Do you speak german? - No, austrian.
Sometimes people think that Austrians and Germans are talking the same language. Well sometimes we do, but sometimes...not.
When I came back to Austria I just noticed, that I had spoken a pretty straight German in the time I was not here. And I almost rolled on the floor laughing when I came to work for the first day. Even if I'm not pretty sure what I am doing in this company, besides getting papers in the right order and writing some "useful" stuff in a computer, I somehow like being there. There's one thing I can never forget as long as I am working here: my nationality.
People in here are all talking like real viennese people should talk. But for some odd reason we are loosing our language more and more. Or should I say we let it go? I'm not sure about that. But it's always fun to be reminded on all those cool phrases we use here - which would be considered as "low" in nowadays society. So we use those things among friends or in our family, but better not outside in the streets when we want something. Somewhere. Otherwise people would call us "gscheat" which is not a nice word for someone who is quite naughty in talking using a lot of "low"-slang words.
If something goes wrong or we fail doing something, it's definitely "oasch!". And believe me I heard the phrase "Des is oasch!" quite often during this week! XD Sometimes also something like "Na des is scho oasch" or "Ois oasch!". A normal german speaking would say "Das ist scheiße." or "alles scheiße.". But in Vienna you often hear "Oasch" instead of "Scheiße". Also used in "Des geht ma am Oasch" which means "This is getting on my nerves" in a very harsh tone. Or we also use it like "Des geht ma am Oasch vorbei!" what in german would mean something like "Ist mir scheißegal" and in english "I really do not care about that!". The real translation for "Oasch" would be "butt". It's slang... ;D
And if we are talking about some of our workmates or friends we do not think to be very competent or who did something we do not consider as useful or logical, we call them "Trottel". Well in our company almost everyone seems to be a "Trottel" according to how often we use it. And if he or she is not a "Trottel", then he or she might at least be "a bissl deppert". which means "a little bit stupid" in our beautiful language. This leads to one phrase you really hear quite often in Vienna: "Bist du deppert!". And no - this one is not always meant negative! We also say it when something happens we either can not believe or do not want to believe. For example when an accident happens and there are about 10 persons which are in hospital as a cause of the accident you might hear a "Bist du deppert!". But also when something really big happens that is a positive experience for us. So you can use it instead of "WOOOW" too. It always depends on the sound of our voice! :)
But be aware, we also use it when someone does something we do not want him to do. Like someone takes your phone without permission. That might be another reason for a "Bist du deppert?". Then it is - of course - not meant in a nice way ;).
Often our beloved citizens also use "deppert" combined with another typical word: "Heast". Literally it means nothing else than "Hörst du" or in english "Listen". For Austrians also this is a word we ALWAYS use. At least in the eastern part of Austria. When we are going by car and there is a guy in front of us driving far too slow or something, we shout: "Heast, Oida!", meaning "Listen, old man." But for us it's more like an expression for being annoyed.
An extended version of "Heast, Oida" would be "Heast, Oida, bist du deppert?". And another lovely phrase using this two words is "Heast, Oida, wos wüüst?" meaning - "Hey, old man, what do you want?".
"Oida" grew to one of the most used words among the young people in Vienna, it was kind of a trend-word in the past years, used for almost everything. Just to show you how:
A: "Could you please wash the dishes?"
B: "Maah, Oidaaa..." (Meaning: "I don't want to do it.")
A: +Blablabla+ ... or we could do it like this...or like that...or..."
B: "Oida?!" (Meaning: "Please dont get on my nerves any longer.")
A: ...Yeah and then XYZ happened and I had to come home because of ..."
B: "Oida! And what happened then?" (Meaning: "Fuck! And what happened then?")
A: "Oida?!, Could you please help me?" (Meaning: "Hey, man, could you please help me?" --> I often used this when I called my brother XD )
A: "Yeah and then the agency called and I had to cancel the flight."
B: "Oida..." (Meaning: "Noo, that can't be true..." in a sad way)
A: "When I told him the story he just started laughing and then..."
B: "OIDA?" (Meaning: "Is he crazy??" or "No way!")
Oida, as you can see this word is very useful :P. It expresses everything!
We have lots of funny words in our language and I never understood why other german speaking people sometimes do not understand us, but being a little bit more attentive or better keeping an eye on our language, whilst working after being away from here for a long time, I now can understand, why it might at least sometimes be difficult to understand Austrians! :)
When I came back to Austria I just noticed, that I had spoken a pretty straight German in the time I was not here. And I almost rolled on the floor laughing when I came to work for the first day. Even if I'm not pretty sure what I am doing in this company, besides getting papers in the right order and writing some "useful" stuff in a computer, I somehow like being there. There's one thing I can never forget as long as I am working here: my nationality.
People in here are all talking like real viennese people should talk. But for some odd reason we are loosing our language more and more. Or should I say we let it go? I'm not sure about that. But it's always fun to be reminded on all those cool phrases we use here - which would be considered as "low" in nowadays society. So we use those things among friends or in our family, but better not outside in the streets when we want something. Somewhere. Otherwise people would call us "gscheat" which is not a nice word for someone who is quite naughty in talking using a lot of "low"-slang words.
If something goes wrong or we fail doing something, it's definitely "oasch!". And believe me I heard the phrase "Des is oasch!" quite often during this week! XD Sometimes also something like "Na des is scho oasch" or "Ois oasch!". A normal german speaking would say "Das ist scheiße." or "alles scheiße.". But in Vienna you often hear "Oasch" instead of "Scheiße". Also used in "Des geht ma am Oasch" which means "This is getting on my nerves" in a very harsh tone. Or we also use it like "Des geht ma am Oasch vorbei!" what in german would mean something like "Ist mir scheißegal" and in english "I really do not care about that!". The real translation for "Oasch" would be "butt". It's slang... ;D
And if we are talking about some of our workmates or friends we do not think to be very competent or who did something we do not consider as useful or logical, we call them "Trottel". Well in our company almost everyone seems to be a "Trottel" according to how often we use it. And if he or she is not a "Trottel", then he or she might at least be "a bissl deppert". which means "a little bit stupid" in our beautiful language. This leads to one phrase you really hear quite often in Vienna: "Bist du deppert!". And no - this one is not always meant negative! We also say it when something happens we either can not believe or do not want to believe. For example when an accident happens and there are about 10 persons which are in hospital as a cause of the accident you might hear a "Bist du deppert!". But also when something really big happens that is a positive experience for us. So you can use it instead of "WOOOW" too. It always depends on the sound of our voice! :)
But be aware, we also use it when someone does something we do not want him to do. Like someone takes your phone without permission. That might be another reason for a "Bist du deppert?". Then it is - of course - not meant in a nice way ;).
Often our beloved citizens also use "deppert" combined with another typical word: "Heast". Literally it means nothing else than "Hörst du" or in english "Listen". For Austrians also this is a word we ALWAYS use. At least in the eastern part of Austria. When we are going by car and there is a guy in front of us driving far too slow or something, we shout: "Heast, Oida!", meaning "Listen, old man." But for us it's more like an expression for being annoyed.
An extended version of "Heast, Oida" would be "Heast, Oida, bist du deppert?". And another lovely phrase using this two words is "Heast, Oida, wos wüüst?" meaning - "Hey, old man, what do you want?".
"Oida" grew to one of the most used words among the young people in Vienna, it was kind of a trend-word in the past years, used for almost everything. Just to show you how:
A: "Could you please wash the dishes?"
B: "Maah, Oidaaa..." (Meaning: "I don't want to do it.")
A: +Blablabla+ ... or we could do it like this...or like that...or..."
B: "Oida?!" (Meaning: "Please dont get on my nerves any longer.")
A: ...Yeah and then XYZ happened and I had to come home because of ..."
B: "Oida! And what happened then?" (Meaning: "Fuck! And what happened then?")
A: "Oida?!, Could you please help me?" (Meaning: "Hey, man, could you please help me?" --> I often used this when I called my brother XD )
A: "Yeah and then the agency called and I had to cancel the flight."
B: "Oida..." (Meaning: "Noo, that can't be true..." in a sad way)
A: "When I told him the story he just started laughing and then..."
B: "OIDA?" (Meaning: "Is he crazy??" or "No way!")
Oida, as you can see this word is very useful :P. It expresses everything!
We have lots of funny words in our language and I never understood why other german speaking people sometimes do not understand us, but being a little bit more attentive or better keeping an eye on our language, whilst working after being away from here for a long time, I now can understand, why it might at least sometimes be difficult to understand Austrians! :)
Micke - 16. Aug, 18:32
