For people who already know German and still understand nothing at the lunch table.
Explanations in English
KindChind
k → ch
istisch
st → sch
HausHuus
au → uu
gutguet
u → ue
A language model asked for Swiss German will happily hand you Bernese, and you would have no way to tell. So at Heidi the model does not decide what counts as Zurich German. A fixed rule check does, and you can run it yourself.
Try the checkSwiss German is not one language but a family. Today Heidi is genuinely good at Zurich German, and would rather tell you that than pretend to cover everything. It is also exactly why the check rejects Bernese forms: not because Bernese is wrong, but because Zurich is what we are teaching right now. More dialects follow — each with its own voices and its own check.
Listening before speaking. In Switzerland, understanding dialect and replying in Standard German is a complete and respected way to belong. It is also the only way to keep the input coming: the moment people notice you struggling, they switch to Hochdeutsch.
No invented exercises. The message that arrived this morning, the sentence from the lunch table, the refusal you have to write — that is the material. Heidi helps immediately, and notes what you did not know.
No streaks, no points, no invented percentages. The number we want to show you is how much of an unfamiliar Zurich speaker you understand — before and after.
Every second of dialect you will hear in Heidi comes from a real person in Zurich. If you would let us record you speaking, get in touch.
Take part