The German language is spoken by about 100 million Europeans and is the second most widely spoken language in Europe after Russian. German is the dominant language spoken in Austria. And Croatian, Hungarian and Slovenian are official languages in certain provinces in Austria. If you have learned German then the type of German you are accustomed to is probably proper German, which is referred to as hochdeutsch. While you will find people in Austria that can speak proper German, it is not what is usually spoken there. In fact, in the more remote areas you will only hear various dialects of the German language that will likely sound foreign to your proper German trained ear.
Written language and grammar is the only consistent thing you will see in the German language in Austria. What you will see will be the proper German you may be used to. The wide range of regional dialects and accents may make it difficult for you to speak and have a conversation in Austria. In the area of Tyrol, or Tirol, the dialect and accent with which German is spoken is so different that even Austrians from other areas have difficulty comprehending what it being said in a conversation. It is easy to be completely in the dark about what is being said when visiting regions of Austria where proper German is not spoken at all. The places where you will experience the strongest accents and dialects are the areas of Tyrol, Vorarlberg and parts of Styria, or Steiermark.
If you do not speak German but instead speak only English you will be able to communicate in most of Austria. The larger cities and tourist areas of Austria are places where the English language is widely spoken by the locals.
Austrians are not offended if you try to speak their version of German and butcher it. In fact, they welcome non German speakers to try to speak their language. If you try to learn German before coming to Austria remember that most language teaching materials will teach you proper German and not Austrian German. You can get an Austrian dictionary though which will point out some of the differences and peculiarities in Austrian German. There are also a number of language schools in Austria that offer classes on Austrian German. And if you have the money and the time there are instant immersion classes available that offer more in-depth training in the Austrian German dialect.
Some important phrases you may want to learn are: Good Morning – Guten Morgen, Good Day – Guten Tag, Good Day – Gruss Gott , Bye – Tschuss, Hello – Servus. And other notable differences between proper German and Austrian German are “net” instead of “nicht”, “hoz” instead of “hat es” and “woas” instead of “was.”
And something helpful to note is that “wien” is the local German word for Vienna.
