What up, Yo? and other dialectical greetings

We resumed our German class in August after a break for most of the summer. Our new class is quite good. It is very convenient, especially for S because it is offered through the institute where she works. It is also easier because it is a 15 min.bike ride to get there rather than a 40 min. ride. It meets 2x/week instead of the 5 day/wk. class we started in the spring. Although it is not as intense, the level of the students is higher so we progress faster per hour of class. I must say that although I am attending class and doing my work, I am not putting in a lot of extra time and I don't feel like I am improving by leaps and bounds. I could be trying harder but here are my top 3 reasons why I'm not learning faster:
3) We don't do a lot of speaking in class and that is what I need the most help with, although as my teachers have pointed out, you can't speak until you know some vocabulary and grammar.
2) It is difficult to practice out in the real world because many people will switch to English if you struggle. Since communication is the most important goal I let them switch, otherwise we wouldn't get far. For example, I was just interrupted as I was writing the last sentence by a phone call. It was a woman trying to sell me a service for returning lost keys (which admittedly could be quite handy, see previous post). I muddled along in German for about 30 sec. until she got to what she was calling for and asked me if I understood, to which I replied "Do you speak English?" Her English was not great but far better than my German. I knew that she wanted to talk to me about keys and not much else.
And the number 1 reason....
They don't speak German here. What? you say. Yes, German is one of the officially recognized languages, but what is primarily spoken is Swiss German-- which is a dialect of true, or High, German. Oh, and on top of that, even if you learn some Swiss German, there are multiple regional dialects within the country. High German is what is taught in schools and it is the official written language, so reading labels, signs, newspapers etc. is relatively straighforward but there is still a lot of vocabulary that is unique to Switzerland. Before we moved here we did some traveling in Patagonia. Several times we met German tourists and when they found out we were moving to Switzerland, they remarked about how they couldn't understand Swiss German. That doesn't bode well for us if the native German speakers have a hard time with it. Since I know very little Swiss German, it is difficult for me to tell you the differences but I can tell you that they definitely sound different. During our first month here we were riding the train and there were some teenagers sitting in the row across from us. I was trying to figure out what language they were speaking and it finally occurred to me that it was actually Swiss German, but it didn't sound at all like the German I was learning in class. If you think straight-up German is harsh and guttural, Swiss German seems to have even more of the harder "ch" sounds-- however, it can be very sing-songy in its pronuncation as well.
At first I was frustrated by the dialect issue (and I still am) but then I started to think about the many dialects of the English language. My first thought for an analogy was that Swiss German is like African American Vernacular English (sometimes referred to as Ebonics). However, this also can become a racial issue so I don't really want to go there. Instead, I have decided for comparison's sake to talk about Southeastern US dialects in general. Think of it this way. You come from a foreign country and move to a small town in the deep South. Maybe you learned English elsewhere or maybe you are learning it now. It is Standard American English.
Here are S and I in Switzerland. We learn "Guten Tag" to greet one or more people. We see someone on the street and they say "Grüezi mitenand" (which as far as I can tell is derived from "Grüsse miteinander"- literally translated as "greetings with each other". Mitenand is only added when there is more than one person). That would be the equivalent of you, in the example above, learning "Hello" as a greeting and you are on the street in your Southern town and hear "Hey, y'all." They don't sound at all alike and even though you know it is a greeting you have no idea what they are actually saying.
Learning a new greeting is no problem. I have my Grüezis and my Grüezi mitenands down pretty well, by now. I can even modify it by region. For example a softer Grüsse sound for when we get more into the central part of the country (Bernese Oberland etc.). (Of course, I suspect they can tell I'm not Swiss even if I think I am doing ok). Just like you can inflect and pronounce Hello in so many different ways, so too are the Grüezis. What I love are the emphatic sing-songy greetings where the second syllable rises at the end. The Swiss are good greeters, greeting everyone they meet on the trail and on the streets of our local town. With a good emphatic Grüezi coming out of your mouth it is virtually impossible not to smile.
The problem isn't with greetings, which are recognizable as such. It is when the conversation continues that the problems begin. Seriously though, despite my frustration at the slow pace of language progress, I am learning and I can pick out more and more words. When I think about what I knew 6 months ago and what I know now, I have made progress. I just wish I could understand and speak more. My biggest frustration is that I am just adding another language that I can only use a at basic level (now I have 3 of those).