Grüss Gott, Katie. I’m not a native German speaker, but it seems to me you should learn standard German first. All Austrians use exclusively standard German in school — plus you can use it in other countries, including Germany, which has a population on the order of ten times that of Austria. I doubt there are any good resources for learning Austrian German from English; normally it’s expected you already know standard German. Once you’ve learned some German, and you’re sure you’re going to Austria, you can find some resources on line to study in-flight. Once you’ve landed in Vienna, you can pop into any bookstore and find material written in Austrian, Wienerisch, Bairisch, etc. (Note that most Austrian German is classed as part of Bavarian, except for the Vorarlberg which is more akin to Swiss German. Wikipedia has a version in Bavarian, if you’d like to familiarize yourself with that variant.) That being said, you should immediately learn the phrase I opened this comment with, since you’ll likely hear it as soon as you get to customs and immigration. and you don’t want to get discombobulated before you’ve even had your passport stamped ;) There’s an italki teacher from Austria who has been very active on the forum lately, I’d send him a message if I were you (you could also do a teacher search for German teachers from Austria): https://www.italki.com/teacher/5341599

I am very much a beginner in German but I do currently live in Vienna and will be here for the foreseeable future. The difference between Austrian standard German and standard German is minimal. It's what people from different regions use to communicate with each other and what kids learn at school. You will be able to communicate with anyone who speaks German if you know it. So learn German and then pick up the Austrian specific words. They often say Grüß Gott (God greets, which is super weird but anyway) on greeting and Tschüss on leaving instead of Hallo/Guten Tag or Auf Wiedersehen. Or they use Erdäpfel (potato, literally 'earth apple' like the French 'pomme de terre') instead of Kartoffeln. Jänner instead of January for January. German is different to English in that there are various dialectal forms of the language which are not easy to understand if you are from a different region, but standard German can be used anywhere in Austria and Germany. I actually have a colleague from Vorarlberg, the region Phil mentioned above, which is in the very western part of Austria, close to Switzerland. How he speaks in his local dialect is unintelligible to anyone not from there. So he uses standard German.

to learn dialect makes sense if you really are interested to get to know the austrians. to understand their songs, movies and so on.... of course dialect is a part of the austrian soul. but if you are not so much into social study, then its enough to learn standard German :-)

it depends if you refer to the austrian dialect or the official austrian German. (Germany, Austria and Switzerland have all their own official version which differ a bit in grammar, vocabulary, but its 97 percent the same). If you live in Austria I highly recommend to study with a book providing austrian German like "Pluspunkt Deutsch" ", "Schritte Plus Österreich". When I worked with other German books with my students it was sometimes quite frustrating, because I always needed to add: well, this is written in that book, but actually nobody says this, etc..... the book "Lagune" for example is very "Germany German" and with a lot of words and even grammar which we would say so different. if its about dialect, unfortunately there isnt a lot really good material, but you could try "Kauderwelsch Wienerisch", a book what could help you to get a glimpse of the dialect-system. also you can have a look here: https://aus-oesterreich.at/Buecher-Oesterreich/Dialekt-Mundart

I am Austrian and would suggest you learn standard German first, as there are basically (unfortunaly) no ressources concerning Austrian standard German to find online - then text me :) I do courses on that topic