Swedish is a north germanic language spoken by about 10 million people, total. Most of these folks live in Sweden, although there is a Swedish speaking population in Finnland. It's pretty similar to Norwegian except Norwegian has this cool letter ø and Swedish doesn't.
- The Swedish alphabet has three more letters than English: ä, å and ö.
- They like to combine consonants that you likely would not see in English like sj, skj, hj, gj.
- The sound of a long i is something like "ee" with a vibration. It still escapes my skills.
- Many words can combine into one monster word, such as totalspråksordbok (comprehensive dictionary.) The literal translation would be something like total speaking word book. Or you can say realisationsvinstbeskattning (capital gains tax).
If you want to hear an example of Swedish here is a clip from a movie called the wedding photographer: Swedish
There are strong regional differences in dialects. In the south (around Skåne) people are said to speak very loudly and as if they have marbles in their mouths. This is attributed to the proximity of Denmark. If you are from the north, you will likely speak slowly and take a rapid breath of air in to signify yes. It's very strange the first time you hear it, it's almost like the person has experienced a shock. But it's incorporated into a normal speaking conversation. Since I have been learning the Stockholm dialect, I can't really give any comparisons. But I've heard it's the snobby dialect.
There are words that sound very similar to English, such as:
Hej- Hey
Hus- House
Teve- TV
Matta- rug, mat
And many more that don't.
This is a funny video explaining a little more about Swedish: Simply Swedish
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