Le Baron wrote:In Switzerland I was completely bamboozled by the incomprehensible German which sounded to me like Swedish!
People in Switzerland (that is, Germanophones) speak a different language, or a set of dialects that are mostly mutually unintelligible with Standard German (which they also learn at school). They can switch to Standard German, when they need to speak to somebody not versed in their local speech (and their Standard German, obviously, has its own peculiarities as well), but they speak their own Germanic dialects among themselves (and in their local TV shows). Same goes for Austria. Interestingly enough, the local language of Austria forms a continuum with the local Germanic language of Bavaria, so it's often called Austro-Bavarian.