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3 Places to Visit in Baden-Württemberg

Written on 25 March 2014. | Posted in Schwäbisch

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3 Places to Visit in Baden Württemberg Baden-Württemberg is a beautiful, diverse state and definitely worth a few days of your next visit to Germany. Here are four places to visit in the state whose motto is perhaps the best one:

"We can do anything. Except speak High German."

In Baden they speak Badisch and in Württemberg they speak Swabian. Swabian has its own variants, in particular on the Schwäbische Alp. To get a feel for the Swabian dialect, start off in Stuttgart, an easy connection through Delta anyway.

1. Stuttgart

The capitol of Baden-Württemberg is Stuttgart. You can visit art museums, eat fantastic Swabian food (like the amazing noodle dish Spätzle), visit rock and classical concerts, like with the Internationale Bach-Akademie Stuttgart (full disclosure: I used to sing with them; die Akademie liegt mir am Herzen). Pick up a Butter-Brezel, known in Swabian as a “Butter-Brezle.” It's a fresh pretzel where the thickest part is cut open and smeared with butter. Just trust me on this one. You’ll never regret it.

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Sprachkurs Schwäbisch

Written on 11 March 2014. | Posted in Schwäbisch

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Harald Schmidt, who has since given up his late night spot on German television, is to Germany was Letterman and Leno are to the US. He's also a Schwab, he's an incredible mimic and can reproduce pretty much any German dialect.

Here his Sprachkurs (Crashkurs) Schwäbisch.

Einfach herrlich!

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Die Schwabenhymne

Written on 06 February 2014. | Posted in Schwäbisch

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As a follow-up to yesterday's post Wer sind die Schwaben?, here's a wonderful little song, completely in Swabian and entrenched in the Swabian culture.

A few helps for understanding what they're singing:

-Swabians are really frugal, so frugal in fact, that they drop the final 'n' on a lot of words. Thus "Schwabenland" becomes "Schwabeland." "Mein" becomes "Mei." An exception to this is verbs and the final 'n' becomes a 't,' thus "sparen" (to save) becomes "sparet."

-"Wir" is pronounced as "mir" so "Mir sparet unser Geld" translates into German as "Wir sparen unser Geld."

-"St" at the beginning of a word in German is pronounced as "sht" or "scht." Swabians use this rule for any "st" anywhere in any word at all times. So "Du bist" becomes "Du bisch." "Das ist" becomes "Das isch."

-The official motto of Baden-Württemberg is "Wir können alles, außer Hochdeutsch." We can do anything, except speak high German. It's true. Just trust me.

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Wer sind die Schwaben?

Written on 05 February 2014. | Posted in Schwäbisch

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Wer sind die Schwaben auf Englisch: Who are the Swabians?

The Swabians are the people of Württemberg, which is part of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. (The folk of the area of Baden are Badisch and their dialect is different.) Each area of Germany has its own characteristics and peculiarities, however since I spent a lot of time there, it's worth spending a bit of time getting to know these hard-working folk. They do not speak what you normally know of as "high German*," but they speak Swabian. It's a dialect far enough removed from Hochdeutsch that many Germans can't understand it.

Swabian is the English translation of "Schwaben." Die Schwaben. A few of their specialties are as follows:

1. Schaffen

Schaffen typically means something is being created, executed, or handled. Not to the Swabians. Schaffen means to work. And work they do. They have a phrase Schaffe, schaffe, Häusle baue: Work, work, build a house. And that's exactly what they do. They are not stereotypically but in reality a very hard-working people and they have a strong infrastructure and stable economy in Baden-Württemberg.

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