German is the official and main language of Germany, Austria, and Liechtenstein. It is also an official language of Switzerland, and Luxembourg and spoken as a regional language in Namibia. Furthermore, German is spoken in the French regions of Alsace (German: Elsass) and Lorraine (German: Lothringen), in the northern Italian province of South Tyrol (German: Südtirol, Italian: Alto Adige or Sudtirolo), and in a small part of eastern Belgium and southern Denmark.

Standard German (Hochdeutsch) is also generally spoken by many as a second language in much of East-Central Europe. Small groups of native German speakers can be found in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. This is due to the historical influence of Austria – the former Austrian Empire, and Germany over the region and the radical border changes put into place in Europe after WWII.

Furthermore, small isolated German speaking communities can be found in Russia, the Central Asian Republics, Australia, and in North and South America.

Grammar & Dialects

In common with many other European languages, German has two “you” verb forms which denote the relationship the speaker has to someone else. To express familiarity, one uses the du form; for formality, the Sie form. As a general rule the Sie form is used when one might address someone as “Madam” or “Sir”. If on first name terms, one uses the du form. Grammatically, the Sie form takes the 3rd person plural ending.

There are 3 different noun genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The article of a noun depends on the gender: der (m), die (f) and das (n).

Furthermore, German nouns are declined. There are four grammatical cases: nominative (subject), accusative (direct object), genitive (possessive), and dative (indirect object) Each varies depending on the noun’s gender and whether it is singular or plural.

An orthographic peculiarity is that all nouns, even those in the middle of a sentence, begin with a capital letter.

There are very strong accentual and dialectic differences in German-speaking countries. A German from the north and one from the south of the country can have great difficulty understanding each other’s dialects. Standard German, or “Hochdeutsch”, is universally known and taught, although not everyone speaks it well. Generally, the further south one travels, the broader the influence of dialect on standard speech. The Main River serves as a rough “border” between the northern and southern German speaking cultural worlds. Switzerland, in particular tends to use its own form of German, even often in the media. As a rule, one should not expect all people one encounters (especially in the rural areas) of Alsace, Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Austria, South Tyrol and Switzerland to speak standard German well but dialect instead.

In the north of Germany, some people speak a related language called Plattdüütsch or Low German (“Plattdeutsch” in German). It is strongly related to Dutch or Danish. All Platt speakers will understand standard German.

The German spoken in Switzerland is referred to as Schwyyzerdüütsch. There are various varieties of Swiss German depending on the region and it is even widely used in the media. Dialects are not usually used in the media in Germany, Austria or Liechtenstein except for regional programming. Thus this is rare in the German speaking world, as “Hochdeutsch” is more or less the sole language of media outside Switzerland. The German dialects spoken in Vorarlberg (Austria), Baden-Württemberg, (Germany) and Alsace (France) are related to Swiss German.

In the Italian South Tyrol, like in most of Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and southern Germany most people speak a local dialect. However standard German and Italian are taught in the schools. The German spoken in South Tyrol is very similar to that of neighboring Austria and Bavaria to the north.

German Phrase Guides: