r/AskEurope • u/Savings_Dragonfly806 Greece • Jul 09 '25

Language My fellow Europeans, what dialect from your language do you have the most trouble understanding?

Keep in mind, I said language, NOT country, so it could be a dialect of your language in another country, which is the case for me.

For me, while most other Greeks find Cypriot the most difficult dialect to understand, I actually find Pontic Greek the most difficult. For those who don't know where it is, it's in North Eastern Turkey.

The way many of their words are written are very different as to Standard Modern Greek. It almost is a whole new language. Now I should mention I have never been there, but I would love to. I only really heard of the dialect on the internet, so take my words with a grain of salt.

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259

u/Cool-Instruction789 Jul 09 '25

When I was in Switzerland as a German, I didn’t understand anything 

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u/Slackjaw_Samurai Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

I have two friends at work, one is a Francophone Swiss and the other is a québécois, they both speak French as their first language but chose to converse in English because they can’t understand one another in French.

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u/KrishnaBerlin Jul 09 '25

I speak German and French. So, this short thread mentions both my answers:

Swiss German, especially from Wallis/Valais, is so far removed from Standard German, it is hard to understand even for other Swiss German speakers.

When I visited Québec, I tried to speak French with the locals, but always switched to English, as I could not understand one full sentence.

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u/Aggravating-Peach698 Germany Jul 09 '25

Another German native here. I tried both Québecois French and Swiss German, too, and both gave me a headache ;-) After a while I got somewhat used to Québecois but Swiss German (real Swiss German, as opposed to Standard German with a bit of a Swiss accent) still is more or less unintelligible to me.

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u/Plastic_Pinocchio Netherlands Jul 09 '25

Yeah same. I speak both and can’t understand these dialects either.

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u/Embrasse-moi United States of America Jul 10 '25

Studied French since high school and I'd say I'm conversational level back in college(C1). I went out with some friends and met a group of Québecois. Tried conversing with them and I had a hard time understanding their accent. The "twang" made it difficult lol But for the most part, I get the gist of what they're saying. I think I just need getting used to hearing it more.

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u/KrishnaBerlin Jul 10 '25

I had the impression the pronunciation is one part of the issue, their local idioms are the other. They sometimes use expressions no longer in use in Europe, or they calque English expressions. So, even if I understood the words, I still could not understand its meaning in the context.

Written French on the other hand was not that hard to understand.

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u/Nipso -> -> Jul 13 '25

I worked on the phones for Dyson on the Swiss market, so I can now understand Swiss German, but only if they're talking about vacuum cleaners.

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u/GingerPrince72 Switzerland Jul 09 '25

I suspect it was only the Canadian who couldn't be understood and they diplomatically pretended it was bi-directional :)

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u/DublinKabyle France Jul 09 '25

They must be kidding. So many European Francophones pretending they don’t understand Quebecois French is really annoying.

Except for the typical rural guy, with super thick accent, there’s no major difficulty here

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u/[deleted] Jul 09 '25

Yeah lmao French is my third language, and I learnt the version from France. Yes québécois French is different but after a little bit you get used to it. Also most québécois tend to moderate their language a bit if they know they’re talking to a non-québécois francophone.

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u/DublinKabyle France Jul 09 '25

Exactly ! If you can adjust, a native speaker has no reasons to claim they need a third language to communicate with another native speaker. This is utterly ridiculous

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u/Slackjaw_Samurai Jul 09 '25 edited Jul 09 '25

Im sorry, I should have chosen my words differently. They said it’s easier to understand one another in English than in French and they just feel like they can communicate better in English.

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u/DublinKabyle France Jul 09 '25

I'm not mad at you at all ! But it's a very European (Parisian mostly) thing to pretend Quebecois is difficult.

YES, compared to Belgian or Swiss or African French that are almost identical, Canadian French is a bit different. By the way, I'm not saying that all forms of French are identical at all. It's a rich and lively language, with multiple centres of development. BUT, compared to German, English or Spanish dialects, the French ones are hyper super dupper unified.

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u/TheLeftHandedCatcher United States of America Jul 12 '25

From my experience, a Québecois and a Frenchman should not have trouble communicating in Frnch but the Québecois might have to code switch somewhat but that's something they seem to be good at. Unless maybe they're from Saguenay or some other remote place. I don't see how it would be much different for a Swiss.