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 Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 3:44 pm
Hello and welcome to my lesson in speaking and writing the swedish language. I hope you will find this useful and if you have any questions at all, feel free to pm me.
Let's start out with how to write and pronounce the swedish alphabet. However, some parts are quite flexible, but I'll get to that later.
A = Generally same as the english A in "Salt"
B = Same as in english, when saying "B" alone, pronounce it like "be" in "behemoth".
C = Same as in english, when saying "C" alone, pronounce it like "se" in "send".
D = Same as in english, when saying "D" alone, pronounce it like "de" in "deny".
E = Always pronounced like the "e" in "estimate".
F = Same as in english.
G = Always pronounced like the "g" in "gulp".
H = Same as in english, when saying "H" alone, pronounce it like "ho" in "hostage".
I = Always pronounced like the "i" in "inside".
J = Same as in english, never pronounce the english, imaginary "d". Pronounced much like the ending in "eye".
K = Same as in english, when saying "K" alone, pronounce it like "co" in "contrary".
L = Same as in english.
M = Same as in english.
N = Same as in english.
O = Same as in english, when saying "O" alone, pronounce it like "oo" in "soon".
P = Same as in english, when saying "P" alone, pronounce it like "pe" in "penalty".
Q = Same as in english, when saying "Q" alone, pronounce it like "cu" in "cult". (more or less)
R = In swedish, we use "rolling R's" (much like people in Italy)
S = Same as in english.
T = Same as in english, when saying "T" alone, pronounce it like "te" in "ten".
U = Pronounced like the "ou" in "should".
V = Same as in english, when saying "V" alone, pronounce it like "ve" in "vex" (sorry for the fancy word, hard to come up with examples)
X = Same as in english.
Y = Pronounced much like the first vowel sound in "pier" but not the same as an "i".
Z = Same as in english, when saying "Z" alone, pronounce it like [Zaetaa].
-and now for the letters that aren't in the english language -
Å = Pronounced like the "o" in "on".
Ä = Pronounced like the general "ae".
Ö = Pronounced like the "u" in "sturdy".
I know it's alot of info, but you can ignore the "said alone" part unless you want to say things like initials. Contrary to what you might think, the Å, Ä and Ö are actually very common in the swedish language, so get used to them.
That concludes the first part of the lesson. I hope you found this useful smile
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Posted: Tue Jun 22, 2010 4:24 pm
To understand the meaning of swedish phrases, you must understand the culture to some extent. The swedish stereotype is withdrawn and always scared to be embarrassed. Taken directly out of an old swedish comedy scene, I will name some things that the stereotypical swede might to.
arrow Living in an apartment; waiting until there's no one in the staircase before going out the front door (you don't want to bump into anyone by accident, right?)
arrow If someone does something a bit disrespectful or bad, like cutting in line. Don't say anything! You wouldn't want to cause a scene.
arrow Never talk in an elevator. Same thing usually goes for buses and trains.
I know these things may not sound so typical, but it's things like this that build up the swedish culture. Sweden is also very fond of it's traditions, even though they are not as serious now as they were in the older days.
Now let's learn some simple words in swedish.
"Hej" - meaning "hello" or "hi". The most common greeting in Sweden.
"Goddag" - composed of the words "good" and "day". Meaning, of course, "good day".
"Tja" - a way more casual and cool greeting, commonly used by teenagers or close friends.
"Hejdå" - the general way of saying "goodbye". Even though some people have their own way of saying "bye" in form of a sentence.
"Ses / Ses senare" - a rather casual way of saying "see you". the later example means "see you later".
"Tack" - "Thank you".
"Vad" - "What"
"Var" - "Where"
"Hur" - "How"
"När" - "When"
"Varför" - "Why"
"Vem" - "Who"
"Jag" - "I"
"Du" - "You"
"Den/Det" - "It" (den/det is unique but it can be compared with masculine and feminine words like in the french or italian language)
"Hon" - "She"
"Han" - "He"
"Dom" - "They"
"Är" - meaning "is/am/are". We don't have specific words for
"be" for he/she/it, me, and you.
"Vara" - "Be"
- simple questions are built like their english equivalent, so don't worry about grammar yet -
The build for most questions as you can se is:
"Questionword" - Predicate(verb) - Subject(pronoun or noun)
examples:
"Var är du?" - "Where are you?"
"Vem är hon?" - "Who is she?"
"Hur var resan?" - "How was the trip?"
That concludes this part of the lesson. Before going further into grammar, I will teach you some phrases that may be good to know if you ever travel to Sweden. Thanks for reading, lycka till! (good luck)
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Posted: Sun Oct 31, 2010 6:47 pm
Btw I love your signature.
My friend is swedish ^_^. And she teaches me swedish (not periodically but I'll ask her out of curiosity how do you say XYZ in swedish).
The few things I know......
Jag elskar dig. (btw alot of the things is said orally).
Jag musta bajst.
Du
scholan
Svenska
Hur ma du
osko
mikket
The other stuff I don't remember sad . Really cool post!
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Posted: Sun Feb 06, 2011 2:38 pm
Thanks for the lesson! We could really use more Swedish!
Some notes:
"They" is pronounced "dom" but spelled "de".
Aside from some dialects, there is actually no feminine/masculine gender. There is only "common" and "neuter" 'gender'. "Den" is common (something like 80% of all words are common I think) and "det" is neuter". Similar to French etc, you can tell the gender of a word by the "a" before it. "En" is common" and "ett" is neuter.
Hope that clarifies some things. =)
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