Those tricky vowel sounds   (and rough English equivalent)

ä - e sound eg. hjälp (help) silent "h" and pronounced "yelp".

å - aw sound eg. på (on) pronouned paw

ö - ur/er sound similiar to feur. ögon (eye) errgon

sj/sh - a very swedish and tricky sound! - almost a "tsh"sound but only a rough equivalent eg. sjukhus (hospital) tshookhoos  (don't worry! All Swedes instantly know you will have problems with this sound and will not worry if its wrong)

The pronounciation of the rest of the alphabet is rather similiar, except "r" is rolled and depending on the stress of the word (i.e. where it falls) some letters are soft others are hard and short.

Useful language tools and must haves:

A Concise Swedish Grammar - Natur och Kultur (Mål)

A step-by-step  progressive study of Swedish. An excellent book.

A current English/Swedish Swedish/English Dictionary (lexicon).

Helpful words & Phrases:

Learning Swedish will take you time and at first the tricky new vowel sounds will have you tongue twisted! However, don't fret - practise makes perfect and very soon you will be skipping over the difficult words (the language contains some very long words!) AND making yourself understood.

The alphabet is the same as ours except for some added vowel sounds which are listed on the right of this page. 

This is just a small selection of everyday words and phrases that you might like to be familiar with.

Hej! - Hello!     Hej då - Goodbye

Hur mår du? - How are you ?

Jag heter...... - My name is......

Vad heter du? - What is your name?

Jag kommer från England - I come from England

Kan du pratar engelska? - Can you speak English?

Jag bor i ...... - I live in ......

Kan jag få .....- Can I have....

Kan du hjälp mig? - Can you help me?

När ligger...... Where is ........(när ligger busstationen? - where is the bus station?)

Vad är klockan? - What's the time?

Tack så mycket! - Thank you!

Det var så lite - No problem. thats okay.

Har det så bra! - Take care (literally, "have it good")