Germany

[ttreg]

Hey, I'm Ryan. I'm interested in learning the language of Germany, but from what I've read so far, there are varieties of a "German" Language. Well, the question is: If I was to learn only one variety, dialect of German, which one should it be? Which one would be the best one to know if I was in Germany wanting to have a conversation?
Thanks.

 

[Pogue]

You'd probably want to learn Hochdeutsch/High German, which is spoken widely in most of Germany and understood throughout the German-speaking world. It's the form of German which is generally accepted as standard. The tricky thing with learning a dialect before learning the standard form is that you'd be restricted to a certain area of Germany, Austria or Switzerland, as dialects (by nature) are regionalised. Plus, dialects in general are in decline, so you might not be understood even once you became fluent.
I live in the north of Germany, and High German is spoken almost exclusively. Sometimes it goes into Low German, but very rarely (although I know from my travels in the south of Germany and Austria that the local dialects there are much stronger ). Good luck with your learning!

 

[schwarzes_schaf]

have to agree with pogue. the best is to learn high german as everyone understands it. i grew up in the middle of germany. when i moved to the south west some people had problems to understand me, coz we used differend words for some stuff. now 5 years later i'm fluent in the dialect they speak in the area where i live. and now my family has problems to understand everything i say. so i have to speak high german.
so you see the best is to learn high german.

btw. if you have questions you can come to the german forum here on cf. we have native speakers and people like pogue who learn german who can help you.

 

[Aino]

It's definately Hochdeutsch you should learn. Usually even swiss and austrian people know it even if they prefer using their own dialects. And even though though the dialects vary a lot, it's really easy to learn understand all of them when you just know the "basic" hohcdeutsch well.

 

[bluemarkus]

hidee ! born and bred in germany here, karlsruhe area (baden-württemberg).

like mentioned by other users before, hochdeutsch=highgerman is the way to go.
it is official language used for government, police, official statements, in education, newspapers and writing.

any schoolbooks u buy, grammar, didactics, vocabulary will be in highgerman automatically.

then theres the dialects. they are not written, but spoken, there are so many different dialects, i once coming back from an interrail trip stopped every 40 minutes on a trainride, and the peoples dialect had changed !

the most significant dialects are bavarian, swabian, saxon (really ugly lol), the swiss of course with their embarrassing way of talking, and the austrians do their thing too.

try find some soundsamples on the internet, and heres a map too...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Continental_West_Germanic_languages.png

(by the way i am 27 on that map...)

 

[Freepeople]

German language is very hard language,so I think you should take professional help with it. I learned German through my work, but gramma i needed to learn from professional.

 

[uri.geller]

You should learn the regulary German. There are some dialects, but these are only spoken in there regions. With the regualry German everybody will understand you.