While living here in Stockholm for the summer, I signed up for a 1-month intensive Swedish class in July with Folkuniversitetet (difficult to pronounce in itself)….
As my ambitious class nears its end, here are a few lessons I’ve learned along the way.
- No matter how much or far out I purse my lips, correctly pronouncing anything with – sjå , sjö, sjä, skå , skö, skä – seems impossible at the moment.
- Many words sound exactly the same for no reason. The key is to listen for the 1 second versus 1.5 second drawn out pronunciation of the vowel.
- Two hours of progress in class instantly gets negated when I try to practice with my classmates the minute we leave the room.
- “Hunh?” (pronounced with pursed lips) will be added temporarily to the Swedish dictionary for the next few months.
- I’m actually digging the challenge of a new language.
Its been awhile since I’ve flipped through language books larger than a simple travel phrasebook. Intermittently for the last two years, I was studying German only to realize a year or so later why it seemed so difficult.
The harsh “h” sound does not exist in my native language, Yorùbá. We pronounce “h” like “in“. No heavy “h” sounds.
So in German, “Ich bin” is “Ick bin“.
In English, “House” is “owl-se“.
Nightmare sentence for me? – “The hot house has had happy houseguests!”
On a side note, Transparent Language recently started an excellent (practical) Swedish blog which I have been following.
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Comments (11)
I found swedish to be sooooooo hard. My ex girlfriend used to try to teach me some and I’d murder the language. All I can say is how are you, hello, and a few swear words. I sympathize!!!!
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Matt – I hear you. Slowly but surely, it will come together
Wow that sounds like a challenge. For me, learning spanish has a couple of sounds that are impossible– especially the rolling of the double rr sound. It sounds like I either have something stuck in my throat or I swallowed a small bird. On the other hand, the spanish can’t say the w sound like Vowel sounds like vobal and Y turns into a J for them. If you really want to drive yourself crazy, try explaining the P sound in bankrupt, it’s there but just barely.
My goodness! I used to teach English for Folkuniversitetet!
It took me six months to master the language and that was due to the great government sponsored school for foreigners that I was enrolled in as well as most of the people that I was surrounded by (mainly my boyfriend’s parents), only spoke Swedish. It’s difficult in the beginning but so much fun and I love the sound of Swedish.
Good luck girly! You can do it!
Are you familiar with this blog:
http://www.francisstrand.blogspot.com/
Christine – I soo hear you on Spanish as well. I took a year of Spanish and though I can’t speak it coherently, I can at least get the gist of whats going on.
Felicia – Small world! I gotta close my eyes and learn it. I’ll give myself a year
Pam – Yes! I did run across that site awhile back. Thanks for reminding me about it.
The hardest part about learning Swedish in Sweden is how perfectly everyone speaks English! My husband is a dual Swedish/US citizen and grew up speaking Swedish, but still everyone looks at him, thinks he’s American, and automatically speaks English whenever he’s in Stockholm. On the one hand, it’s great for most tourists; on the other hand, it’s extremely frustrating if you want to practice your Swedish.
i’ve been in sweden for six months and i’ve been reading some swedish from home and i’m so proud of myself i can read,understand a conversation and also write some swedish.i think it’s a matter of intrest.
[...] Read about some of my Swedish language learning woes here. [...]
[...] Much to think about during these heavy times, thanks to give, aid to share, and lots of personal priorities to address; one being seriously learning Swedish. [...]