Switzerland Language Online

Switzerland residents use any of three main languages. German, French, Italian, or Romansch. 
Online language aids are given for German first, then French, Italian, then Romansch.

German Language

The Germanic languages departed from the other Indo-European languages by a shift in sounds called the First Germanic Sound Shift, and by other distinguishing features as well. More detail can be found here.

The language we now call German departed from the other Germanic languages (mainly English, Dutch, Scandinavian and the now extinct Gothic) by a shift in sounds called the Second Germanic Sound Shift. Its effect can still be seen by comparing modern German words with their English cognates: pound->Pfund, pipe->Pfeife, hope->hoffen, apple->Apfel, plant->Pflanze, tide->Zeit, cat->Katze, heart->Herz, hate->hassen, make->machen, weak->weich.

The rules for this sound shift are:
p->f, pp->pf, t->ss, tt->ts (written [t]z), k->ch, kk->kch, where initial p, t and k are treated like their doubled counterparts. The p->(p)f shift is quite regular, and so is the t->(t)s shift, which is somewhat blurred by the later differentiation between tz and ss. The k->(k)ch shift, however, is fully in effect only in Swiss German; in standard German and in most of its dialects we find kk (written [c]k) instead of kch. (The characters in square brackets are not written initially in a syllable.)

The Second Sound Shift divides Germany into a smaller Northern part (without the sound shift) and a larger central and Southern part (with the sound shift). The border between the two regions approximates a line passing through Cologne (Köln) and Berlin, but there is a more or less fuzzy region of more than a hundred kilometres width south of that line where the language underwent the Seconds Sound Shift only partially. In Western Germany, for instance, the non-initial t (e.g. dat and wat instead of das and was) reaches much farther south than most of the other non-shifted sounds. There are several central German dialects that have neither initial p nor pf, but f instead. The other countries where German is spoken are all south of this line. More

Language borrowing

Young children attend a Kindergarten (children's garden). Gesundheit doesn't really mean "bless you," it means "health" -- the good variety being implied. Psychiatrists speak of Angst (fear) and Gestalt (form) psychology, and when something is broken, it's kaputt. Although not every English-speaker knows that Fahrvergnügen is "driving pleasure," most do know that Volkswagen means "people's car." Musical works can have a Leitmotiv. Our cultural view of the world is called a Weltanschauung by historians or philosophers. Such terms are commonly understood by most well-read English-speakers.

More English words borrowed from German:
(Notice how many have to do with food!) - blitz, blitzkrieg, cobalt, dachshund, delicatessen, ersatz, frankfurter, glockenspiel, hinterland, infobahn (for "information highway"), kaffeeklatsch, Munster and Limburger (cheeses named for German cities), pilsner (glass, beer), pretzel, quartz, rucksack, sauerkraut, schnaps, (apple) strudel, waltz, wiener. From Low German: brake, dote, tackle.

Germanic cognate terms:
(Shared in common; mostly family-related words, parts of the body, and old basic words) - der Arm, der Ball, der Bruder, die Hand, das Haus, das Ende, das Gold, gut (good), der Finger, lang, der Mann, die Maus, Montag (Monday), die Mutter, der Vater, die Schwester (sister), der Sohn, die Tochter (daughter), das Wasser, das Wort (word).

English in German:
The following German words have been borrowed from English. Usually the only difference is the use of the German article (the - der, die, or das - masc., fem., neu.) and the capitalization used for all German nouns. The pronunciation is usually similar to English, but sometimes with a unique German twist. They are usually German's more recent borrowings. English terms: das Baby, der Babysitter, babysitten (to babysit), das Bodybuilding, das Callgirl, der Clown, der Cocktail, der Computer, fit (in good shape), die Garage, das Golf (der Golf is "the gulf" or a VW model), das Hobby, der Job, joggen (to jog), der Killer, killen (to kill), der Lift (elevator), der Manager, managen (to manage), das Musical, der Playboy, der Pullover, der Rum, der Smog, der Snob, der Streik, das Team, der Teenager, das Ticket, der Tunnel, der Trainer (coach), der Waggon (train car).

Loan Words from French (Französisch)
The following German words look like English words, but they are actually words from French that both English and German have adopted. They are more recent than the Latin borrowings below. French borrowings include: das Abenteuer (adventure), die Armee, das Ballett, die Chance, fein (fine), galoppieren, der General, die Infanterie, die Kanone, die Lanze (lance), der Offizier, die Parade, die Parole (saying, motto),der Platz (place, square), der Preis (prize, price), der Prinz, die Prinzessin, der Tanz (dance), die Uniform.

Loan Words from Latin (Latein)
Both English and German have borrowed heavily from Latin. Latin was the language of the universities in Germany and the rest of Europe during the Middle Ages. Because such words are very old and have undergone changes over the centuries, some are not very obvious equivalents. For example, the German word Birne comes from Latin pirum which gave us the English word pear. Some other Latin loan words: aktiv, der Altar, der Atlas, die Disziplin, der Esel (ass, donkey), das Examen, die Feige (fig), das Fieber (fever), der Kaiser (Caesar, emperor), die Kammer (chamber), die Kamera, der Kanzler (chancellor), der Keller (cellar), das Klima, das Kloster (cloister), das Kreuz (cross), die Lilie (lily), der Markt (market), die Meile (mile), das Münster (minster, church), die Münze (money, coin), opfern (to offer, sacrifice), die Pforte (portal), das Pfund (pound), die Rose, der Student/die Studentin, die Tafel (tablet), der Wein (wine).

The German Umlaut ("diaeresis" in English)
The two dots sometimes placed over the German vowels a, o, and u are known as an Umlaut. The umlauted vowels ä, ö and ü (and their capitalized equivalents Ä, Ö, Ü) are actually a shortened form for ae, oe and ue respectively. At one time the e was placed above the vowel, but as time went by the e transformed into just two dots. In telegrams and in plain (ASCII) computer text the umlauted forms still appear as ae, oe and ue. A German typewriter or computer keyboard includes separate keys for the three umlauted characters (plus the ß, the so-called "sharp s" character). The umlauted letters are distinct from plain a, o, or u, and they are pronounced differently.

The Swiss-Germans have managed to get along just fine without the ß for many years, and with the new spelling reforms being introduced in all three German-speaking countries, Switzerland may not be alone much longer. For more about Rechtschreibreform see the New German Spelling Rules from a German Web site.

Free Online German Course
From About.com

It's a doozy!
The English expression "doozy" (also "doozie") -- as in "Man, that one was a real doozy!" -- comes from the name of German-American car maker Frederick S. Duesenberg (1877-1932, born in Lippe, Germany) and his luxurious high-powered Duesenberg roadster. The American-built Duesenberg SJ could reach speeds of 130 mph (210 km/h). The Duesenberg Motor Company produced its streamlined, elegant motor cars from 1917 to 1937 to compete with similar expensive roadsters such as the Italian Bugatti.

On a related but different note, "Dear Doosie" by Werner Lansburgh (Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag) is a humorous love story that plays off of the German Du / Sie problem -- hence the title. Written in an interesting mix of English and German, the book can be read by anyone with at least an intermediate command of German and a good German-English dictionary. Written in the form of a series of letters, "Dear Doosie" has fun with the hazards of learning another language, in this case, a German learning English. But the book is also helpful for English-speaking learners of German -- and an amusing read besides.

 NOTE: This book may be available from Amazon.de.

 

The Germans have a word for it

English may have more vocabulary than any other language, but that doesn't mean it has a word for everything. Every language has words and expressions that are unique and very difficult or impossible to translate into another language. The Eskimos, contrary to popular legend, do NOT really have fifty words for snow, but German gemütlich takes several words to explain in English: cozy, comfortable, warm, inviting, and hospitable. Sometimes these words or expressions are adopted wholesale into another language -- Kindergarten and Gesundheit (health), for example, from German into English. But more often the word is just unknown in other languages. German is a rich language that has words and turns of phrases that have no equal in English. (The reverse is just as true, of course.)

German makes certain distinctions that English does not. For English "to know" German has two words, each reflecting the difference between knowing something through understanding (wissen) and knowing something through recognition (kennen). A German can also understand immediately from the use of one of two distinct verbs whether an object has been "put" on a surface in a standing (stellen) or a lying (legen) position. When it comes to eating, animals and humans in German have two different words: fressen is used for non-humans, while people essen.

Some German expressions, such as Schadenfreude (a malicious pleasure or gloating over another's misfortune), don't really have an English equivalent. ("Crocodile tears" -- Krokodiltränen -- aren't really the same thing.) The adjective überfragt (lit., "over-asked," as in "Da bin ich überfragt." "You've got me there. I don't have the answer.") has no one-word English equivalent either.

German slang and colorful expressions

One common mistake made by beginning language learners is to assume that expressions can be translated word-for-word from one language into another. (See "A Dictionary Can Be a Dangerous Thing" above.) They'll take an expression such as "to bite the dust" and render it into something like "zu beissen den Staub." Besides its word order problems (the phrase would go "den Staub beissen" in German), this literal translation makes absolutely no sense to a German-speaker. In the German language, when one "bites the dust," one actually "bites into the grass" (ins Gras beissen), perhaps because Germany is much greener than the wild West associated with this expression in English, although the German expression goes all the way back to the 16th century. More

Colorful Expressions

Cognates These are words which mean the same in German as in English. There is probably a slight difference in pronunciation. But the words are the same in both languages. By working on lists like this, vocabulary in a foreign language increases dramatically.

Additional resources with things which may be familiar to you:

For vocabulary expansion, try these:

The BBC offers online German Language training. MORE.

Simple Expressions

Pronunciation Guide

French Language

Information from The French American Cultural Foundation

The Romance languages are a group of closely related vernaculars descended from the LATIN LANGUAGE, a member of the Italic branch of INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. The designation Romance is derived from the Latin phrase romanica loqui, "to speak in Roman fashion," which attests to the popular, rather than literary, origins of the languages.

The Romance languages that have acquired national standing as the official tongues of their countries are French, with approximately 98 million speakers living principally in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, and parts of Africa; Italian, with 65 million speakers in Italy, Switzerland, and parts of Africa; Portuguese, with 137 million speakers in Portugal, Brazil, and parts of Africa and Asia; Spanish, with 231 million speakers in Spain, Latin America, and parts of the Caribbean; and Romanian, with 25 million speakers in Romania and other parts of the Balkans.

Several distinct Romance languages function as non-national, regional vernaculars. Among these are Rheto-Romance, or Rhaetian, which consists of a group of related languages spoken in Switzerland, where they are called Romansch, and in northern Italy, where they are called Ladin or Friulian. In southern France, Provençal, or Occitan, is spoken by about 12 million people. Formerly more unified as a literary language, Provençal now consists of a series of local dialects.

Romance creoles, whose origins are found in PIDGINS or simplified trade languages, have also sprung up around the world. Haitian and Louisiana French are such languages, as are the varieties of Portuguese found in Macao and Goa.

From the evidence of Latin grammarians, popular playwrights, and inscriptions, it is apparent that in Republican Rome the spoken language of the lower classes was undergoing modifications in pronunciation and grammar that ultimately were to differentiate it from the written language and the language of the privileged. During the period of empire and Roman expansion, it was this Latin of the people, so-called Vulgar Latin, that was carried to the far-flung provinces by soldiers, merchants, and colonists.

Not all provinces were Romanized at the same time, however. Sicily and Sardinia were colonized as early as 238 BC, while Dacia--modern Romania--did not come under Roman occupation until about AD 100. In the provinces, Vulgar Latin underwent further modification by the subjugated peoples, who brought to it their own speech habits and pronunciation influenced by their own indigenous languages. The Iberians, for example, pronounced Latin one way, whereas the Gauls pronounced it another.

The collapse of the empire's frontiers during the 5th century under the thrust of Germanic tribes left Rome cut off from the provinces, and the outer regions drifted apart as each modified its form of spoken Latin in unique ways. In every region of the former Latin-speaking world, the emerging Romance languages then in turn began to break up among themselves.

French and Provençal

In Gallo-Roman France, a split occurred between north and south, assisted by incursions of Germanic-speaking Franks--whence the name "France"--into the north. Here, too, further dialectalization occurred throughout the Middle Ages, resulting in a multitude of speech forms such as Francien, Picard, Norman, Lorrain, and Walloon. Southern French, or Provençal, split into Languedocien, Auvergnat, and many other dialects. The dialect of Paris gradually became the national language, however, because of the political prestige of the capital and today is accepted as the model for the French language.

The Case System

Broadly speaking, the trend or direction of change in the Romance languages has been to reduce the Latin case system through elimination of the distinctive endings. The Latin word porta, "door," for instance, had three singular forms: nominative, vocative, and ablative porta; accusative portam; and genitive and dative portae. Modern Romance languages, however, use only one singular form: French porte, Italian and Portuguese porta, and Spanish puerta. Other modern Romance linguistic features include the elimination of neuter gender, the development of the definite article, greater use of prepositions, stricter word order, and the emergence of auxiliary verbs to express tense.

Verb Paradigms

French leveled the verb paradigms to such an extent that subject pronouns became mandatory (contrast French je chante, "I sing," with Italian canto); but in general the Latin paradigm has remained intact.

Notable in phonology was the loss of opposition between Latin long and short vowels, the voicing of intervocalic voiceless consonants, and in some languages the loss of syllable- and word-final s. The emergence of accentual patterns led to the reduction or loss of many unstressed vowels in the more heavily accented languages such as Gallo-Roman and Old French, and to the diphthongization of some stressed vowels in most of the Romance languages. Only in French and Portuguese, however, did vowels before a nasal consonant undergo nasalization--compare French main, "hand," with Portuguese mao and Spanish and Italian mano.

Basque

Basque, or Euskara, is a language spoken by about a million people in northern Spain and southwestern France. Although attempts have been made to link it to ancient Iberian, the Hamito-Semitic group, and Caucasian, its origins remain uncertain.

The sound pattern resembles that of Spanish, with its five pure vowels and such peculiarities as a trilled r and palatal n and l. In spite of this, and the presence of numerous Latinate loanwords, Basque has maintained its distinctiveness throughout two millennia of external contacts. For example, it still places a unique emphasis on suffixes to denote case and number and to form new words.

Basque is the only language remaining of those spoken in southwestern Europe before the Roman conquest. Since the 10th century, it has gradually been supplanted by Castilian Spanish, and under the Franco regime its use in Spain was outlawed altogether. The ethnic insularity of the Basques, however, has fostered revivals. Attempts are now being made to standardize the orthography.

Creole

Creole languages are fully formed languages that develop from a PIDGIN language and gradually become the primary language of a linguistic community. As the domains of the use of the pidgin language expand, often with the development of a LINGUA FRANCA used for communication between different groups, it develops lexically and becomes phonologically and grammatically more complex. When the pidgin replaces the community's original language, it is called a creole.

Widely distributed throughout the world, creolized languages are native to between 10 and 15 million people. Different creoles share many common features, such as an outward simplicity and regularity that is believed to reflect universal linguistic processes.

Most creole languages have vocabularies derived from major European languages. French-based Creole is found in Haiti, Mauritius, the French Overseas Departments of Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion, and Guyana, in Dominica and St. Lucia, and, although disappearing, in various British-influenced Caribbean islands and in southwestern Louisiana.

When creole coexists with the language on which it is lexically based, it blends with the base language to form a decreolization continuum. Except for Tok Pisin, which has semiofficial status in Papua New Guinea, and Creole, endowed with a semicodified orthography in Haiti, creoles still bear the stigma of their pidgin origin and their association with slavery and social inferiority. They are vernaculars that are not thought appropriate for administrative, educational, and literary functions. MORE

MORE details about the history of the French Language.

Translation Tool

TV Search

MORE from Google

City College of San Francisco, California, has a great collection of French Language Links. Click HERE for the page. Here is a sample:

Writing and Reference Tools

Language Learning Links

Text Book Sites

Other Language Learning Sites

Le français en affaires

French Search Engines/Moteurs de recherche

Le Français à San Francisco

Pen Pals/Correspondants/Conversation

Media

Print resources

Radio, TV, Video

Points de départ

Some of the best organized and most complete French resources

Voyages/Explorations

France

D'autres pays francophones

Musées

Musique

Shopping

Sports

Littérature

Games

Ressources diverses

Satellite TV Search

French American Clubs

High School Clubs

Learning from Francophone LINK plus a sample of the content follows:

 The purpose of this site is to make available in one place for learners of French, the principal interactive audio and video sites for francophone television and radio stations (except the last section). The Globe-Gate Research intends that the site become a learning resource center for listening and viewing comprehension, and to that end, we have included a resource page for obtaining appropriate audio software , a bibliography of recent articles on foreign-language listening comprehension, and our own introduction: "Listening Comprehension: Some Notions and Strategies" . This, our second edition, contains 80 links to sounds and video images of the Francophone world, divided into television and radio. The second category is further divided by geographic region. You can listen to or watch a whole newscast, listen live to talk radio or your favorite musical genre.

Digital Resources

Television and Video

French and European Radio

North America

Africa, Asia, Ociania

Varia

Romansch Language

ROMANSCH: a language of Switzerland

Here are several links top details about the Romansch Language.

phrasebase.com

MORE

PenPals

Here are details from the web site:

Il linguatg retorumantsch sin l'Internet
The Rhaeto-Romance Language on the Internet - Die rätoromanische Sprache im Internet

Rumantsch
Romansch - Bündnerromanisch

Cun questa pagina jau hai vulì dar varsaquantas connexiuns a paginas sin l'Internet ch'èn scrittas en rumantsch u sa tractan dal linguatg rumantsch. Vus era vegnis a chattar links a paginas en ils linguas ladina e friulana.

Uss questa pagina è mo disponibla en rumantsch grischun ed en englais, ma pli tard jau vegn a dar ina translaziun en tudestg.

With this Web page I would like to offer links to various Web sites which are either written in Romansch or concern the Romansch language. It also contains links to Friulan and Ladin Internet resources.

This page is available in Rumantsch Grischun and English only, but shortly I will add a translation in German as well.

Paginas rumantschas/Informaziun concernent il linguatg rumantsch

Bigfoot Svizzera
Il register svizzer dad E-mail
The Swiss Email Directory - Der schweizer E-mail Verzeichnis
(rumantsch grischun)

Buser, Christian
Homepage/curs da vita
Home Page/Résumé - Homepage/Lebenslauf
(sursilvan, englais ed tudestg)

Confoederatio Helvetica
Las autoritads federalas da la Confederaziun svizra
The Federal Authorities of the Swiss Confederation - Die Bundesbehörden der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft
(tudestg, franzos, talian, rumantsch grischun ed englais)

Ethnologue Database
(englais)

Federaziun da Boomerang Svizra
Swiss Boomerang Federation - Schweizerische Bumerang Föderation
(englais, tudestg, franzos, talian e sursilvan)

Federaziun svizra da vela
Swiss Sailing Federation - Schweizerischer Segelverband
(tudestg, franzos, talian, rumantsch grischun ed englais)

Interlingua pro Rhetoromanos
(rumantsch grischun ed interlingua)

Internet Online
(tudestg e sursilvan)

Ligia Perpetna digl Uost 1291
(rumantsch grischun)

PUNTS (server en ils USA)
La gasetta giuvna
(tuts idioms rumantschs e rumantsch grischun)

Unesco Red Book On Endangered Languages: Europe
(englais)

Friulan
Friulisch - Friulan

Paginas friulanas/Informaziun concernent il linguatg friulan

Amis De Lenghe Furlane
Amis da la lingua friulana
Friends of the Friulan Language - Freunde der friulischen Sprache
(friulan ed englais)

Ethnologue Database
(englais)

Un Focolare in Friuli per tutti i Friulani nel mondo
(friulan, talian ed englais)

Friuli nel Mondo
(talian e friulan)

Al Gròp Furlàn
(friulan ed englais)

Mercator Media Project
(englais)

Pasolini e il Friuli
(talian)

Radio Onde Furlane
(friulan)

Unesco Red Book On Endangered Languages: Europe
(englais)

Ladin
Ladinisch - Ladin

Paginas ladinas/Informaziun concernent il linguatg ladin

Ethnologue Database
(englais)

The Ladins
Ils Ladins
(englais)

Mercator Media Project
(englais)

Senoner, Markus
Homepage/curs da vita
Home page/Résumé - Homepage/Lebenslauf
(gherdëina, talian, tudestg ed englais)

Unesco Red Book On Endangered Languages: Europe
(englais)

Words and Phrases

Introduction

One of the key features of Switzerland is its cultural diversity. The ancestors of the people how live in this country today have their origins in different cultures. The most obvious result of this cultural variety is the fact, that - even if Switzerland is only a small country - there are as much as four different official languages: German (74%), French (20%), Italian (4%) and Romansh (1%) - the remaining 1% speaks other languages. See statistics for more detailed information.

The map below shows where people speak what language (click on the map for an enlargement).

We use the following abbreviations and coloring schema to identify the languages:

At the borders where two languages meet, the language does not change abruptly, it rather changes gradually. People living on the border usually grow up bilingual - this is especially true for the areas marked with strips on the map above. At school, the children have to learn a second language spoken in our country (however, there is currently a big dispute going on, whether our kids should learn English rather than German or French as a second language).

The border between the German and the French speaking part of our country is known as the "Röstigraben" (literally translated: "hashed potatoes ditch"). It stands not only for the separation of the languages, but also for the separation of the cultures and the ideologies. The lingual minorities sometimes feel out-ruled by the majority of the German speaking fellow citizen in political issues. While the French speaking Swiss tend to be more open minded, the German speaking Swiss tend to be more conservative. Again, this is a very general statement, a single individuum should not be judged simply by her or his language or origin.

The term "German speaking Swiss" is not really correct, they actually speak Swiss-German ("Schweizerdeutsch"). Swiss-German is very different form the German spoken in Germany or Austria. Even more surprisingly, there is no written Swiss-German at all. People in Austria, Germany and Switzerland share the same written German language, known as "high German" ("Hochdeutsch") - however, the term "written German" ("Deutsche Schriftsprache") is far more accurate. The written German is very different form the Swiss-German, it is almost a foreign language.
People in each canton have their own, very distinct dialect, which varies significantly. Again, the language changes gradually from north to south and from east to west. Even though the French and the Italian spoken in Switzerland are not absolutely the same as in the neighboring countries, they are not as different as the Swiss-German from the German-German or the Austrian-German.

Romansh is a very different and also a very old language. It is considered a "dead" language, because it does not change anymore. They do not introduce new words for new things, instead, they borrow terms from the German language. Even if there are only a few villages where they still speak this language, there are nonetheless five different dialects (known as idioms) around.
The words in the table below are provided in Romansh Sursilvan, the other idioms are known as Sutsilvan, Surmiran, Puter and Vallader. See Lia Rumantscha for much more information about Romansh.

Note: The tables below show a number of words and simple common phrases in English and their translations in all four official Swiss languages. While the author took every effort to find the correct words or expressions, there is no guarantee for correctness. In addition, the same word may have different meanings depending on the context or region. The author tried to choose common words and phrases a visitor may need, but this document shall not replace a dictionary at all.
If you come across a document on the Web which you cannot understand because it is written in a foreign language, you may try babelfish to translate it - however, my experience is, that the output is hardly useful. On-line translation is still far away from what it needs be ...

Acknowledgments: The author wants to thank all his friends for their kind and valued help to create this document, most of all Theodor Casutt from the ETH Zürich for his tremendous efforts to provide the Romansh translation. However, the responsibility for all errors is with no one else but the author mentioned at the bottom of this document. Please send suggestions for corrections or additions to questions@about.ch.

Table of contents

1. Switzerland
2. Numbers (sound example available)
3. Fractions
4. Ordinals
5. Time
6. Orientation
7. Food
8. Animals
9. Relationship
10. The human body
11. Clothing
12. Activities
13. Miscellaneous
    
    
14. Simple common phrases

Switzerland

Also known as Confoederatio Helvetica (therefore CH)

To table of contents

Numbers (DE: Zahlen, FR: Nombres, IT: Numeri, RO: cefras / diembers)

Sound Samples, counting from 1 to 10:

See also information about units used in Switzerland and how they relate to the U.S. unit system plus some unit conversion tables.

To table of contents

Fractions (DE: Bruchzahlen, FR: Nombres fractionnaires, IT: Frazione, RO: fracziuns)

To table of contents

Ordinals (DE: Ordnungszahlen, FR: Nombres ordinaux, IT: Numeri ordinari, RO: diember ordinal)

To table of contents

Time (DE: die Zeit, FR: le temps, IT: il tempo, RO: il temps)

To table of contents

Orientation (DE: Orientierung, FR: Orientation, IT: Orientamento, RO: orientaziun)

To table of contents

Food (DE: Nahrung / Lebensmittel, FR: Nourriture, IT: Alimento, RO: nutriment)

To table of contents

Animals (DE: Tiere, FR: Animaux, IT: Animali, RO: animals)

To table of contents

Traffic (DE: der Verkehr, FR: le trafic, IT: il traffico, RO: il traffic)

To table of contents

Relationship (DE: die Verwandschaft, FR: la parenté, IT: la parentela, RO: la parentella)

To table of contents

The human body (DE: der menschliche Körper, FR: le corps humain, IT: il corpo umano , RO: il tgierp human)

To table of contents

Clothing (DE: die Kleidung, FR: l'habits, IT: l'abito, RO: la vetagdira)

To table of contents

Activities (DE: Tätigkeiten, FR: Activités, IT: Attività, RO: activitads)

To table of contents

Miscellaneous (DE: Verschiedenes, FR: Divers, IT: Varie, RO: diversa)

To table of contents

Simple common phrases (DE: einfache Redewendungen, FR: expressions simple, IT: frasi semplici, RO: sempla expressiuns)