Sweet Swedish

After all the Swedish bashing that took place a few weeks ago, I was inspired to learn a little about Swedish history, culture, and the language to see what all the fuss was about.

As an American living in a town in Iowa that was settled by Swedes, and coming from Swedish origins myself...I must confess that I found myself ashamed at my lack of knowledge.

What really surprised me was the language itself. I thought I knew what Swedish sounding like, but I really never listened to it before. I started listening to some Swedish language radio stations on the internet, and now I find myself listening to them all the time. Granted I have no idea what they are saying, but I am hoping to change that soon as I have recently purchased some learning materials.

I would like to keep this thread as positive as possible, so if you do not like the language that is OK, but please do not post it. If you want to bash it some more, start your own thread for that.

I would love to hear from anyone else who has started learning the Swedish language, or can speak the Swedish language who might want to help people learn? There are not many resources out there that go beyond a very basic level. And to be honest, most of the internet sources say the same thing...which is really sad that people are not more original these days.

For example, I have been working on the Swedish "k" before a soft vowel.

My book says that a "k" in front of a soft vowel sounds like the "ch" in the English word "church." And I have seen many websites say this also.

However, when I hear the audio recordings with my book...the sound is more of a "sh" as in the English word "ship."

And now I am starting to find websites with this written also.

Is this a dialect thing? Or is it just a sound that cannot be described?

Don't waste your time, Swedish won't speak to you in Swedish.

If you will try to spek with Swedish people in your broken Swedish, they will imeaditaly to switch to English. So forget about learning Swedish.

I didn't post that, but the none the less it's true.

Snälla, varför skulle inte svenskar prata med honom på svenska när han har lärt sig lite svenska? Det är jo underbart trevligt!

Excellent idea to learn some Swedish for this summer's fairytale royal wedding, when the Duchess of Västergötland marries her Prince Charming from Ockelbo!

the royal wedding = kungliga bröllopet

@gvn
You mean [ɕ], the voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative?
Yes, it's a Swedish (and Danish, Russian and Polish - see a pattern?) particularity.

Could their switching to the English language have more to do with the situation than their preference for the English language?

Even proud Swedish speakers understand that the Swedish language is not a common language.

Maybe Swedish people assume that a non-Swedish person can't speak the Swedish language? And if they know that a person can speak the English language, then they switch to the English language to communicate with them.

From the outside looking in, I think that this proves how sincere and respectful the Swedish people are. They change "their" behavior to accommodate "you" because the desire for mutual communication is stronger than their nationalism.

And for this, I say thank you on behalf of all non-Swedish speakers.

Ask a native speaker of any other language to stop speaking "their" language and start speaking "your" language in their own country and see what type of reaction you will get?

Gustav Vasa...

Are you from Sweden? Or just a person who can speak the language?

Kjell Källman ...

How would you teach this sound to a new person like me? Is there a way to practice this sound?

Is it more accurate to say "ch" or "sh"?

@gvn:
Jag är en norrbagge som är 1/16 svensk. :-)

[tʃ], /ch/, is more accurate than [ʃ], /sh/, but the closest approximant is [ç] as in English "hue". That's the sound we use in Norwegian in those words. (But [ʃ] is nowadays rapidly replacing [ç] in Norwegian. I don't know if that's the case in Sweden too.)

SWEDEN IS A SHITHOLE

Sweden is a good place for learning Urdu or Arabic if you're not into hot weather. As for learning Swedish, it's not so great.

>> If you will try to spek with Swedish people in your broken Swedish, they will imeaditaly to switch to English. <<

-- Totalement, absolument, radicalement faux.
Les Suédois ne sont pas comme les Néerlandais !


>> My book says that a "k" in front of a soft vowel sounds like the "ch" in the English word "church." And I have seen many websites say this also.
However, when I hear the audio recordings with my book...the sound is more of a "sh" as in the English word "ship." <<

-- Well, the Swedish soft "k" sound (a.k.a. "tj-ljud") sounds rather like the German "ich"-sound. But don't you fret, a "ch" like "check" (with just a subdued "t" content) will do fine, anybody will understand.

The difference between Swedish "tj"-sound and the (exclusively Swedish) "sj"-sound but much wider than the difference between German "ich" and "sch-" sounds, they cannot be confused at all.

But if your mother tongue is English, you're going to have a hard time to distinguish "y" and "u", be warned.

Fuck off you smelly little French prick.

>> Fuck off you smelly little French prick. <<

-- Ta gueule l'Arabe. Je ne tolère les races inférieures que lorsqu'elles sont bien éduquées.
Un Hispano-Nègre mal lavé qui ne sait écrire que dans une langue de Nègres (un mauvais anglais) est nécessairement et logiquement tout en bas de la chaîne alimentaire.

Kjell-Gustav Vasa...

Jag förstod din mening.

Vad är den andra 15/16? LOL :-)

Jag är svensk, norsk, tysk, irländsk, italiensk, och blackfoot.

I used the online translator on the Google website. I apologize for any mistakes.

I would love to hear your thoughts about Norwegian also. Are the two languages really close? I read that people who can speak Swedish and Norwegian can easily understand each other...is this true? Do you easily understand Swedish?

I can see the how similar they are when they are written next to each other, but it seems like Swedish has a very different sound system. Can you personally understand a Swedish person with little difficulty? Or can they understand you also?

Also, I want to thank all those for answering my question. Something tells me this is just the first of many questions that I will be asking here about the Swedish language. LOL