hi fifi,

stop worrying. if you are just going to vienna, LOTS of people speak english, and will enjoy practising on you. and EVERYONE will understand standard or "Hochdeutsch".

so if you want to say "Guten Tag" instead of "Gruess Gott", "Broetchen" [bread roll] instead of "Semmel" and Kartoffel [potato] instead of "Erdapfel", go right ahead. along with the examples given above by schuler, those were the only unusual food words that we heard in a whole fortnight in Austria. [or the only ones that, a month later, i can remember!]

as for the "ikh" v "ish" thing, try for the middle way, a bit like the scottish "loch" sound, tending more to the sh than the k as you are in the south. [of the german speaking area that is]

as ever, the locals wil appreciate that you are trying to speak their langauage, and a smile goes a long way.

"e" is used for ich, no ikh or ish, just "e". :-)
Listen to the "zwickts me" song and you'll find a lot of single "e"'s that's every time he says "I".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hyxtJ9kLJA

Zwickts me "e" mon "e" dram.

Hoit do is a Spoit.
"Stop there is a crack".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmlNblFZb6Q

And the inofficial national anthem !
Schifoan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiGJq81Q4Ew

Schifoan is the Austrian Dixie, if you can sing this song, the locals will be absolutely amazed :-).

Being a linguist or not - I was just trying to be nice and give some constructive advice.
As annhig pointed out, and as actually I had tried to make it clear earlier, while there are subtleties and local expressions as in every region where the same language is spoken, such details do not make so much of a difference.
Standard German goes a long way in Austria. Period.

While I get by with my English more or less, if I went to Yorkshire I would certainly not bother to come across in their accent. One has to accept one's limitations as a foreigner with regards to local dialects - a German imitating a Yorkshire accent is quite likely to make a complete arse out of himself.
An Englishman trying to come across as being from the Bronx when visiting New York isn't any more credible. And certainly nobody wants to imply that it's impossible for Americans to understand the English and vice versa despite some deviations in the respective vocabularies.

The whole thread is to some extent non-sensical. The OP inquires about learning a dialect by listening to CDs (I think pointless, but fair enough, everyone is allowed some excentricity), but then declares not to be interested in speaking that dialect but just to be able to read written texts.
Well, 95% of Austrian texts will consist of ordinary German terms, which comes as little surprise as according to Article 8 of the Austrian Constitution German is the official language in Austria.
Then the OP gets helpful information about Austrian being some form of Bavarian derivative - the correctness of which is quite debatable and is being told to listen to Wolfgang Ambros and is quite grateful for that.
While I quite like Wolfgang Ambros I simply cannot see how listening to his songs would be any helpful in preparing an American for a trip to Austria, who according to her own words just wants to be able to understand written texts.
And finally a bunch of foreigners start discussing the legitimacy of pronouncing "ich" as "ish" - talking about the blind discussing colours... This is quite simple, actually: Unless one is from Hessen, a tacky German pop singer or a "German" spoken "Gangsta Rappa" with a migration background, one doesn't pronounce "ich" as "ish".
But then, what do I care...

logos, we agree on "Schifoahn". And I will take pleasure in any American rendering a perfect version of it.
Have a "leiwand" time in Austria everyone!

Too bad; I won't try to amaze anybody whose anthem isn't "An der schönen blauen Donau".

>about Austrian being some form of Bavarian derivative
There is no Austrian, has never been, those dialects are a myriad of different Bavarian and Swabian (Vorarlberg) dialects. There's no discusion on that point. Wolfgang Ambros is the "national hero", and a good example of viennese dialect. Even the prussians should agree to that :D
Of course, the fact that an englisch speaker has a difficult time saying "ich", doesn't mean it's ish or ikh, it's neither.

Mademoiselle, let's find the lyrics for Schifoan, adapted for English speakers :-).

hsv, I said "read [...] and [...] to pronounce those phases the way I'll hear them", not ONLY to read.

I may not know much about linguistics, but I don't think the German speaking with a Yorksire accent or Englishman speaking with a Bronx accent are good analogies at all.

On Friday evening I mount my skis
On my car and take off
To the Stubaital (Stubai Valley) or to Zell am See
'Cause up there on the mountains we've got super snow.

Refrain
'Cause I want to ski, ski, wow wow wow wow
Ski, 'cause skiing is the greatest thing
That I can imagine ('understand')

In the morning I'm the first one to go up
So I don't have to wait so long to go up.
Up in the ski chalet I buy myself a Jägertee (hunter's tea)
'Cause it's just such a tea that makes the snow really nice.

'Cause I want to ski...

And when the snow flies (dusts up) and when the sun shines
Then I have total happiness within me
I stand on the peak, look down into the valley;
Everyone's happy, everyone feels good

And just wants to ski...

On Sunday evening I mount my skis
On my car, but then it comes over me,
And I look up once again and think "But why"
I'm not driving home yet, I'll stay on Monday, too,
Skiing...

http://german.about.com/library/blmus_ambros02e.htm

You will blow people away with the unofficial national anthem(and the refrain is English even, so nothing to mess up in that respect):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMSa_...eature=related

Who knows this song? :D. His older songs are quite good, but since he was sniffing cocaine on a regular basis he lost all his talents.

Since this has gone off-topic and the two of you are so interested in song lyrics, can you find me the original lyrics by Joseph Weyl to my preferred "unofficial Austrian anthem" (not the later, more well-known ones by Franz von Gernerth)?

OK, found it-- can you translate better than Babelfish, logos?

http://dictionnaire.sensagent.com/An...20Donau/de-de/

As you wish
http://ingeb.org/Lieder/donausob.html

Be careful about this ingeborg site, it has all the "evil songs" too.

I'm positively sure I'm better than babelfish, most likely anybody is better than that. :-)

Not sure why you now believe the thread has gone off-topic, but at your service:
http://www.johann-strauss.at/wissen/donau_e.shtml
http://www.johann-strauss.at/wissen/donau.shtml

I just feel, I want to make a revolution reading these "original lyrics". ;-)