Deutschen ähnlich sind. Friesisch, Plattdeusch (Norddeutsche Version). Für mich auch Schweizer Deutsch und das, was sie im Westen von Österreich (Tirol) sprechen. Ende der 70er Jahre sah es so aus, als würde sich Hochdeutsch überall durchsetzen. Das ist auch so, in den Schulen spricht man Hochdeutsch (mit entsprechenden Einschlag des eigenen Dialekts). Aber irgendwann haben sich auch die regionalen Dialekte wieder mehr durchgesetzt, auch wenn viele es nicht mehr können. Ich bin einigermaßen Dialekt Affin, d.h. ich verstehe schnell, was gesprochen wird. Aber es gibt Gegenden in Deutschland, da verstehe ich nichts (Allgäu, Schwarzwald, Saarland mit Elsaß / Lothringen). Zum Glück muß ich Deutsch nicht mehr lernen, obwohl ich es lernen mußte, als ich in die 5. Klasse der Schule kam. Die ertsen 4 Klassen war ich auf einer sogenannten "Zwergschule" in einem kleinen Dorf. Dort sprach man nur seine heimatsprache, bei mir Plattdeutsch. Mit 10/11 lernte ich dann Hochdeutsch in der Schule in der Stadt. Gibt es heute nicht mehr. Zwerkschulen wurden abgeschafft.

Grew up in a Pfälzisch family and in/around the Pfalz. When I was hired years later from America. Company was headquartered in Stuttgart. When they heard I was able to speak German, my first visit to HQ they all broke out in Schwäbisch! Could literally not understand half of what was said! Regional differences are legitimate! Much more than what we think of differences from, say, Boston to Texas.

Here’s your text with grammar and spelling corrections: First of all, for the non-native Germans here, you can get a good overview of the vast differences in German dialects by watching this sketch from the 1970s: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jZiLwyXXKEw.html. My father is from near Bielefeld and my mother from near Augsburg, and having also lived in both northern and southern Germany during my childhood, I understand pretty much every German dialect (as long as it doesn't get too heavy) and also switch my dialect depending on which part of the country I am currently in. In general, the southern dialects are harder to understand, as they haven't shifted to Hochdeutsch as much as northern dialects. Some of the northern dialects could even be considered extinct today. Dialects like Schwäbisch can be very hard to learn, as they differ not only in pronunciation and vocabulary, but even in grammar, with different grammatical genders for well-known German terms. Pfälzisch can be especially hard to learn, as on a national scale, it is rather underrepresented and shares few similarities with neighboring dialects. But most native Germans have problems understanding dialects that are far from their own. Usually, we are used to this and can quickly identify if someone is speaking a dialect. If not we then adjust our own speech towards Hochdeutsch to make ourselves comprehensible. However, knowing these vast differences between German dialects can also be quite useful when learning another language. I noticed this when I started learning Norwegian, as a good number of words are either similar to their English or northern German equivalents. For example, "to talk" is "å snakke" in Norwegian and "schnacken" in most North German dialects.

I was once on a training course in Bavaria, where the instructor spoke in the thickest Bavarian... which many of us did not understand. A colleague then began to answer the instructor in flat German... let me just say: the situation escalated quickly.

I'm from Underfranken...every village has there Dialect

You'll only truly understand the locals in the Pfalz once you've successfully participated in a hunt for some Elwedritsche/Ilwetritsche 😆

@Dialects I'm a native German and even I can't understand most dialects. Neither the ones in the south like in Bavaria nor the ones in the north like in East Frisia. Btw. the most funny one is from Hesse.

I've lived in Germany for ten years. What I noticed was less about language and more about societal/cultural issues. The main things I found was that most Germans in daily interaction (Im a delivery guy) don't listen but rather answer automatically to what they assume you would say. Germany is a severely classist country, so maybe it's just because im not 'worth' listening to? I've also found that they have a lack of critical thinking and situational awareness. All this leads to understand why Germans are such sticklers for rules...the more rules there are, the less they have to think, and the less they have to worry about taking responsibility.. Sadly, it's gotten to the point where if I hear someone speaking German, I automatically assume they are not very clever. Ah, it's been an interesting decade. Nice video, tho. Thank you for your efforts.Oh, and I don't eat fast food anymore, but it's a hard choice. McDonalds when Im drunk, Burger King when Im sober.

I, from the Rhineland, had to go to Bavaria to join the military. No big problem. But there was a guy there called "Waidler". He sounded like an alien to me.

welllllll.....hm northern "Platt" is completely foreign language for us palatinate. Visiting my bavarian brother in law works medium as long as he is only with us. I once joined to his Landjugend and they discussed about setting up their next party.... completely lost in translation though I knew the subject they talked about... but also there are nice palatinate sentences to confuse the Oigschmeggde. Farmers helper to the farmer: "Wuh sollischns Hai hie duh?"... odda baim Bäggah: "Sinn die Weckk all wegg?"" Wäh wahn doh doh?".... odda grad jeds in de Zaid... "Gehma uffde Worschdes?"....unn inne paar Woche.. Keschde esse...

ist die Monstera im Hintergrund echt? Oder ist die aus Plastik?

What you call "Dialect" ist not a Dialect, that is a Regiolect. The version of the area, where you are. The dialect ist the difference between village to village. Every village has an own dialect. So Bavarian is a family of dialects.

And then there's Austria too. I confused some German friends when I used the words auffi, ummi, owi, and eini. (Hinauf, hinüber, hinunter, und hinein)

Well now imagine how it is in Switzerland. Here we learn standard German (Hochdeutsch) at school and there it is like learning a foreign language. It is this different from our dialects.

If you speak hochdeutsch, you should be able to communicate throughout Germany because most people can speak standard German, but yes, dialects and certain accents can be problematic. I'm Dutch with a lot of experience with Dutch dialects, so northwest Germany, with related dialects, is not a problem, but the southern accents are confusing.

I personally have the most problems with "Luxembourgish" and "Belgian German", but there are several reasons for this. I often go on holiday in what is now Poland and I was able to understand "local tour guides", native-born Poles, better when they spoke "Silesian German". Than the other two dialects mentioned above. 1. Not everyone who can speak German wants to speak German for "historical reasons!!!!" 2. Regional influences that come from other languages ​​that are spoken by the majority there. 3. Young people have forgotten their own "mother tongue" and only speak the "official language" they have learned, and English.

Super Beitrag! Kanal abonniert ❤

Hochdeutsch doesn't reference to the high altitude like we got in the south. It's spoken rather in the northern parts of Germany. The south like Pfalz, Baden Württemberg and Bayern have very strong dialects, still today. My friends from the north won't understand my parents from the south most of the time lol. There was also the mistake to think of Schwitzerditsch (Swiss German) as a language that's spoken in Germany even though it's not. I mean in that television clip you've shown. It's only spoken in Switzerland even though it's a bit similar to dialects spoken in Baden Württemberg (Badisch / Schwäbisch)

I lived in some very different places in germany and while Hannover has a realy clean "Hochdeutsch", i think the best "Hochdeutsch" is spoken in the far east of germany at the polish border of saxony. Those people aren´t Saxons at all and besides a hand full of dialect words like "Nu" they speak completly clean "Hochdeutsch". But its a small area with not a lot of people and they are surrounded by some nasty dialects.

Wo ist das 'ch" aus dem Kuren ? In der Tochte. It's just vocabularies. Grammar is all the same 😊