1. Lies lies lies. YOU suck at german. Germans and Austrians understand each other perfectly well. (Austrians are germans, same people, but two countries. Some dude started a war trying to unite all german hmm what was his name, wish they told us this in histroy hmm.) 2. Austria and Australia are different countries. I know some of you are trolling, but some of you are not. ******* retards. 3. Austrians understand english perfectly well.

hehe come visit switzerland, good luck here with ur "german" ;) ps: even in germany u have to be really lucky to find someone who does speak the "offical" german, but anyway, unlike germany in austria and switzerland at least everybody knows how to speak "high german" we just dont like it so much :P

Umm, there's several dialects of German. In school you learned High, or Standard, German. But in the southern, Bayen region, they speak Bayerische, which is completely different. (My brother lives there, told me not to bother going to school for German, as it would be useless to me in his area. This is also often the dialect spoken in Austria. Good luck, OP http://german.about.com/library/weekly/aa051898.htm

You'll pick that up quickly! I lived in Germany some time and I couldn't much when I left home. So you'll be just fine, and learn the language fast. Good luck ;)

im austrian and i think that you wont have any problems communicating since everybody speaks english anyways in austria. but i have to agree that there are lots of dialects, ususally in the villages, that i dont even understand. at all. its like they speak another language, even to me. but i love it, its really great fun =D where exactly in oberösterreich do you live?

**** Austria. It sucks. We in Germany keep making fun of it. And dialects suck anyways. They're just dumb

You'll be fine. 1. Everyone speaks english so if you NEED to you can. 2. Everyone will understand the German you speak since it's Hochdeutsch and that's what's taught in the schools here. Austria is AMAZING. Just give it a go. I'm in Steirmark and there's a very strong dialect. I came to Austria knowing ZERO german and have been here 3 months and am completely fine. Understand everything. You'll pick it up quickly if you just listen. It's like the differences between british and american english. Couple different words and a heavy accent.

so you didnt bother to even so much as wikipedia the country you were moving to for 6 months?

its not because they dont speak german, its because you dont speak german. i learned german and found austrian german to be way easier, because they pronounce things fairly clearly compared to germans (well ok, thats just in relation to languages i understand). anyway, the two arent too far apart, real people just never talk like the books you read at school, and this applies for pretty much all languages.

Relax, i am from upper Austria and we are nice people. if you´ve got a problem send me a message i´ll help you out. enjoy your stay.