Originally Posted by
Revilo199
I don't quite know what he's getting at. We Austrians are perfectly able to understand Standard German. I like to compare the difference between Austrian German and Standard German with the difference between American English and British English. It's actually a quite similar situation. Pronounciation sounds a bit weird and both have a variety of words that differ but in general everybody is able to understand each other (unless talking in thick dialect).
I would say that Austrian German vs. Germany German is more like American/Canadian English versus England English (the Scots and Welsh can be quite difficult to understand). I actually find
Schwäbisch deutsch the most difficult to follow. (Maybe they would be Australian English.) And that's because I don't consider
Schweitzer deutsch to be deutsch in the first place. Otherwise, they would win top prize. I can usually understand the Austrian and Bavarian without a problem. It's the local colloquialisms that throw me off. However, every region has those. But in regards to accents, not a problem for me.