> Yes, a lot. Thick Bavarian accents are often considered intelligible in the rest of Germany. Even inside Bavaria dialects can range from "easily understandabl

> Yes, a lot. Thick Bavarian accents are often considered intelligible in the rest of Germany. Even inside Bavaria dialects can range from "easily understandable" like a lot of Franconian, to something so thick that even other Bavarian's might struggle with understanding, like some regional Upper Palatine dialects. Somewhat related story about Swiss German, although it is more of a dialect than accent. I self-studied German for two years - Duolingo, consuming a lot of German media, chatting via video with different speakers online. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on basic conversational skills. When I finally went to Germany for the first time, I had a connecting flight in Zurich on Swiss Air. After boarding the flight I realized I could hardly understand anyone. Most of the staff and passengers were speaking Swiss German. I panicked a good part of the flight about my misplaced confidence in my fluency. Luckily on the trip through Germany I had no problem with Hochdeutsch. However there definitely were very noticeable differences in accent and word usage as I moved from Schleswig-Holstein in the north to Bayern in the south via the east.