There are many foreigners who visit Switzerland not only for traveling to its amazing tourist spots but also for business, education, and many more. Most of the foreigners who speak fluent German often get shocked when they go to Switzerland – they find that they can’t understand what the Swiss are saying!

Fribourg University offers help to foreigners who are clueless of the Swiss German language with an innovative language learning aid. Foreigners can learn to understand what is going on in the Swiss German language and they may have fun while doing so.

The course in the university is called “Chunsch druus?” the Swiss way of saying “Do you understand?” The expression does not exist in Standard German that is why people who are fluent in German would not have any idea what it really means!

A German language student from Slovakia studying at Fribourg University, Michaela Keryova, has started to understand, or as the Swiss would say, she “chuunt druus”. She was pleased with her language learning success when she asked for information in Zurich and was answered in the Zurich dialect.

The language course aims to help people with everyday situations buy letting them survive through comprehending Swiss German, without necessarily learning to speak the language themselves. “Chunsch druus?” uses a wide range of modern media possibilities to help people learn and practice Swiss German. A kit is composed of a book in a practical travel guide format, a DVD, four CD ROMs, and a license that gives access to a variety of online materials.

The target people of the program are people who already know standard German and who want to get around in German-speaking parts of Switzerland said project leader Raphael Bethele who is a professor at Fribourg University’s Institute of Multilingualism. The target group of people includes the Italian and French speaking Swiss, and foreigners especially Germans who are living in Switzerland.
The course covers topics which are taken mainly from main life such as weather forecasts and new programs from Swiss television. One of the co-authors, Martin Müller explained that they didn’t want to use artificial material but rather to reflect the reality of German-speaking Switzerland. Swiss German is actually a misnomer, not all German-speaking Swiss speak the same language. Students of the course can choose between the four different variants of Swiss German – the dialects of Basel, Bern, St. Gallen, and Zurich. The language learners also have the opportunity to learn while having fun since the program is presented in an enjoyable way.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Language Schools, Learning Abroad. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.