at the Beverly Hills Lingual Institute
Did you know?
The Swedish language has separate words for each set of grandparents. 'Mormor' and 'farmor' refer to your mother's mother and father's mother, while 'morfar' and 'farfar' are your mother's father and father's father.
Hej! Swedish is spoken by roughly ten million people, eight million of whom speak it natively. It is the fourth most spoken Germanic language and the first among Scandinavian languages and in the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands). It is among the easier Germanic languages for English speakers to learn, with many similarities in grammar, syntax, and vocabulary.
The numerous English/ Swedish cognates include äpple (apple), bror (brother), bok (book), detonator, exhibitionist, hus (house), katt (cat), kursbok (course book), mamma (mother), odyssé (odyssey), parkera (to park), peppar (pepper), pippa (pipe), pudding, studera (to study), and tre (three).
Common
Yes.
No.
Please.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry.
I don't understand.
I can't speak Swedish (well).
Do you speak English?
Look out!
Where is the restroom?
Good morning.
Good evening.
Good night.
What is your name?
My name is ___.
How are you?
Fine, thanks.
Hello.
Hello. (informal)
Nice to meet you.
Goodbye.
Goodbye. (informal)
Ja.
Nej.
Snälla.
Tack.
Var så god.
Ursäkta.
Jag är ledsen.
Jag förstår inte.
Jag kan inte tala svenska [så bra].
Talar du engelska?
Se upp!
Var är toaletten?
God morgon.
God eftermiddag.
God natt.
Vad heter du?
Jag heter ___.
Hur mår du?
Tack, jag mår bra.
God dag.
Hej.
Trevligt att träffas.
Adjö.
Hej då.
![Learn [LANGUAGE] in Los Angeles](images/640x360/languages/swedish/white-moose.jpg "Learn Swedish in Los Angeles")
Learning Swedish will enable you to converse in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Estonia, and—to a lesser degree—Iceland. Swedish is one of the official languages of Finland (where it is taught in school) and is intelligible to Norwegians, Danes and Icelanders.
Famously socially progressive, Sweden is the land of free education and health care, ABBA, Roxette, Ace of Base, Avicii, Volvo, Saab, and IKEA. It is a mecca for those who appreciate interior design. If you want to learn to understand a part of the world where nearly half the government consists of women, then Swedish is the language for you.
The Swedish alphabet has 29 letters: the 26 letters of the English alphabet, plus three more vowels: å, ä and ö. There are nine vowels in Swedish, including y.
The Swedish language used to have three genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter—but now counts only two (common and neuter). They are determined by articles en (common) or ett (neutral), before a noun. There are similar to 'a/ an' in English, but without the benefit of rules. Most Swedish nouns take common gender.
There is no definite article ('the') in Swedish. Instead, the article is tacked on at the end of the noun, like a suffix. 'A car' is en bil; 'the car' is bilen. 'An apple' is ett äpple; 'the apple' is äpplet.
Just as in English, you add an -s suffix to the end of a word to show possession.
The conjugation of Swedish verbs does not change according to the subject. Every verb has one specific form for each verb tense, making it easier to conjugate verbs in Swedish than in English.
Swedish differentiates between paternal and maternal grandparents. 'Far' means father, and 'mor' means mother. 'Mormor' is your mother's mother, and 'farmor' is your father's mother. It's the same with grandfather: 'morfar' or 'farfar.'
Swedish boasts one of the most melodic pronunciations of any language. Generally, although not always, the first syllable of the word is stressed in Swedish. Changes in pitch on different syllables in a word indicate the meaning of the word. Swedish words can have a 'rising' tone, where the pitch rises on the stressed syllable and falls on the next, or a 'falling-rising-falling' tone, where the pitch falls on the stressed syllable, then rises and falls again on the next. Several Swedish words are spelled the same but mean different things depending on how the syllables are stressed: anden can mean 'the duck' or 'the spirit;' banan can be 'banana' or 'the track;' and boken can mean 'the book' or 'overripe.'