More Bärndütsch

Well it turns out a lot of my answers were just plain wrong. (sigh). This section probably won't make any sense... I mean This section certainly won't make any sense to the non-Berners reading this. I'm including this so that the locals who do happen to read my Blog can actually feel sorry for me and maybe understand that I'm learning.

Äs isch mit mir i Walt chönne.
Should be...
Äs isch mit mir i Walt cho. (It has come with me to the forest)

Äs ha guet spile chönne.
Should be...
Äs het guet spile cho. (It could have been a fun game)

Äs isch nie Rüüme übercho.
Should be...
Äs het nie Rüüme übercho. (It nas never gotten a cold)

Äs cha schnure, aber nid brüele gha.
Should be...
Äs cha schnure gha, aber nid brüelei. (It has purred, but isn't uh.. shrug?)

Äs isch bald Jungi übercho.
Should be...
Äs het bald Jungi übercho. (It has already received uh... shrug?)

(sigh)

Shibboleths
A co-worker directed me to the very interesting article about shibboleths on Wikipedia. A shibboleth is a word that can only be spoken correctly by a native. The example most Americans would think of is "Louisville." Everybody outside of Kentucky pronounces this as "Looey-ville." All the locals pronounce it as "Loo-uh-vull", "Loo-vull", "Luh-vull", "Luh-uh-vul" or Loo-ville."

There are several Shibboleths in Swiss German. "Chuchichäschtli" and "äuä." But honestly, to me at this point, I just think the whole dialect is a huge collection of shibboleths.

Fondue
An American co-worker is in town to meet an arbitrary deadline set forth by the East-coasters. Since he is headed back to the US on Thursday, yesterday, we decided to take him to a nice restaurant in Gruyéres, to experience the Swiss custom of Fondue. Eight of us went to the restaurant and enjoyed a long 2 hour lunch (the first time I have done this since in Switzerland, I might add). We had wine and cheese and bread and potatoes. I call this the "Lipitor Lunch." There was much guilt after the lunch was complete, and I did not manage to have the will to eat dinner or even breakfast the next morning.

In case you're curious where this is, here's a map:


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