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Swiss German Language Course

Compact Swiss German, a stand-alone 10-lesson (5 hours) program, teaches beginning language schemes for necessary communicating and journeying needs, plus culture Notes.

About the AuthorDr. Pimsleur devoted his life to language instructing and was one of the world's leading experts in used linguistics. After obtaining his Ph.D. in French from Columbia University, he taught French Phonetics and Phonemics, and supervised the language laboratory at UCLA. He went on to become Professor of Romance Languages and Language Education, and Director of The Listening Center at Ohio State University; Professor of Education and Romance Languages at the State University of New York at Albany; and a Fulbright lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Pimsleur was a fellow member of the American Association of Teachers of French (AATF), American Educational Research Association (AERA), Modern Language Association (MLA), and a founding fellow member of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). His a good deal of books and articles revolutionized theories of language learning and teaching. After years of experience and research, Dr. Pimsleur developed a new method that is based on two key principles: the Principle of Anticipation and a scientific principle of memory that he called Graduated Interval Recall. This program incorporates both of these principles to provide you with the most simple and effective learning method possible.

Most helpful client reviews

39 of 40 persons found the following review helpful.
Zurich Deutsche
By Jessica A. Sexton
My boyfriend is Swiss, born in the capital Bern. Ive been wanting to learn his language to make visiting family more fun so I purchased pimslers swiss german. After listening and practicing my boyfriend informed me that a lot of the terms and phrases are only applied in Zurich, and others are out of date.

If you study with this, people will most likely perceive you... but when they begin giggling it is because your talking like their grandmother/father might.

I perceive it is hard to make a course on swiss german because there are around 13 dissimilar dialects all over the country, each having it is own expressions and twists on words. But i would love it somebody could make one using the current Bern dialect.

Overall this is a good product to learn, even if what your learning is out of date.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful.
Not recomended
By SF Bay Area Consumer
I am Swiss, my wife is US-American. We've been to Switzerland various times. This time my wife genuinely wanted to undertake to learn something so that she may commune with my family.

The Pimsleur tool is a CD set that teaches you simple phrases such as (in Swiss German of course) "My name is Mrs. Taylor" or "Where is Mr. Taylor" or "Where is the Marktgasse" and then it teaches you a few responses you might get from a Swiss such as "Mr. Taylor is not here". It seems practical since you may merely put it in your car CD-player and learn as you drive. I had the privilege of listening to just with regards to the entire set while commuting with my wife. She would learn it in the morning and repeat it in the evening. I tried to explain which words sound differently from town to town.

After listening and learning the entire set, I was baffled how few phrases there were genuinely in there. There is a lot of repetition so that whoever want's to learn it may repeat etc., while driving a car for instance. The few phrases that this tool offers are so basic that just in regards to each Swiss has more English then you will have in Swiss German. Specially if you go to a hotel, Airport, Trainstation etc. The Swiss are well educated and with you attempting to learn these few phrases would only be for amusement value.

Please recognise that there is no official Swiss German language. There are a heap of dialects from town to town. The Pimsleur tool mix matches galore of them. As a foreigner you will have no idea that "nid" is "noed" in another town.

It did not come with any written text or booklet. Pimsleur does have something printed as I understand it.

Thus I may only say that it perfectly did not help my wife to become a communicator. As brought up above, there is a great deal of amusement value because it made the Swiss who would listen her few words break out in laughter and giggles.

Here is my firstborn advice: Forget Swiss German. Use your English. Most Swiss beneath the age of 45 speak a great deal of English. In a hotel, trainstation or other well ordinary areas, English is no problem. Many restaurant menues are in English.

Here is my second advice: If you are severe in regards to speaking in "their language" buy yourself a German phrase book. This won't be Swiss German, but you will be understood. For in regards to $8 you will get a little booklet with tons of phrases, I mean 100x more then this tool. Plus you will get a vocabulary anyplace from 2000-5000 per phrase book. I purchased a couple and I was amazed how much is in there. That is something I actually recommend.

I could give you more counsel on the topic of Swiss German, but that's for another time.

Uf wiederluege.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
It is a very specific dialect
By QuickRead
I purchased this set of CDs prior to my temporary move to Zurich from the U.S. hoping just to learn a good deal of phrases so that I wouldn't come off as a "typical American" who expects everyone to speak English. I liked the Pimsleur method a lot, actually, and the things I learned from the CDs I did learn well. The special importance and significance on hearing and speaking the pronunciation were helpful, as was the repetition. However, Swiss-German is a bit tricky. As other humans have noted, there are territorial dialects within Switzerland, so how does one choose which is the best to learn? Upon my arrival in Zurich, I started taking a German class, and my instructor advised us to finelooking much focus on high German and not worry too much regarding learning the Swiss dialect - this is hard sufficient for native German speakers, and exponential more so for non-native. So, for learning phrases that might be helpful in something like a restaurant setting, these CDs are not bad. But, if one genuinely plans to settle in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, learning high German is perchance more helpful in the long run, and there is surely more learning material out there. It is a very international place, specially in Zurich and Geneva, so getting by with English and a little bit of German is possible.

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