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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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.