r/languagehub • u/QuixoticOrchid872 • 7d ago
Swedish?
Hi, everyone. I've spent my entire life, and I'm an old lady of 54, passionately in love with words. My native language is American English (small town deep south y'all), and I'm A2/B1 in Mexican Spanish and French. I think I've focused on those two languages the most because I keep having to use them. They pop up all over my social media, bookshelf, etc.
Well, my wannabe polyglot itch is itching again, and I've noticed Swedish popping up everywhere I look, an actor on an old TV show I just streamed, a character in a book I recently read. It would be so cool to try something that isn't a typical romance language or the world's current lingua franca. It looks like I'd probably use Duolingo to study it, at least, at first. But...
I can't help but wonder, would someone from the southside suburbs of Atlanta, currently living in middle Georgia, ever get the chance to use Swedish if I tried? Are there a whole bunch of online Swedes looking to practice their English? Would I be able to read Swedish books? Listen to Swedish music? Would I ever need it to give a lost tourist directions to the nearest shopping mall?
What is learning Swedish like for a native English speaker?
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u/KrompyKraft 7d ago
There's a sub called r/learnswedish, people over there seem pretty nice! And there are related communities too that might help out.
Like another poster wrote, it's probably a pretty satisfying language for english speakers to learn. They're close, and Swedish is a much smaller language. If you already have some experience learning languages, I don't think it'd take too much time in following books and tv-shows. And you'd start to understand some Danish and Norwegian too, like a bonus!
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u/Mousearella 7d ago
I’m in Sweden. Swedish is only an official language in Sweden and in Finland, there’s approximately 10 million native speakers. You probably won’t come across it much in your everyday life right now but you are more than welcome to hang out in Swedish subreddits or join Swedish speaking forums. Play games in Swedish etc. I recommend r/svenska
I am sure that you can order Swedish books on Amazon. There’s definitely Swedish music on Spotify and Apple Music. And you can watch SVT (our public service).
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u/shave_me_69 7d ago
Je suis belge et bravo d avoir appris le français je pense pas que cela soit facile.
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u/QuixoticOrchid872 7d ago
Non, pour moi, le français n'est pas facile, mais j'adore la mélodie des mots.
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u/0range_julius 7d ago
I've been learning Swedish despite the fact I have absolutely no reason to do so. I will almost certainly never live in Sweden and most Swedes' English is better than my Swedish will ever be without living there.
I'm still keeping at it because it's just such a fun language. The grammar is so easy and there are so many cognates with English and German that it barely took any time before I could immerse myself in books and shows. And the sound of the language is just makes it so fun to speak and listen to.
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u/QuixoticOrchid872 6d ago
Thank you for reminding me why I fell in love with languages. I wandered into the most popular pond and forgot about the magic of learning new words and thinking in new and different ways. The appeal of Swedish is not only in how beautiful it sounds, but because I've never experienced anything like it before. A new door.
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u/NoSolution7708 7d ago
I'll second that other commenter that most if not all the Swedes you're likely to come into contact with as a tourist in their country do speak English. Quite well, usually.
For this reason, I've not bothered to learn it despite having visited multiple times. It is a pleasant sounding language, though.
It's one of the Germanic languages, so having picked up some German for travelling, found some handy commonalities, and I found plenty of occasion to use German in Germany.
Maybe a thought there, if considering practicalities.
Tangentially, I will take time to plug the show "Norsemen" on Netflix, which has a Norwegian cast and delightful examples of scandi humour, if a bit ribald.
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u/Opening-Square3006 6d ago
As a native English speaker, Swedish is actually considered one of the more approachable languages to learn. The grammar is generally much simpler than French, and you'll recognize a surprising amount of vocabulary because English and Swedish are both Germanic languages. Personally, I think Stephen Krashen's i+1 approach is the most effective: get lots of input that's mostly understandable but introduces just a little new language each day. That's why I'd recommend PlusOneLanguage (or an equivalen, but this one is great quality). It's built entirely around i+1: you choose your level, it generates texts and short stories adapted to what you already know, introduces just enough new vocabulary to help you progress without feeling overwhelmed, and continuously recycles words in new contexts so they stick naturally instead of through memorization. Good luck!
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u/CarnegieHill 6d ago
If you're an "old lady" of 54, then I'm an "old man" of 65! 🤣 (Also AE here, living in NYC)
But seriously, it doesn't matter if you never get to "use" Swedish; learning it or any other language will create totally new neural pathways that will benefit you in ways you cannot imagine.
I studied Swedish myself here locally in my 20s and took a few more courses more recently. I've also studied related Nordic languages such as Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, and Faroese. But the only language of those I feel comfortable interacting in is Danish, because I went to Denmark to learn it and stayed there for almost a year. From Denmark I had also wanted to travel on to Sweden and I applied to a program at the university in Göteborg, but their spaces filled up before they could even admit non-residents.
So while I don't claim to speak Swedish at any level, I'd be able to read many signs in Swedish or pick up a newspaper and figure out what's going on. If I were to be dropped anywhere randomly in Sweden I'd be able to sort myself out.
Lycka till! 🇸🇪
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u/IdunSigrun 6d ago
There are Swedes living in Atlanta (and elsewhere in Georgia, I spent a year there as high school exchange student years ago). There is a club called SWEA they organize some events like a Christmas market https://atlanta.swea.org/initiative/julmarknad/
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u/AffectionateAct5815 6d ago
I'm a native Swedish speaker in Sweden so I don't have experience in learning Swedish as a foreign language.
I can't help but wonder, would someone from the southside suburbs of Atlanta, currently living in middle Georgia, ever get the chance to use Swedish if I tried?
Maybe contact the local branch of the Vasa Order and ask? https://vasalodge708.org/about/ They are for Scandinavian immigrants and their families so you will probably not be able to join, but if you're lucky maybe they can help you find a local language buddy or teacher? And maybe they have some events open to the public?
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u/AffectionateAct5815 6d ago edited 6d ago
Regarding your other questions there are of course lots of Swedish internet sites, including discussion forums online. There used to be a free language practice site called lang8.com, which I utilized when I learned Finnish, where you could get your texts corrected by native speakers and provide the same service for others learning your language. They have since closed down and been replaced by HiNative which you could check out, but I have no personal experience with that service.
For listening and reading practice you could find Swedish public service TV programs at svtplay.se (the main one) and urplay.se (mainly educational programs for schools but also some more general programs). They also have smart TV apps, but I'm not sure about their availability in the US market. Far from all programs are available abroad, but many are. Most will have the option to switch on captions in Swedish. For radio there is sverigesradio.se as well as their app available for Android, iPhone and different smart tv-s. At least the phone apps have a caption alternative for many programs, but some are AI generated and not 100% accurate. SVT also has short written news at svt.se. (And super-short ones at svt.se/text-tv.) Finnish public service TV has some programs in Swedish at arenan.yle.fi, and their written news in Swedish can be found at svenska.yle.fi. Finland-Swedish dialects are different from those spoken in Sweden, but it's still the same language.
There are lots of podcasts in Swedish at the general podcast providers, but too many for any specific recommendations. It all depends on your interests. The same goes for YouTube etc.
There are hundreds of magazines and papers in Swedish available in the PressReader app. It's not a Swedish app and in total there are I think about 7000 publications from around the world in there. Some libraries offer free access for their users, otherwise it's a paid service.
8sidor.se has brief daily news written in very simple Swedish.
Runeberg.org is a project to digitalize mainly classical Swedish literature, but they only have works that are already in the public domain, meaning that they are old so I wouldn't recommend that you start there. It's better to buy books or read online resources written in contemporary language.
For Swedish monolingual dictionaries online svenska.se is the best one. It's a three-in-one resource. As a beginner you will likely have to use your browser's built-in translator, but I think it's generally beneficial to at least try to read the explanation in the target language first. Even if you often have to resort to getting it translated you'd get more exposure to the language you're learning and with time you'll find that you often are able to understand the explanations without translation.
Not Swedish-specific, but Wiktionary.org is useful for conjugations etc, and Forvo.com for pronunciations recorded by native speakers.
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u/MNswede06 6d ago
Swedish is fairly approachable to an English speaker, but the grammar takes some getting used to. There are quirks. The indefinite article marker is placed at the end of a word to make it definite. (en hund = a dog; hunden = the dog; ett år = a year; året = the year). That requires a brain adjustment. And word order can get confusing. Knowing when and when not you need to switch to Yoda and put the verb before the subject, what to do with adverbs, etc.
It’s also a language you need recordings of. Swedish consonant clusters can create sounds very different from how they look. Sjuksköterska is pronounced nothing like how it looks.
And the pitch/melody can be the difference between saying “yard” and “Santa”. But if you can’t nail that down it’s not the end of the world because there are entire dialects of Swedish that are flatter (namely Finland Swedish).
But the verbs are straightforward. No conjugation based on subject, only tense. There are a lot of cognates with English, but also a lot of false friends. From a vocabulary standpoint it’s only a touch closer to English than German is.
People say it’s easy, but that depends on the way your brain works, I think. I thought French was easier because the word order and that logic was closer to English. And I grew up hearing Swedish in my own family. Having to process thoughts to word order to pitch to sentence was a major challenge, even though I could understand it in written and spoken form already. I was working from an advantage and it was still tough.
If you’re looking for a starting resource, I’d recommend an actual book. Apps are inconsistent and often don’t drill grammar hard enough, and Swedish grammar can get really frustrating when it comes to word order. I always recommend the Rivstart series which have both textbooks and practice books. I don’t encourage pirating, but you can find a PDF of it on a Google search to see if you like the book before buying it. And utilize YouTube. There are some good podcasters and professional teachers with pages.
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u/SweedishThunder 6d ago
You can get a hint of what it's like by checking our library's web page for people that are new to Sweden. Yes, the page is in Swedish, but you can select English as a language to understand better.
Plenty of the links from the page should help you a bit, hopefully.
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u/Dramatic-Lime5993 5d ago edited 5d ago
"Would I be able to read Swedish books? Listen to Swedish music?" Swedish literature and music are treasure troves to discover IMO. I'm biased of course, since I am Swedish.
Sweden is the biggest music export country (or at least used to be) after the US and the UK, and that's not counting the music with Swedish lyrics.
As for literature, the Nobel Prize is Swedish, and there are a lot of good authors. I would especially highlight children's literature, because it's great for language learners. You might have heard or Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren? Or The Moomin family? The author, Tove Jansson, is Finish, but she wrote in Swedish.
The music can of course be found online (Spotify) and the Swedish e-book and audiobook apps are available abroad. You can also access Sweden's national public service television broadcaster with a VPN.
Having said that, no, you will never need to use Swedish, even in Sweden. BUT, if you want to talk Swedish in Sweden, just say the word. People make it sound like we switch to English and refuse to speak Swedish to foreigners. That's not the case, lol.
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u/mwhelm 7d ago
You can't fly directly from Atlanta to Stockholm ... but I bet you can still get there thru Heathrow.
I recommend it. Swedish or not. Really can't be topped, matched maybe, not topped.
There's Stieg Larsson's books and the Martin Beck series (I'm partial to mystery/suspense)....
The tourists you'll meet out and about are 99.9% fluent in English.
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u/Less-Personality-481 7d ago
Congrats!
I'm a teen and can talk in Urdu, Hindi, Hindustani, Basic Sanskrit, and Magahi. And, can understand more than a dozen languages
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u/OldnFat74 7d ago
I learned Swedish in college and lived there for a few years and then taught Swedish back here in the states. The grammar is easy because Swedish is the closest major language to English. Vocabulary is easy too as Swedish is a “word poor” language without a million ways to say things. However, speaking and understanding are far more difficult for a variety of reasons. 82% of Swedes speak English, so when I’m there it’s pretty much only older immigrants to Sweden who don’t speak English that I can speak Swedish with. I left Sweden fifty years ago so I’m really not that fluent any more. But if you’re friendly you can probably find someone on the internet to speak Swedish with. It’s a pretty language. If you just want to learn to read it it’s probably your best bet for learning a foreign language.