Remember that Å, Ä, Ö is not A and O, they are there own letters with there own pronunciations. And yes the "chee"-words are tricky.

I'm Norwegian, but to me it sounds like you are progressing fast. When learning Scandinavian languages, it can be fun to translate the nouns literally. Like sjöstjerna = sea star, sköldpadda = shield toad

You do know that swedish differentiate between long and short vowels? "Tjäna" is long, "känna" is short. And the double "nn" marks the difference. Now I'm looking forward to when you discover pitch accent :) And you are doing great. I am really impressed.

First thing to learn is that å, ä, and ö are not variations of a and o. It's not like the German Umlauts, they are completely different letters. It's a bit similar, albeit oposite, to that w is regarded as a variant of v in Swedish, which is why one tell-tale of a Swedish accent is that we sometimes pronounce words like "we" or "weather" wrorg

In my Swedish for foreign beginner students class I often write A O U Å on the board, just to remind the students that it's only when these letters follow K or G that you really pronounce them with the hard sounds. This will work 95% of the time, and if you just remember that "kebab" is an exception it will work closer to 99% of the time.

You are actually doing really really well. Much better than you give yourself credit . I am half danish and speak danish as a native and understand Swedish, If you continue this way you will be able to be understood both in Denmark, Sweden and Norway. I am impressed.

As somebody who knows quite a few languages, I can say that pronunciation is extremely important. Not only do you avoid misundertandings like förstöra and förstora, but you also get a better feel for the language. I would definitely recommend a phonetics course or at least taking a look at general phonetics to learn how sounds work and then special Swedish phonetics.

As a Swedish person that learned English before we had it in school, I can say the same about English. Mean comes in two versions, for instance, the meaning of and to be nasty to someone. There are so many of those. About the skj, stj, sch sounds: my little niece who's three is having the same sort of problems, which is not a diss against you, it's just remarking on the fact that it seems to follow the same pattern when learning Swedish. I think you're doing really well. I hope you enjoy the two tonal variants in Swedish. Two words that are spelt the same, but mean two completely different things, depending on what tone you use. My favorite is gift, which means poison or married. Which I personally think is intentional but I guess we'll never know. :P

9:26 But they are not spelled or pronounced the same way. Saying they look almost the same is like saying that Car and Bar almost looks the same. They're also only different from one letter hehe. It is very important to understand that O and Ö are very different in the sound

I must say. I am really impressed by a lot of your insights in things a native swedish speaker just takes for granted. But i dont envy you gerting to all the compound words that completely changes meanings.

I moved from England to Sweden three years ago. This video is a great reminder of my own journey with the language. It gets easier! You're doing great.

I hope this is a series

As a Dane, this is glorious! It's always Danish language that gets heckled, so I am glad to see We're not the only ones with an impossible language :)

Hi , as a Dane , i understand almost all you Said in swedish 👍😃 keep up The good Work

I started Swedish for some back to back trips there, and stumbled on the same issue as you. Fortunately the vocabulary is fairly easy, especially since I read a lot and knew some German. It helped I had a native Swedish person working for me, who could help when I needed it, or just to vent with.

it’s very important to recognize that ÅÄÖ is NOT A and O. They’re different distinct letters with their own distinct pronunciations. In the Swedish alphabet they are placed at the end after Z. So in Sweden we say “från a till ö” instead of the English equivalent “from a to z” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_alphabet

You are progressing nicely. Keep at it!

Phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs exist in English too :) look at the turtles, look out for something, look something up, look down on someone, depend on someone, listen to me, get over it, get in the car, put up with him, the car broke down etc.

As someone currently learning swedish: I feel you on a spiritual level 😂😂

I'm learning Norwegian, the pronunciation there is a bit easier but overall a very similar language. The grammar is apparently closer to the German than to the English, that helps me as a native German speaker.

Förrästen du är så jäkla rolig 😂 Älskar din humor

I am very impressed, you are learning Spanish AND Swedish at the same time! You make it hard for yourself.

Bra jobbat! Du är duktig på Svenska och det är kul att höra din åsikt om språket.

I myself am Swedish and understand quite well that you struggle with some of the spelling versus pronunciation in Swedish. In many cases, it can simply be explained by the fact that the written language changes at a slower rate than the spoken language. But if we are going to talk about strange spelling, I do think English is much more complicated. For example, what do you think of words like "thought" or "enough"? Try pronouncing these according to the same rules you applied on Swedish 😉. Or words that are pronounced exactly the same but can be spelled in several ways and mean different things such as "hear - here". Or the opposite, words that are spelled the same but can be pronounced in several ways and mean different things; "lead = metal" or "lead to something"? I could continue along this path for a long time but think you would have much more fun if you google, for example, "Absolutely Ridiculous English Spelling" 🤓 ☺️ 🙃 ps. Don't even get me started on French spelling vs pronounciation 🤪.

I have never had so much fun watching someone struggling before. Your face.. when you look into the camera.. The pain is real. 🤣🤣🤣 Have you tried listening to Swedish music and reading the lyrics at the same time? I've seen in the comments on videos from Molly Sandén and Laleh that some people learn that way.

Det ska bli kul att se matlagningsvideon.

Swedish is a lot of "You just got to know". Meaning there is no real rule. You just know 😆So having a Swede to help is very good. Swedish is also very weird when you translate literally. Like Shieldtoad 🤔 Swedish food...hmm. I'd say "Flygande Jacob". Its unique and very Swedish 😆 Lastly, your pronunciation is good (for an American), you are getting there. I understood you 9:50 , its not perfect. I would say it differently, but I understood 😄

You must love the "sju sjösjuka sjömän sköttes av sju sköna sjuksköterskor på det sjunkande skeppet i Shanghai" . :) (Sorry, I had to.) And yes, we love our "there's no rule for HOW to know which article belongs to what word but there is a wrong and a right way to use the definite/indefinite articles". The strongest sadistic streak we have. Lol Also... vägen - the road väggen - the wall We love doing this :) On a serious note, you're making good progress! Good luck with the cooking video! You can do it.

The toaster actually makes a lot of sense to me. I'm Belgian and I speak Dutch, and in my language, it's called "een broodrooster". Kind of similar to the Swedish word. :) If you would translate our word literally, it would say "a bread toaster" ;)

As a Swede with dyslexia, spelling tj sj sk skj etc. is the most difficult thing there is. I often need to know where the word comes from to remember the spelling of it! You do a great job with your pronunciations! Keep it up!

We also have words that change meaning completely depending on how they are pronounced. You are doing great. 🙂

Don't know how long you've been at this but you seem to be doing great. You actually pronounced the 'sjö' in 'sjöstjärna' really well (then the 'stjärna' part broke down lol). The sj-sound is one of the hardest ones for foreigners to learn, so good on you. The norwegians spell things a bit easier, we still have a lot of archaic spellings in swedish (which is why K can make so many sounds for example. But hey, it's not like English isn't guilty of this too) :)

My dad's American, and you can still tell after 40 years in Sweden, so don't worry about getting the pronounciation perfect. The only way to truly sound like a native Swede is to move here and get a job where you speak Swedish all day at work. Every English-speaker I know whose job involves speaking a lot of English keeps their accent no matter how long they stay here. The en/ett issue really is crazy; 99% of native Swedes just instinctively know which one is right without consciously knowing why, and on the rare occasion where we get one wrong we hear it as soon as the word leaves our mouth and correct ourselves. Why did you decide to learn Swedish btw?

This is the part of swedish I like to call "Don't make sense out of it, just deal with it" I'm trying to learn finnish right now and I'm in the same existential crisis but with the millions of endings they use for literally every word

in regard to the preposition thing that swedish dose, it is called verb particles and it functions like it is forming a new word with the previous word. This exist in english to some degree as well like eat up.

For what to cook I'd like to suggest "makaronipudding" (macaroni casserole), it basically is the counterpart to "mac 'n cheese". And yeah, the "sje-ljud" (those things you complained about) is something we have drilled into us extensively at start of school, depending on how you count there are 12-20 of them - is highly advised to just rote-learn them early on. Do learn to view "å" "ä" "ö" as distinct vowels as soon as possible as well to break the habit of viewing them as "accents" (probably easiest way to do this would be to learn to recite the alphabet with swedish pronunciation, maybe even as flashcards).

Very interesting. I literally had no idea about how Swedish works.

As a swede, I find it awesome that you are learning swedish :) You seem motivated and I think you are progressing pretty well. Keep up the good work, I like your videos and personality.

2:30 The surprise is priceless. As a native Swede, I never had any problem with that one.

you should try to cook Kroppkakor, its not easy but its soo good, you eat them with butter, lingonberryjam and cream. takes like two days of preparing for that, you should go for köttbullar och potatismos med sås gjord på skyn från köttbullarna och med inlagd gurka och lingonsylt såklart, Och du ska ha kryddpeppar i köttbullarna för rätt svensk smak.

Sounds good! Here is a short list of what letters and combos thereof we use for the various sh-sounds: K (Känna, Kör etc..), G (garaGe, loGe etc..), J (Jargong, Jour etc..), TJ (Tjäna, Tjärn etc..), SK (Skära, skämmas etc..), SJ (Själv, Sju etc..), STJ (Stjärna, Stjärt etc..), SKJ (Skjuta, skjul etc..), CH Choklad, Chans etc..). I think this is a tremendous feat to even try, Swedish is a very hard language, and as you rightly claim, alot of words needs to be learnt by heart, logic goes bye-bye for the most part. But as a proud Swede myself, I feel I have to ask you WHY? Sweden is one of those countries where people speak english well enough that foreigners can easily get by and even live here for years coping fine without learning the language.

What a treat... reminds me of the time my dad taught me the first primer in swedish when he relocated there in the mid 80s...

I hope you remember that the consonant in front of a soft vowel is soft (G becomes J K becpmes Sch aso). Soft vowels are E I Y Ä Ö. If these letters are folloed by A O U or Å they are hard, just like they are written.

I like your content, but since you got a new microphone the sound of you voice is distorted. Maybe lower lower input level of the mic? Keep up the good work 🙂

You remind me of when I was a SFI teacher. Couldn't help the little sadistic smile when I had to say: you just have to learn it by hart. But you seem to do great. You will get it quite quickly I think.

"Titta på" is more easily translated to "look at". It may be used as in "watching a show", but many of these terms you have been looking at have more adjacent translations in English that would be easier to understand.

Jag dör 😂 What on earth made you learn Swedish? You are doing very well anyway so keep up the great work ! Go for the two words Anden and Anden, means two different things.

He, he, you are extra adorable in this video! You'll do fine! Greetings from a Norwegian!❤

ah the famous kyckling that trips up all…

Haha! Glorious! Kämpa på! Det är roligt att se vad som är svårigheterna med det svenska språket. Sounds good so far ^_^

Bra jobbat ändå. Lycka till fortsättningsvis.

Det här var kul 😊

as a swedish native person shadow is finding this meeping hilarious!!! so many things for you yet to learn her

As a Swede from Stockholm, first and foremost I do wish to applaud you on your ability to make mostly correct sentences from your own head. That does set you apart from many learners. Heck, I still can't quite do that with my own Spanish practice, and I have been studying every day for 2 years now. That said, the pronunciation is awful and you likely know that. Not god-awful as I can certainly tell you are trying and can somewhat distinguish certain sounds even if you can't yet make them. That's a lot better than what is sometimes stereotyped of English speakers. Namely that they don't even try and just say Swedish words as if they were English ones. Pointer wise to your improvement, I can add a few things that should make it easier for you to visualize more correct pronunciation. First being the tricky K sounds. In general, K does make the same sound as in English, but typically not when followed by a vowel. Kök, Köp, and Kärlek make a sound that is extremely similar to the English SH sound. Exceptions exists, such as Keps, Kuk (swear word), and most dialects of Kex although some like the Gothenburg one has that word make a SH sound. As for SK, that makes a very heavily aspirated H sound. Think of making a "sigh" but you close the throat off a little bit more by using the back of the tongue. Funnily enough, this should be the same as the Russian H sound or the Spanish J. SJ and STJ is a similar kind of thinking with the SK sound, but the height of the tongue is closer to the roof of the mouth. I'm not going to lie, I think this sound may take you a while to master. Moving on to Å, Ä, and Ö: they are not the same as A and O. Linguistically; they're umlauts, with the symbol above them distinguishing them as a different sound entirely from the base letter. In Swedish these are considered their own letters. Ä is mostly the same sound as the English expression "Eh..." that you use when you don't quite agree with someone, and the sound is close to the effect you get from an "AE" diphthong. Ö is similar to the English expression "Um..." without the M. Å is closest to "Oh..." and sounds a little bit similar to the British A in Water but this one is probably going to take you a while to master. I know historically, this used to be a diphthong of either "OA" or "AO" so that might give you a jumping off point. Lastly, please do some reading regarding Long and Short vowels. Most of the time they're easy to tell as the short vowels have time for double consonants, while long ones do not. The difference in sound isn't just how long they're held for but rather actual sound quality; meaning a long A does have a different sound than that of a short A. This is what happened in the Känna vs Tjäna example. The Ä in Känna makes a sound closer to an E, while Tjäna is the same sound used for the name of the letter; Ä/"AE".

🤣 you should try Danish next

The swedish language have beef with you. ;) Ö is not o. The ö sound is like the i in Bird, but a little more forward in the mouth. The o sound is more like the o in Cool. Very different sounds. And to combine two of your favourites. Check out the words "köl" and "kol". Should be the same according to you. Right? :)

Watch on (the telly). Ring up (someone). Come to remember. This makes complete sense to me!

This was so good !! Thank you for this video . I never knew Swedish was dificult to learn. Because i allways knew how to speak it. But your video was the best ever✨️✨️

de går ju bra fan! ducktigt jobbat :P

Danish will make you weep 🇩🇰🇩🇰😎

you are doing really well!!

You're doing great learning swedish and your video is both pedagogical and funny.

Bättre än en del svenskar! Tummen upp! 👍

What??? Ha? That sounds nothing like what’s written! a huahuagh? Swedish is weird. Norwegian is much easier (I think). I’m from Holland btw. Hi hi!

Haha, love this ❤. To be fair, 'vara' and 'är' seems super weird, but then you realize they traslate to 'to be' and 'am/are/is'... soooo, English is not very logical either! 😅

I think it would be cathartic for you to watch "Mastering Swedish lesson 1 - 5" (available on KZfaq) :) Examples brought up. "Giftorm" means "Venomous Snake", but "Gift orm" means "Married Snake" Tomten på tomten, tog stegen med stegen - means "The Santclaus in the yard, took the steps with the ladder.

4:02- spot on! Bread + roast, that´s it! Most languages in Europe has traded words back and forth over centuries, so a lot of it stems from the same original words.

You are great at this! Keep working it and you'll be fluent in no time. I'm very impressed! Oh, and I never realized the "weirdness" of our verbs usually taking a preposition like that. Thank you for this perspective, I'll make sure to consider that when I try to coach people in my surroundings that are learning the language.

I am so sorry, for our language, but we have also learned this crazy, confused rules or non- rules in swedish from early years, and we made it! So just keep up your good work, and be a fighter you too!😮😊

Your "sjöstjärna" was actually quite good - much better then you probably think 🙂

It's awesome that you want to learn our language! And yeah I never thought about it but it's really confusing that the "the" comes at the end. A little tip if you already don't know, if tje word ends with en like "hunden" (the dog) "it's "en hund" (a dog) but if it ends with et "bananskalet" (the banana peel) it becomes "ett bananskal" (a banana peel.) I hope you don't quit, you're doing so well :)

When you fully understand the lyrics of Povel Rammel and Robert Broberg you have mastered the Swedish language Keep up the good work!

I recommend watching movies and tv shows in swedish. Even songs with swedish lyrics are a huge help

Your Swedish is so good!!! (I am Swedish)

Swedish teacher here. You are soo cute in you explanations. Also you crack me up! :D "Måste" (must) is also "måste" in present tense. There is no infinitive tense for this helpverb. ("måster" is incorrect). There are 5 verb groups. Three regular: "-ar", "-er" and "-r" and then you have two irregular groups, one which has a bit more of a pattern to it with vowel changes (this is called the strong verbs) and one completely irregular (like "vara", "får" etc.). They are few in number but used very often, so remember them! Kom ihåg dem!

As a Swede it is really interesting to see how non-natives see our language. The three extra letters is the first obstacle of course.

Hello Marie! Your videos are awesome. A few pointers on pronouncing the Swedish characters... Å is pronounced as the A in "All", Ä is pronounced like the A in "Air", and Ö is pronounced like the E in "Early". Keep up the good work! 🙂

If you are speaking swedish to a swede you don't have to be afraid of making mistakes (like pronouncing kyckling with a hard k or something), we're usually really chill about that stuff. We're always happy when someone want to learn our language!

To me as a Swede I find it very confusing when foreigners claim that the sj-sound is like an h. Yo me the sj-sound is related to the sh/tj-sound, just harder and further back. An h is open but sj squeezes your mouth together and your tongue back. It's similar to what you do with the sh-sound further forward in your mouth. For common letter combinations for the sj- and sh-sounds I recommend "Läsa är Lätt".

Swedish and English have some common history, but they are still different languages with different rules, for instance how to pronounce things. The tough part is loanwords, that may or may not follow the rules, for instance kebab should be pronounced shebab according to Swedish rules, but the word is too new in the Swedish language to adapt to the rules. Another word is kex which origins from cake, but this word is pronounced differently in different parts of Sweden, so both kex and shex are correct pronunciations (even though some argue that only one of them is correct).

in fact, they used the sk words as secret passwords during the cold war because it was the hardest thing for espionage to learn. if you are going to cook in Swedish, you should cook stuvade makaroner och köttbullar . a classic Swedish dish

Letters have slightly different pronounciations in most every language, when learning another you have to willfully forget your own one for a while and pickup another from scratch. As a native swede I had real trouble when we started learning english in 4th grade but I stuck with it, read books and listened to english speaking radio (yes this was before the internet) and I got better. Once you become somewhat fluent the drive to try for another might come, it did for me which opening a world of possibilities. Today I speak 5 languages and are learning my 6th. I also picked up Swedish, English and French sign language due to some friends being deaf but still wanting to travel the world. Best of luck in your language learning endeavors, the mind can do much more than people think if you just decide that you will do it!

So, one of the things i could suggest is trying to listen to Swedish podcasts. And the one I would suggest is... erm... It is a news program on Swedish radio that uses a fairly simple swedish. I can see if i can find it.

Youre doing great! Swedish can be a bit strange. "Val" written and pronounced in exactly the same way can mean "Election.", "Whale" and "Choice".

You are doing so well!❤️ I am Swedish and trying to learn korean so I feel your language-pain girl.🥲❤️And these things you brought up are seriously tricky and confusing for learners so you are not alone! Like ”en” and ”et” words, it is litterly impossible to know for you, these are something you just have to learn, there’s no logic to it, but no matter if you say it wrong EVERYONE will understand you so don’t worry❤️🥰 The most importantly thing is to make yourself understood, and I understand EVERYTHING you’re saying, I’m so impressed so keep going you are amazing!❤️🫡🥰

Nice job so far! Yes, there are some rules in Swedish grammar, but a lot based on ancient Swedish and such, which are learned like you say: "by just knowing". A bit similar to the 100-200 irregular verbs in English ;). Lycka till!

Interestingly, to "look on" or "look upon" something is an archaic way to talk about watching something in English as well. Lots of languages have quirks like that, some of which are cognate, but it's interesting to see which languages kept what.

Tjenare! Jag såg en dam titta på en tjej som satt med en sked på sin kjol. Hon gillade kanske hur konstigt det var at titta på en såhär grej?

You are doing great! You will pick it up easily!

I remember when I was learning English irregular verbs. Payback is sweet! Cooking: Open sandwiches. Then escalate to a sandwich cake. Smörgås - smörgåstårta! With or without köttbullar. Or "stekt fläsk med löksås och rivna morötter". "Fried bacon with creamy onion sauce and potatoes and lingonberry jam and shredded carrorts". Notice how you don't have to mention the cream, potatoes or lingonberries in Swedish, it is taken for granted.

I'm SO impressed with your Swedish pronunciation!! I imagine it's a HARD language to learn with all the vowels, including the unique "Å" (as in Issey Miyake L'Eau d'Issey), "Ä" (as in 'air') and "Ö" (as in the end of limo driver/'chauffeur') as well as the hard "Rs" (rapport=report), "Ks" (kanon=cannon), and soft "SCH" (sjöman=seaman) and "CHU" (skjuta=shoot) ... Probably already mentioned, but you got it wrong with the armchair, in Swedish that's a "fåtölj" (borrowed from the French " fauteuil") not a "stol" (which in Swedish means "chair") ...and on that same note, "stool" in English is called a "pall" in Swedish. If it helps, think of Swedish as German with borrowed English and French expressions in it, a little bit like Dutch I suppose...? 🤔😉

There are some Swedish dialects that are not so heavy with the "h" sound when there's an "sj" or "sk", so you don't need to master the Swedish shwing. The main thing is to remember that Å, Ä and Ö have nothing to do with A and O. Completely different vowels.

9:07 My native language has double consonants as well as short and long versions of all vowels, so it was easy for me to tell the difference. In "kännä", the first Ä is short and the N is long, whereas in "tjänä", the first Ä is long and the N is short.

"I have beef with the Swedish language" -Who doesn't 😅

The way to learn how verbs end, is you listen to your parents talking, and then repeat after them. A few years later, you will "just know". The reason why Swedish is simpler than any other language is that you get it for free growing up: Du får det gratis genom att lyssna på dina föräldrar! Varsågod :)

I had so much fun watching this, thank you.

I'm originally from the southern US but have been living in Sweden for a little over 2 years now. The pronunciation really does get easier as you get more exposure and hear people speak. For me, the really hard things I've found after trying to learn the language for 2 years has been 'false friends' and the 'melody' of the words. By 'false friends' I mean words that look or sound like words in english, but mean something else completely. For example, "Jag vill.." means "I want..." but sounds and looks like the english "will." For some reason, my brain always messes this up and I say things like "Jag vill missa bussen" which is "I WANT to miss the bus" when I should have used "Jag kommer at missa bussen" for "I will miss the bus." There are loads of these. For the melody thing, it feels like the Swedes are almost listening for how you say the word more than the word itself sometimes. In eglish words sound funny if the emphasis is on the wrong syllable, but this feels like a more extreme version of that. There really is a 'melody' or an objectively correct pitch inflection on some words. Most common example is "ANden" for "the duck" and "anDEN" for "the spirit." You just have to learn which melody is right for which meaning, and it can be super confusing to hear!

Really good and impressive work. Keep it up!

I am born and raised in Sweden. You understand swedish grammer better then i did when i was 9 years old, You are smart and a fast learner. Keep it up! Jag tror på dig!

I'm from Sweden and I feel your pain. In school I hated Swedish and loved math. In math there are rules you can rely on. When it comes to the pronunciation I think a lot of the difficulty comes from the fact that the words are spelled as they were pronounced way back.