The differences between these dialects are much more than just the words chosen to express a given construct. The colloquial phrases used in various German dialects are often quite different, though the thing on which one primarily focuses is the way in which they're pronounced. I've heard Bavarians say a thing that made perfect sence, yet I couldn't understand it at all, at first, because of the way in which it was pronounced. Now, what's startling about this is that it was, in fact, the first dialect I learned, though I did learn the "standard" Hochdeutsch at the same time. Bavarian was what I spoke with nearly everyone I encountered, though I spoke Hochdeutsch with my mother and sometimes with strangers whom I hadn't heard speaking Bavarian yet.

RE