Swiss-German phrasebook

Sourced from Wikivoyage. Text is available under the CC-by-SA 3.0 license.
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Swiss-German (Schweizerdeutsch in Standard German; some endonyms are Schwyzerdütsch, Schwiizertüütsch or Schwizertitsch) is a broad category of Germanic dialects spoken in Switzerland.
These dialects are considerably different from German, especially as it happens in regard to those very phrases which a traveler needs: niceties, greetings, asking for stuff, getting directions, etc. One of the key differences to getting by with Swiss German. For example, "Fine, thank you" is Guet, merci; with guet being the German word for good/fine, while merci is from the French "thank you". In addition, there are many pronunciation differences which separate Swiss-German from either language. For example, the diphthong in Swiss-German "guet" versus the monophthong in High-German "gut".
You are unlikely to have to learn Swiss-German, as all German-speaking Swiss educated in modern day schools are also able to speak standard German. Nevertheless, saying a few words in Swiss-German will undoubtedly impress the locals.
Swiss German is different from Swiss Standard German (Schweizer Hochdeutsch), which is a variant of standard German for formal speech and writing in Switzerland, with some vocabulary differences, such as das Tram ("streetcar", Straßenbahn or die Tram in standard German) and Billett ("ticket", Fahrkarte, Fahrschein or Ticket in standard German).
Neither Swiss German nor Swiss Standard German use the Eszett (ß).

Pronunciation guide

Phrase list