The five German phrases that do 80% of the work
First time? Do this
- Audio is built in. Tap any phrase to hear it in a native voice — pre-recorded and cached, so it just works offline, no setup. (The voice bar can still pick a phone voice as a backup.)
- Phrases — drilled by situation: the Beizli, bars, directions, the mountain train. Hit play, then say it back out loud.
- Sounds — eight letters unlock almost everything. Ten minutes here pays off the most.
- Customs — the unspoken rules. This is where tourists actually give themselves away.
- Practice — hear / read / recall / speak. Use it on the plane.
Right thing, right moment.
Tap a chip to jump to a scene — or just search. Common holds the go-anywhere basics (hello, thanks, where's the toilet); a few phrases like drinks live under more than one scene.
Common — useful everywhere · greetings · basics · the toilet
Greetings & manners · the social handshake
At the Beizli · ordering & dining
Beizli BAYTS-lee — a small neighbourhood pub-restaurant, everyday plates
Bars & apéro · your evening
At the winery · tasting & buying
Finding your way · asking directions
Taxis & getting around · rides & fares
Trains & mountain railways · platforms & peaks
Shops & getting by · everyday
Mountains & lakes · quick vocab
Numbers 1–100 · prices & ordering
Same letters as German. Different mouth.
Swiss German isn't an accent, it's a family of dialects that is spoken everywhere and written almost nowhere — so the signs and menus are Standard German while the room around you is not. Eight sounds and a handful of greetings is the whole entry fee; for anything longer, people switch to High German without being asked twice.
Knowing what a letter sounds like isn't the same as being able to make it. These five are where English mouths actually go wrong: what to do, what to stop doing, and a native recording you can slow down and copy.
What your mouth doesFor ü: say "ee", freeze your tongue, and round your lips into a tight whistle — it opens Grüezi, the greeting you'll use most. For ö: say "ay" and do the same lip-rounding — schön. The lips change; the tongue must not move.
The mistakeSubstituting "oo" and "er" — "GROO-tsee", "shern". The rounded-lip version is not decoration; it is a different letter to Swiss ears.
What your mouth doesIn Switzerland ch is a rasp from the back of the throat nearly everywhere it appears — softer than clearing your throat, but the same place: acht. The famous test word Chuchichäschtli (kitchen cupboard) is three of them in a row.
The mistakeA hard k, or the polite front hiss you may have learned elsewhere — locals run the back rasp all the way through, and "akt" for acht has no rasp at all.
What your mouth doesw is the English v: Wein is "vine". v is an f: vier is "feer". Two shifts, both completely regular.
The mistakeThe English w. "Wine" for Wein is the classic — the German letter never has that lip-rounding.
What your mouth doesA crisp t and s said together, like the end of cats moved to the front of the word: zwei is "tsvy", and Zum Wohl! begins "tsoom".
The mistakeThe English buzzing z. "zway" is instantly foreign; the t in front is what makes the letter.
What your mouth doesei sounds like "eye": drei is "dry". ie sounds like "ee": Bier is "beer". When the two letters swap, so does the vowel — the trick is to say the SECOND letter's English name.
The mistakeReading both as "ee" or both as "eye". Bier and a hypothetical Beir would be different words — the order is the sound.
- There is no ß in Switzerland. It was dropped decades ago and never came back: Strasse, heiss, dreissig, süss. Seeing ss where a German book taught you ß is the fastest way to know which side of the border a sign was printed on.
- ch is always the scraped one. German softens it in ich; Switzerland never does. It sits at the back of the throat in every word, which is why Chuchichäschtli is the test locals hand tourists.
- Written and spoken are two different things. Every menu, sign and newspaper is Standard German; the street speaks Schwiizerdütsch, which has no fixed spelling and no lessons. Read the first, greet in the second, and ask for Hochdeutsch for the rest.
- -li makes everything smaller and friendlier. A Beiz becomes a Beizli, a bag a Säckli, a croissant a Gipfeli. Swiss German attaches it to almost anything, and it is affection, not size.
- Stress leans to the front — except the French words. GRÜE-zi, BAHN-hof. But the pile of French words Switzerland has swallowed keeps its own shape: Billett = "bee-YET", Perron = "peh-RONG", Apéro = "ah-peh-ROH".
The rules nobody prints on the menu.
Your German rarely outs you. These do. Read once, and you'll move differently.
Greet first, and use the name
Into a shop, a lift, a waiting room, or passing anyone on a trail — you greet before you speak: Grüezi (GREW-eht-see) in Zurich, Bonjour (bohn-ZHOOR) in Geneva, Buongiorno (bwohn-JOR-noh) in Lugano. With someone you've met, the surname comes with it: "Grüezi, Herr Meier".
On time means on the minute
A 09:04 train leaves at 09:04 and the doors lock before it. Invited for 19:00, you ring the bell at 19:00 — not 19:15, and not 18:45 either. Being late is read as a comment on the other person.
Tipping is rounding up, and no more
Service has been included in the price by law since the 1970s. Round the bill up to the next franc or five and say the total as you pay; ten percent is generous and fifteen looks like a misunderstanding.
Don't make noise on Sunday, or after ten
Quiet hours run 22:00 to 07:00 and all day Sunday: no drilling, no shared laundry machines, no bottles into the glass bank. This is written into the house rules and a neighbour will genuinely knock.
Don't put the rubbish out in the wrong bag
Most communes only collect household waste in the official taxed bag you buy at the supermarket. Anything else gets opened, traced back to you and fined. Glass, PET and aluminium go to the collection point, sorted by colour.
It's francs, and the francs are the point
Switzerland is not in the euro. Tourist tills near the borders may take euros and hand back francs at a rate you won't enjoy; cards and phone payments work almost everywhere, so there is no reason to change money badly.
Don't treat the mountain as a theme park
Weather turns in an hour, the yellow signs give walking times rather than distances, and the last cable car down is a hard deadline. Rescue is superb and it is billed to you — check the forecast and the timetable before you start up.
Say yes to the apéro
Apéro (ah-peh-ROH) — a drink and something small to eat, at five or six, before dinner or before anything official — is the country's real social form. It is how colleagues become friends, and turning one down reads as turning down the people.
The German you learned isn't the German you'll hear
Swiss German is a family of dialects, spoken by everyone and written by almost nobody, so signs and menus stay in Standard German while the conversation does not. Ask for Hochdeutsch (HOHKH-doytch) and the whole room switches, cheerfully, mid-sentence.
The greeting kiss is three, not two
It is three — right cheek, left, right again — and it is cheeks brushing with a sound, not lips on skin. It belongs to friends, family, and social introductions where at least one of the two is a woman; two men who are not close relatives shake hands instead. At work, in a shop, or meeting a stranger, the hand comes out and la bise (lah-BEEZ) stays out of it.
The plates and glasses worth going out of your way for — each with the name as you'd say it out loud.
Test the four channels.
Understanding German by ear, reading, recall, and your own mouth. Quick rounds — do them twice.