Swedish - The #1 North Germanic language!
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2024
- This video is all about the Swedish language! 🚩 Learners of Swedish, check out Swedishpod101 ( ► bit.ly/Swedishpod101 ◄ ). For 33 other languages: ► langfocus.com/pod101 ◄
Special thanks to Wilhelm Sandelin Anton for his audio samples and helpful suggestions!
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The following photos are used under creative commons share alike license:
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00:00 Our sponsor
00:12 General information about Swedish
00:50 A brief history of Swedish
03:16 Pronunciation & orthography
06:16 Swedish grammar
14:44 Closing comments
15:12 The Question of the Day
15:27 Recommended Swedish course
Hi everyone! If you're currently learning Swedish, visit SwedishPod101 ( ► bit.ly/Swedishpod101 ◄ ) - one of the best ways to learn Swedish. I'm an active member on several Pod101 sites, and I hope you'll enjoy them as much as I do!
For 33 other languages, check out my review! ► langfocus.com/innovative-language-podcasts/ ◄
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Hello
I really missed your uploads, glad you're back with another great video! 💕
Hi Langfocus!
Do you know if one of the tones is use for telling and the other for reffering when speaking? Also, could you recommend a swedish study book for beginners?
That han pronoun is like it in english?
As a German speaker, Swedish is like Danish, but more normal.
BeryAb does danish sound throaty?
@@somatia350 no, it sounds like a mouthful.
@@somatia350 Not really.
I mean, kinda, but it's more about how they tend to barely pronounce the last consonant.
O! You are German?! I am from Russia and I am learning German with English in school.
@@chataignevendemiaire7172 a lot of countries teach those both languages at school
me, a swede: *watches the whole video in awe, thinking swedish seems difficult*
me too
Eller hur
haha ja
Ja haha
Ja vet
When he said "'Öl är dyrare i Norge än i Sverige", I felt that.
😂
Folk tjänar mer pengar i Norge än i Sverige.
They make less money, and have higher taxes..
@@frodehagen8690 pizza in norway 200kr 💀monster drink 50kr 💀
@@lanne9938 Oh, I have to tell my local pizzeria to change the prices from currently 119,- for a big pizza. Beer is cheaper in the shops in Sweden, but not in pubs etc.
I agree with you about how enjoyable the process of learning Swedish is.
It took me two years to master the language. The pronunciation is sometimes a challenge but the language is fairly easy to learn.
The hardest part is not the language, it's finding people to talk Swedish to. It's hard to make friends in Sweden.
It's easy to make friends in Sweden, they just aren't usually from Sweden themselves
@@RockiesSweden People are very introverted in sweden, so it's kinda hard to make friends
@@qvinty2760 not all are introverted. It's just a matter of finding common ground, as always. So do sports, sing in choirs, find a group for special interests, at for example Facebook, and you are bound to make friends also with swedes. If you're friendly yourself, that is. 🙂
true dat
@@baconair i guess its just my anxiety that gets to me. i am native swedish and people are still more introverted than in other countries. elders arent that introverted at all tho
-I have never been to Norway.
-Why not?
-Beer is more expensive in Norway than in Sweden.
That's a pretty good reason actually.
If Germans had that logic, they wouldn't travel at all. lol
@@quietcorner293 They would... To Czech Republic and back :D
@@1LOST4life1 Very true! Where beer flows like wine. -Dumb and Dumber
Probably why I don't meet many Czechs. They are staying home for the beer.
@@quietcorner293 True, if the beer gets too expensive there, they march.
As a Swede, I speak: 60% standard Swedish, 30% Östgötska and 10% Gibberish.
I’m 99% Jibberish and 1%Finnish
Actually 82% Finnish lol...
I love Östergötland
Jeg fårstår sevensk helt perfekt men ikke dansk
David N vart är du ifrån i Sverige jag är ifrån Norrköping??
My mothers from dalarna but the kids were born in Skåne so she says they speak 60% gibberish
As Spanish speaker it was more like a “walk in the park” to learn Swedish from English than if I had learned it from Spanish. The challenge has been to manage to go from a 5 vowel sound language to a 12 vowel sound language. You have to learn to differentiate long from short vowel sounds and to pry vowel sounds in between two that you are not able to differentiate. And the last problem is the “singing” sooo important! If someone would speak to me in Spanish with that Swedish singing I would have to “recompile” the phrase, flat it out and the repeat it in my head without the “melody”. The same thing happens to the Swedish people when listening to a Spanish native speaking Swedish. We speak so “flat” and “fast” that they need to recompile the phrase, put the melody and slow down the rpm from 45 to 33.
Yes, Swedish has lost much of the grammatic complexities you'll find in languages like Spanish, French, German or Russian - or even in medieval Swedish. There is no inflection based on gender or number in verbs (and only very limited in adjectives), almost no subjunctive mode (very present in most romance languages) and the case system is almost entirely gone (the only residúe being an added -s for genitive). And most of the changes just mentioned are not modern, they happened in the 15th-18th centuries. Sentence structure has moved to become more straightforward and simplified too, even if the underlying grammar hasn't changed so much in this respect: a literary or legal prose text in Swedish from 1770 may sound old-fashioned, but it still conforms with present-day grammar and syntax.
It's a supple and functional language, rich in nuances without bringing in a lot of grammatic complication to do the job. I'm fully fluent in French and English too, and I think one major difference from French (apart from the more complex grammar) is that French has a wider register of language styles, from the very elevated to deep slang/argot. It's hard to be very elevated and old-style formal rhethorical in Swedish these days (at least in original!) without sounding silly, but I think this is also about the way society can imprint a language and the way/s it is used.
It's like what we say about Italian, it is a machinegun language; totally without melody and just one word after another. Still, I think Spanish and French is even worse.
Habla con gente asi aprendio mi padre sueco no te aisles y lee mucho en Sueco ayuda... Por ejemplo en Danes asi leas pronuncian todo de manera diferente.
@@marcusgustafsson9558 In greek it's the same think, it's because of the short vowels
Es un poco como el italiano, es comprensible para nosotros, pero sería gracioso para un italiano escucharnos hablar su idioma sin “cantarlo”
All English speakers be like: “so easy!”
Me, Spanish speaker: “kill meeeeee” xD
If you know languages like English and German, It is some easy to learn, can be the vocabulary isn't similar to Spanish or other romance languages, but like the English too isn't similar in vocabulary to Spanish, one has to study as other language, si se puede.
Me, Chinese Speaker: “Accents? Challenged accepted”
As a swede when I took Spanish I found it very similar to Swedish. I don’t remember any of the Spanish now sadly
I'm trying to learn Spanish (sadly I keep forgetting it) and I find much of the pronunciation to be alike. Where English speakers have problems I don't. 😊
@@ceicli I suspect it's much easier for Swedes to learn Spanish than the other way around. You have all of our sounds, but we don't have a lot of yours (eg. ä,å,ö). You are also perhaps more exposed to Spanish in general through media than a typical Spanish speaker is to Swedish. The comment above said that Swedish and Spanish come across as "similar" but I don't feel that way, tbh. I guess it's relative.
I'm a native Swedish speaker, but you taught me a new word: boken, meaning overripe or spoiled (of fruit). Never heard before. ☺️
Yeah, it’s not common, but it’s an easy example of pitch accent distinctions.
Same❤️
Yeah I can't say I've ever heard that either. Pretty much everyone would say overripe as övermogen (pretty much a direct translation from English) instead
@@Langfocus Some more common examples are "stegen" meaning both "the steps" and "the ladder" and "tomten" meaning "Santa Claus" or "the garden", depending on pitch accent.
But real examples like these where the accent actually changes the meaning of words are pretty rare, but of course if you use the wrong accent of words, you will sound distinctly foreign!
@@Langfocus My favourite is Anden/anden - i.e. How "Father, Son and the Holy Ghost" can be mispronounced as "Father, Son and the Holy Duck"
Textbook: "Nej, det gör han inte."
Me, a Swede: "Aedegöante."
Edit: Smålänning
Aedejöranente for me
Nädjörannte
"(n)ae de(t) gö(r) (h)an (in)te" guide for non swedish speakers 'nae' is how 'nej' is pronounced in some dialects/accents. this sentence means "no, he does not". Nej(no) det(that) gör(does) han(he) inte(not). can be understood as "no. that, he does not" if slightly modified.
norrbotten: he görnt
@@OMGwtfSTFUbrb Apparently, the Hessian dialect of German does something similar:
czcams.com/video/FJb0YNecAiQ/video.html
(Specifically, at 1_min 6_sec in that video.)
I am Swedish and have never heard the word "boken" as in overripe, spoiled. I wondered if it was a dialect word. After searching it seems to be a word that is used in northern Sweden? Being from the southern half I have never come across it. Interesting. Edit: I thought I was alone, but looking through the comments lots of other Swedes had not heard of "boken" as overripe either. 😄We all learnt a new word. Thanks for the video.
I'm from the North and I've never heard it either.
In Norway we have boknafisk 🐟
I know your comment is old, but I feel a compliment to you is deserved for your excellent English writing/typing. Speaking a language well is one thing, but learning to write it well is a separate challenge. Despite our languages being roughly similar, and despite your educational systems teaching you English as a second language, almost every Swede I speak to online uses English words better than most Americans. Jag är imponerad! 👍
It's not a common word in anymore.
People just say mogen for ripe, and rutten for rotten.
(Also, rutten means route in tone 1, and rotten in tone 2)
Swedish sounds so musical. It's really pleasant to the ears ❤️
You should hear us sing......
I wish I could hear that. As someone with a different accent than the speaker in the video I think his Swedish sound ridiculous.
Swedish reminds me of when i have throat ache
@Skånerost vad skrev den här Oskar?
Han hade förmodligen tittat för djupt ner i guikbuiken.
I'm a swede and would say I'm using about 20 percent local dialect and 90 percent standard Swedish because we're quite lousy at math up here.
quick math for you, that is 110/100 in total
@@liudwan44 that's the point of his comment xD
@@xaoz2362 shhh, he just learn addition. Let him have this.
@@liudwan44 No. The math works out perfectly if you start adding the inhale 'yep' ”schvjo” instead of subtracting them.
Makes total sense as long there is a 10% overlap of the languages.
I think the main challenge that comes with learning Swedish is that it’s literally impossible to speak it as a foreigner in Sweden since Swedes are all too good at English and rather impatient with foreigners trying their best to speak Swedish 😂 They’re just too quick to switch to English it’s incredible
This happens in general to native English speakers.
Isak Nygren haha yeah but my point is that they also do that to non-English-speaking foreigners haha like they’re so good at English that they assume that every foreigner speaks English too
@@whereisamine I have personally seen Swedes switching to English if they can hear if the person is a native English speaker even if they can speak good Swedish. I have read that many black immigrants in Sweden are tired of Swedes speaking English to them despite they know Swedish. I have never done it though. If I hear a person is speaking Swedish or at least trying then I speak Swedish and only change to English if I notice if the person can't understand me.
@@isak_nygren similar things happen in many other countries. Theres a really good video on CZcams "But we're speaking Japanese" which demonstrates the frustration of people who are legitimately native born Japanese but don't look like it so they get weird behavior from other Japanese people. I'm not sure why this seems to happen in many countries but unfortunately it does. Really recommend that video its short but really makes a point.
@@virtualarmageddon6232 I understand. It happened a few times in Japan that I spoke Japanese and they replied in English because they didn't realize I was actually speaking Japanese to them.
I’m a Japanese but one of my friends is a Swede so I’m trying to learn Swedish language. Its sounds are so beautiful.
Japanese and Swedish are very different. But you speak English, and Swedish is easy to an English speaker.
Have fun learning ✨ *S V E N S K A* ✨
Lycka till!
Sju sjösjuka sjöman klev ombord på skeppet shanghai!
Swedish is a pretty language, as all Germanic languages are pretty, but it is definitely not the number 1 Nordic language, in fact, it’s probably the least pretty Nordic language or one of the least pretty Nordic languages, just as Luxembourgish is one of the least pretty West Germanic languages, and, Swedish doesn’t always have a pretty form for plural nouns, for example, våg becomes vågorna, which is more on the neutral side, so it could have definitely been way better than that with a better word ending, so yea, the Norwegian / Danish versions are way better in plural, and the erne and eirna word endings would definitely be the most suitable for problematic nouns that don’t go well with most word endings - Norse / Icelandic / Norwegian (and then Danish) are clearly the prettiest Nordic languages, their aspect is the prettiest, and so are their pronunciation rules, and when it comes to pronunciation, Norse / Icelandic / Danish / Faroese have the best pronunciation rules of all Nordic languages and also one of the best pronunciation ever, as they sound so cool and so modern and so unique, with gorgeous sounds and diphthongs etc, especially Norse pronunciation and Icelandic pronunciation, which are as perfect / cool / modern / refined / poetic as English pronunciation and Dutch pronunciation and Welsh pronunciation, and the aspect too, and everything else, and Norse / Dutch / English / Icelandic / Norwegian are the prettiest and most refined and most poetic languages ever with the most pretty words and the most amazing pronunciation, tho Norwegian pronunciation could be better, with a more toned down / more normal intonation, but it’s really gorgeous overall, and all Germanic languages are gorgeous, honestly, so they are all a great option, but I highly recommend learning them or any of them or some of them 2gether with Norse / Dutch / Icelandic / Norwegian, as these 4 languages are as gorgeous and magical as English, so they are just too pretty not to know, and, one really doesn’t want to miss out on such wonderful languages with such gorgeous words and sounds, so, for example, if someone wants to learn Swedish, one should definitely learn Swedish 2gether with these 4 languages, and, I am learning about 15+ languages at the moment, and I am intermediate level in Icelandic and Norse and mid-intermediate in Swedish / German and kind of advanced level in Norwegian and upper advanced in Dutch, and those 4 languages are the languages that are the most fun to learn, so the learning process wouldn’t be as fun if I wouldn’t be learning them, even tho all other languages I am learning are also pretty, but still, not as pretty and perfect as those 4 languages, they are heavenly languages and a true work of art!
Japanese and Korean are obviously not a pretty language at all, as most Japanese / Korean words don’t have good letter combinations, and only very few words are pretty, and many of the words have really funny-sounding letter combinations such as tashi / koko / takanaka 😂 etc and chungu-ga / chang / chong 😂 etc and random sounds such as wo-ga-wa 😂 etc, I don’t know how can ppl say such words and such letter combinations / sound combinations with a straight face, I would be too embarrassed to say words that have really funny letter combinations or sounds etc, so yea, I don’t really understand how can ppl continue to speak any of the non-pretty languages that were førced on them, instead of switching to a super gorgeous language such as Icelandic / English / Norse / Dutch / Norwegian / Gothic / Breton / Welsh etc that have only or almost only super gorgeous words and great pronunciation rules that are modern and cool-sounding, so all ppl should switch to a pretty language instead, and non-pretty languages shouldn’t be spoken by anyone anymore, but first they should hire a team of experts with a lot of patience to go thru all the non-pretty languages that exist and to go thru every single word (and analyze each one of them very carefully) and to create lists on the Internet for each non-pretty language and to those lists they should add every pretty word and every good letter combination that they can find in those languages, so that I can save those pretty words / letter combinations and find them a new ‘home’ by adding them to one of he pretty languages instead, depending on the word and its spelling, as well as using the good letter combinations to create some new pretty words, because there are a few random pretty words / letter combinations in every non-pretty language, and they should make sure that none of the pretty words are lost, as they should be used in the pretty languages instead, so hopefully I can soon perfect all the pretty languages and get at least the prettiest languages ever (Norse / English / Dutch / Icelandic / Norwegian etc) learnt by all - anyways, special big names like Eve / Lyn / Evelyn etc only reflect me the only Eve / Lyn / Evelyn etc, and cannot be misused by ppl, and all unsuitable names must be changed, and words like med and ran and numbers also cannot be in names or yt names etc!
As a native latinamerican it has been a hard experience to learn swedish. However after many years of sacrifice I could say I speak and writte swedish properly now. I love this language and this country. I really feel proud of speaking swedish. I studied at the university too and that helped me a lot.
That's nice! As you probably know, Sweden and Latin America has had a connection since Sweden welcomed a lot of political refugees in the 70s, especially from Chile. It's something that a lot of Swedes, myself included, is proud that we were able to do.
Y si es de utilidad? Y como es aprenderlo? Es cierto que es igual al inglés? Estaría bien si lo aprendiera mientras aprendo inglés? (Perdon por preguntar tanto, quisiera estudiarlo pero estoy indecisa jsjs)
Native latinamerican? That doesn't say much... You could be speaking Spanish, Portuguese, even French Creole, and we wouldn't know...
I had a "tragic story" about swedish language: Some time ago I went to Sweden for business and for some reason I had to buy a specific type of adhesive tape. When I went to a shop I didn't find the tape so I asked help to an attender girl by using my broken swedish (I wanted to be nice by asking in swedish). For some crazy reason I mispronounced the word tape by using the equivalent word in portuguese which is FITA (I'm native BR portugese speaker), so the sentence was: Kan du visa mig var är din FITTA? (Could you show me where is your FITTA?)
Swedes will understand what kind of trouble I went through.
UH-OH 😮
Did you get slapped?
@@linusfotograf almost... ahahah!
I just google translated fitta and omg! Well I'm English, lived in Portugal for 12 years (now fluent), and when I first moved I asked in a bar for a "pilinha" instead of a "palinha" :(
@@NymphofTides ahahah. From BR PT to PT PT there are lots of false friends too.
Knowing now that “wherefore” means why, it suddenly makes me see “therefore” differently! Wherefore ... therefore! It’s the question and answer that reflect each other!!
Martin Stent exactly: sw. Varför - därför
And hither and thither = hit och dit. As in kom hit, gå dit.
OMG wait
Mind blowing
BOOM!
My grandmother was a native speaker of Swedish, though she never lived there or even traveled there. She was born of Swedish-American parents in Duluth, Minnesota, and learned it as her first language. However, she was born in 1892, and for her the plural form of the verb “to be” was äru and not är. From what I understand, it got shortened early in the twentieth century, but if you were (like her) part of the Swedish diaspora, you probably missed it.
The plural forms of the verb were officially abolished in the mid-20th century. But it still exists in old songs like "Vi äro musikanter" (We are musicians): czcams.com/video/7grZd5VtPAw/video.html
you are correct they simplified than languague they took also away hs every where like in hvad became vad and hvarje became varje ....but you can still see it in danish hvad, hver , hvordan and so on...
Interesingly, the modern Swedish "Jag är" is "iakh äm" in Old Swedish which in modern English is "I am"...
Interestingly, the dialect of Swedish my dad grew up speaking (Terjärv in Finland) still has three grammatical genders - masculine, feminine and neuter. Meanwhile, another dialect from the nearby area (Nedervetil) only uses one grammatical gender - common. My dialect from Korsholm, Finland is grammatically much more similar to standard Swedish.
Standard Finland Swedish also doesn't use the tonal accent unlike Swedish spoken in Sweden. There are only a few Swedish dialects in Finland that use the tonal accent.
That was very informative - Thank you.
Did you know that Elvdalsk is a very "old" version of Swedish / East Norse
Some of the Swedish dialects in Finland are believed to be the closest to what Swedish sounded like around 5-600 years ago.
There are a few dialects that still use three genders. I consider myself mastering most of that old system.
I've actually studied Swedish a few years ago. It is by far the easiest language I have studied thus far. As a native English speaker, almost everything about it just feels so intuitive, it makes sense. I also adore Swedish history and culture, and just Nordic culture in general.
Even differentiation between "en" and "ett", "den" "det" ?
According to our dear politicians, Swedish culture does not exist and Swedish history is a subject of the "white man bad" agenda that's going on
I agree,The Swedish language is the easiest in The world
@@jyhina -en and -et is probably one of the easier gender systems in languages out there. There are only two genders, gendered and neuter; in contrast with say, German, which has male, female, and neuter, with no way to distinguish between the three. While Swedish doesn't have a consistent pattern when it comes to differentiating genders like, say, Spanish, there is a general rule of thumb. Most living things and animate objects have -en, "Mannen" (the man), "Kvinnan" (the woman), "Hunden" (the dog), etc. While a sizeable amount of inanimate objects have -et, "Huset" (the house), "Bordet" (the table), "Glaset" (the glass). There are of course exceptions, such as "Barnet", which is (the child). And a large amount of inanimate objects have the -en suffix anyways. It of course takes some getting used to, but it's not too hard. Swedish grammar is very straightforward for the most part.
It all depends on what your base language is whether a language is easy or not which I wish more people understood. Swedish is super easy from say an English base but there are other languages that would struggle much more with it. English too, its repeatedly described as the "hardest" language in the world when really it depends on the base language as I know many fellow foreigners who have found the language ridiculously easy but that isn't true for many others that struggle to grasp the language due to what they're starting from. Glad to hear your studied our language, and enjoy our culture so much! What language are you currently studying or planning to? I'm actually currently learning Italian and will then hopefully be learning Russian 😊 languages are so fun to learn!
This video reminded me of my French teacher, Jean. He was a Swede who taught French in Mexico Lol
bruh
A Swede with a French first name? He was certainly a descendant of the Swedish Royal Family!
The holy Trinity of language and culture
Are you sure he wasn't Swiss?
@@RECAMPAIRE Haha! I'm also a Swede with a french first name. My first name is Désirée.
"Beer is more expensive in Norway than in Sweden."
that is true, legolas
Me, also a Swede: Using 90% Rikssvenska with norrländsk dialekt and 10% "Asså"
My response to this sentence was literaly "Asså det är ju sant." and I physically recoiled realizing what i said.
@@johanness3850 lmao
Jag är finlandssvensk, och när vi försöker imitera rikssvenska slutar det oftast bara med att vi säger asså före och efter varje mening.
asså lixom ja typ
People from Stockholm often believe they speak "standard Swedish" when in fact, their dialect sounds very regional to everyone else.
you mean somali?
@@trustmeimfromaustria You are one fun fruit.
The educated dialects around Svealand, Mälardalen, Uppsala and Stockholm formed the basis for Rikssvenska, or "standard Swedish" when it was defined. So it's no coincidence that they are very close.
@@ZoltanDeluxe Not much to laugh about honestly.
Gott erhalte Franz oh look, a nazi.
Danish: potato in mouth
Norwegian: drunk
Swedish: tonal
Icelandic: modern Vikings
What about Faroese language?😁
Norwegian: Talks while receiving oral sex
Danish: Talks while giving oral sex
Let’s not forget us Moomin troll speakers from Finland😄
Tiiti i met 6 Finnish workers last week here in Sweden. 2 of them were more comfortable speaking Swedish than Finnish. Yes I know that it depends on what area you are from. But they were great fun to meet 😀
For me Swedish sounds as a language of elves, while Icelandic doesn't suit this role at all
It is said that, to the English speaker, Swedish is among the easiest languages to learn, but that is not true. In theory, Swedish is easy, but it’s like comparing which instrument is more difficult to learn: the piano or the guitar.
It’s a fact that the piano is amongst the most difficult instruments to master, but to just find the note C or play a C-major chord is much easier on the piano that a guitar. Swedish has the same principle. Grammatically it is easy, but to truly learn or master it is ridiculously difficult. A swede can pretty much always tell whether you are a native speaker or not because it’s so difficult to master
i agree im trying to learn swedish but i am still confused on things like using stort and not stor but i can have a conversation in swedish i hope
@@nicolairvine6216 i think it depends on the word but i have no clue. Same words that use -en -et. HusET, plånbokEN. (Ett) Stort hus, (en) stor plånbok. But thats wont limit your ability to have conversation. Kinda like saying expensiver instead of more expensive. Your point will still go across
That is the case with most languages. Native speakers cannot say if a language is hard to learn cause they never had to learn them and honestly Swedish has one of the easiest grammars and it's one of the easiest if not the easiest to learn for an English speaker. The pronunciation is tough though.
@@PHAPPSWE oh thanks i get it now
@@lmatt88 easier than spanish?
I am from Norway, as a speaker of Norwegian I find Swedish and Danish pretty similar to my own language, they are more like different accents to me, more than a whole different language.
That's because Norwegian is just drunk Swedish, and Danish is just Norwegian with food in your mouth.
I heard a language expert once say, Norwegian is just Danish spoken like Swedish.
And generally Norwegian are considered the best at understanding our neighbours language, but aparently the farao islands are actually the best
@@simpanlimpan8063 Norwegian is the best of both worlds because it's written like Danish and spoken like Swedish, so you can understand both (Except spoken Danish that shit is impossible)
It is. Compared to other linguistic areas such as English, Kurdish or Arabic, Scandinavian really is one language. It's understandable across all of Scandinavia if given a little effort. We're just managed to not unify the written standard and not try to unify into one spoken standard. Instead we've insisted on four written standards and the spoken languages/dialects drifting apart.
@@mattias3668 not really, norwegian and danish comes from western old norse which then devolped into icelandic, faroese, old norwegian and danish, after this under denmark norway, old norwegian mixed with danish which forms the norwegian we have today.
while swedish comes from eastern old norse and directly developed from there.
As an English speaker who spent Years learning the “easy” language of French to much success. Swedish is a breeze! So simple so intuitive. No wonder so many Swedes speak perfect english I’m assuming it’s a breeze for them too
TV and music is the reason.
And videogames today
Besides media consumption, yes, english is very intuitive for us.
Gabe Chacon You’re correct and wrong. Children in Sweden are very bad at English (most of them) My parents aren’t Swedish but I am and I learned English by watching CZcams videos. Adults can speak English, but most have this Swedish accent while speaking English.
@Afrodisiac I shared a dorm with a Swiss dude, when I met him he had been in Sweden for 3months.
I didnt even notice he wasnt Swedish first
i’m a swede and most people in my class know english very well and i think that is because everyone watches english youtube videos and movies. But we learn pretty difficult things in english class too.
Swedes' all time favourite conversation topic when visiting Norway: the beer is so expensive here.
Det är ju sant, haha.
@@danlodz2936 totalt! Ok, 130 kronor för 40 cl... norska kronor! Snyft...
$1 - 6.30 Danish Kronor
$1 - 8.70 Swedish Kronor
$1 - 8.90 Norwegan Kronor
@@Taawuus Mmm, sob sounds more pleasant in Swedish , but also like a cleaning product. When I was in Norway I tried to go teatotal, but it was desolate & hard to sleep ( Tromsø) that I had to drink.Cheers
It's more like 80 NOK for a 0,5 cl. but okay, Sven
As a native German speaker who is more or less fluent in English, learning Swedish was quite easy for me. I think it's a very sweet language and some of my relatives migrated to Sweden in the 50's and 70's 🇸🇪🇩🇪
Yes. As a german I rarely had problems to get at least the meaning of something written in swedish. Of course I couldn't read a swedish book.
K S, your English is flawless.
It is always interesting to watch videos about your own country.
Interesting facts about Runes in Sweden is that they were kept in use by the common people up until around the 1600s, and in certain places even longer. It was sorta customary for priests to learn Latin alphabet for official writing and runic writing for parishioners
Elfdalian (Älvdalska), an isolated dialect in Dalarna, actually used the runic alphabet until the 20th century. Elfdalian should be considered a separate language from swedish but is not officially.
A small portion of the Norwegian Sami still use runes as initials for common names. My first name is common so it has a rune, I like to write it as a rune in certain places.
Not sure if the Swedish Sami do the same.
@@Jmvars that's incredible. Is that sometimes done digitally with unicode symbols or is it just in handwriting?
1900's in Dalarna, with a special version of the younger futhark called Dala-runor or Daeliacarian runes or what you call them in English
@@user-ms7gt2km5f no, its only handwriting. The main reason they are used is because curves are hard to carve so common names that start with curved letters like O or J have their own rune. For example, for O, an X is used.
Some really common names that start with "straight" letters still get their own rune because they are so common.
Ex-German here, now in Sweden. Yes, the "singing" pronunciation is indeed the most difficult, and is the reason why they will always find out in one minute that I am not a born Swede. It is a little like trying to drive a car with both Your feet on gas and break at same time, that is how much it "shakes" - and the Swedes themselves are totally unaware of that they are "singing" all the time =) It is so much so that Swedes will not understand You, until You use the right intonation, in other words, it is a little like Chinese!
At least the grammar is MUCH easier than German, I can tell You, _everyone_ is scared about German just for that. It takes some time to use a Swedish article as _suffix_, which is the opposite of what other languages do, but You get used to it soon.
You made a very good summary. I wished there was internet when I started 30+ years ago. Thanks!
Even if people speak correct english the accent heard in the background often tells other where you are from.
If you know the language hidden in the accent you can most likely even tell from what part of that country the person comes from.
Yes! My partner is Swedish and any time I mention the "singing" he just says nooo that's Norwegians!
My man
Some parts of Sweden sings, mostly on the West Coast and Dalarna.
Same here! I am fluent in Swedish, but a lot of people want to speak to me in English because they hear my accent (it's not a heavy one at all) and as soon as people hear something foreign they switch to English :( :(. I try to do the pitch accent, but it's hard to do it all the time. It really feels the same as the tones in Chinese.
The most difficult parts of learning Swedish is to learn whether it's an EN or ETT word because there is no real way to say which is which without learning it by heart, irregular verbs and the melody. But overall Swedish was an extremely easy language to learn. Easier than English.
"Swedish is so melodic"
"Yeah, that is the rule you know"
"Wait, what?"
The "easiest" strategy is to assume every noun is EN and then learn which ones are ETT.
En sko (a shoe), ett skoavtryck (a shoe imprint).😂
Try assigning de/het to Dutch words. Even more unlogical
I love how "En plan" means a plan, but "Ett plan" means an æroplane
As a native Swedish speaker, I have my accent ingrained in me lol.
I was born and raised in Värmland, but moved out to Bohuslän in my early 20s. I’ve tried to speak more standard Swedish, cause even some Swedes have trouble understanding Värmländska. But when I get stressed, angry, upset or when I’m with my parents, my brain goes directly to Värmländska. We usually call standard Swedish “Rikssvenska” and we associate it with snobby Stockholm people lol
A seemingly very difficult feature of Swedish (and possibly our neighboring languages) that I have yet to see be covered in videos such as this one is our so-called particle verbs. This is when the stress is placed on the preposition following a verb instead of the verb itself; something that results in wildly different meanings that often have to be memorized on a case-by-case basis.
Take the case of "hoppa" (jump) and "på" (on):
Stressing the verb (HOPPA på) means "jump on," whereas stressing the preposition (hoppa PÅ) means "attack," "assault," or "criticize."
Another seemingly unintuitive one is "ta" (take/touch) "på" (on):
Stressing the verb means to touch something, but it can also mean masturbation/petting. Stressing the preposition instead means to wear something, such as a piece of clothing.
The language is absolutely riddled with these pairs. I personally know people who have mastered the Swedish language to such an impeccable degree that you can barely tell that they aren't natives themselves, but they sometimes let it slip as soon as they mistake one of these pairs.
Oh yea. There’s quite the difference between “TÄNDA på någon” and ”tända PÅ någon”
The first one means thinking that someone is hot (as in good looking) or more “have the hots” fort someone.
The latter literally means “setting someone on fire”
@Pinkiefiedz Particle verbs are one of the most difficult things to learn - and teach - in Swedish. I totally understand the struggle. You basically have to learn them one by one.
same goes for hoppa, it can mean both jump, but also to skip something
What about stöta PÅ and STÖTA på. Doesn't one mean to hit on somebody and the other to stumble across something?
@@Achilles94627 Yup!
Im from Finland and I know the swedish language. Det är ett väldigt fint språk måste jag säga! :D
Kul att höra!
Kiitos!
Love your user name!
@@emmamemma4162 haha tack🤣
När jag var barn tyckte jag finlandssvenska lät fult. Som vuxen njuter jag av den rena och fina svenska som finns på den finska sidan om Östersjön.
I really liked the format you used for this lesson. Most comprehensive and easy to follow yet thorough and systematic. Much appreciated from springtime Melbourne Down Under
I studies Swedish in the late 1980s at UCLA's Scandinavian Section of the Department of Germanic Languages. It was so enjoyable and I felt like I was in a private college. Learning Swedish and traveling in Scandinavia constitute the fondest memories of my life.
As I learner of Swedish and native Portuguese speaker, I was astonished by the considerable amount of words of French origin, such as paraply, entré, idé, fåtölj.
In a way knowing English helped a lot, due to the common Germanic features.
But it was fun to find some unexpected cognates with Portuguese: 🇸🇪 gravid 🇵🇹 grávida, which means pregnant, and 🇸🇪 fabrik 🇵🇹 fábrica, which means factory, not fabric!
Also, the usage of definite and indefinite articles/forms is usually identical to Portuguese and different from English, such as in: “Jag är student” (in English there’d be an indefinite article) and “Jag tar inte bilen.” (in English you’d use a possessive instead of a definite article)
The hardest for me is learning expressions and understanding colloquial Swedish, when not every syllable is pronounced clearly.
Por que está aprendendo sueco?
The video mentions the low German influences throughout the Hansa period. What it doesn't mention is the later influx from French, which happened later when France and French became fashionable throughout Europe (Lois XIV and all that). You can see that in e.g. the pronunciation of -tion/-ssion words, where Swedish stresses the last syllable just like French, and not the middle syllable like English (informatión, emissión, missión, erosión ...). Also, many Swedish words ending with -ör are actually French -eur loan words, and are pronounced like the French counterpart, stressing the last syllable. (chaufför, dansör, rondör, valör, direktör ...). So yes, there is definitely a lot of French vocabulary in Swedish (and it didn't come via English, it came directly from French). You will also find some latin, since it was the language of the church and the academia for a long time.
Many European languages have French words. It's because about 200 years ago France was culturally dominant, so everyone imported French words, like today everyone imports English words.
Haha, it always irritates me a little when speakers of English question their language's status as Germanic since "there are so many French influences!!". Bruh, there are so many French-inspired words in the Nordic languages as well, including in many instances in which the English opt for a Germanic or Latin word (adjö (adieu)/goodbye; elev (élève)/student; pissoar (pissoir)/urinal, etc.
Idé (idea) actually comes from greek
as a swedish american Im learning swedish as my dad learns nowegian and its fun to see our progress together and even hold mutually intelligable coversations about dogs/cats, food, and the weather
Sea Chi There’s a hilarious YT vid about how Swedish and Danish used to be more similar and then one day it wasn’t.
I've been studying Swedish for a short time but I already feel how cute and fluffy the language is. Its grammar really resembles that of English but the vocabulary is a lot different. So Swedish feels half familiar and half exotic and surprising.
I like that you describe my language as exotic. Maybe it is?
Its so captivizing reading to comments on linguistic videos, learned a lot. Great upload as usual!
I learned more Swedish from this 18 minute video than several hours of online classes.
Yeah, this guy has a way of really laying things out clearly.
Me too. And I’m Swedish…
As a Finn, I have to say most of the people around me did not enjoy learning - or rather being taught - Swedish, and their efforts were not rewarded with any usable language skills. That, however, has more to do with the language being mandatory at school and the lack of motivation than with the language itself. I think for the minority who had motivation the results were mostly different.
Personally I found Swedish quite easy to learn, because it is so similar to English, which I had been studying for 4 years by the time Swedish was introduced, and also because so many Finnish words are borrowed from Swedish, either directly or as loan translations. Later on I was able to read some Norwegian texts, and it was quite interesting to start to see the connections between English, Norwegian and Swedish.
This is so true, I can't learn swedish for shit as I have no motivation for a language I don't really care about. I am learning german and russian as well, and while they are arguably more difficult languages to learn, I am doing much better with them because I actually care about learning them.
Henri Vettenranta yeah the swedish language has some ”borrowed” words from english like gift = married or posion and fart =speed. And the swedish compared to norwegian are really similiar With some words How they sound. I cant say the similarites because i’ve Never heard someone talk norwegian to me in real life
I think what @Langfocus intended was for native English speakers.
@@blueoceancorporations1019 Finnish is spoken by about 0.08 % of the world population. And people have to study Swedish, a language spoken by another 0.16 % of the world population. It would be a greater wonder if you actually were motivated.
I sometimes read finnish news sites in Swedish. It's amusing to read since it sometimes differs in some kind of strange way. Certain words are seldom used in Sweden and senteces are formed in another way. Of course that could be very individual. "att få större synlighet" - would be more like "synas mer" in Sweden.
I'm a fluent Swedish speaker as second language. I studied standard Swedish (Rikssvenska) as well as the local dialect, Skånska. I feel the most challenging aspect of learning Swedish are the pitches and melody of the language. Also, the Skånska dialect has some interesting sounds as well as a great many differences in vocabulary and pronunciation from Rikssvenska - something I find more interesting than standard Swedish. Skånska also shares many cognates with Danish.
your intelligence of languages blows my mind!! I'm super inspired and a huge fan. this was awesome. I love watching your videos! thank you!
*is swedish
*usually don't watch educational language videos
*immediately gets this vid recommended
The youtube algorithm grows smarter
Same mannen, samw
When I was child I spelled Swedish as:
Sweet dish..
Dishes are sweet. It’s true.
Swedish Finnish
Norway am I gonna Finnish my Swedish
I'm sure you've come a long way
Sweet-ish meatballs
Hello. Very good video , I am a native swed and I speak mostly common swedish but sometimes I use old swedish called " Kalix bondska". I work a lot with people trying to learn swedish and what they find the hardest is that we have so many exceptions. For example the word "kör", kan be pronounced "kör or tjör" meaning "choir" or "drive" . Just a little example ;)
This has been really helpful. I've been trying to learn swedish for a year and couldn't figure out the rules to the grammar so this helped soooo much. Tack så mycket!
I learned Swedish in early 80s when I first came to Sweden. I had some very basic knowledge of German from when I was 10, and a very poor command of English, maybe at high school level. I started Swedish as a foreign language in September and in December that year I passed the test to attend University lectures in Swedish. So it was fast and easy thank to some great teachers. I left Sweden for the US seven years later. Over a decade later, I had to attend a meeting in Salzburg, Austria, and it was held exclusively in German. Thank to my Swedish and German, tucked somewhere in a far corner of my brain, I could take notes throughout the day. My Austrian colleagues reviewed the notes later, and from that moment they refused to accept that I didn't know German. Knowing the basics of German grammar, combined with Swedish vocabulary, were sufficient to fully follow, passively of course, the whole time.
I too studied Swedish after having studied German and I was struck by how similar the vocabulary was. Words were spelled differently but sounded the same when pronounced. And words from French were treated the same.
At 11:32, if you use the dated English word "dear" instead of the modern "expensive", and ale instead of beer, the sentences become even more similar. "Öl är dyrare i Norge än i Sverige" and "Ale is dearer in Norway than in Sweden". Maybe that would be the Anglish version? :)
“Dear” to mean “expensive” is still modern in some dialects of English. Good point!
Is "dear" dated? I always say that 🤔
duur, duurder, duurste. That's Dutch, heh. u=ü.
I didn't realize before that 'dear' means expensive, but suddenly phrases such as "selling their lives dearly" make a lot of sense to me.
"Dear"? In Polish "drogi" means both "expensive" and "dear" so it seems we have a cognate.
I am shocked... so "dear" in English can mean "expensive"? No wonder it is "duur" in Dutch and "teuer" in German!
Textbook Swedish: Nej, det gör han inte.
Me, from Västergötland: Näregörhante.
Gästrikland: näedegöntan
Öland: Nä, de gö han iinnt ^^
Uppland: näehdegöhanente
Mig: va faaan?
(från Polen men jag lära svenska i göteborgska dialekten)
Omg same
I thoroughly enjoyed this, to me highly technical examination of Swedish. Sometimes I think that the language of language is one of the most difficult to learn and apply. Nominative, dative, supine, and all those technical terms get me every time. Great video, Paul, you are a master of your art.
I’m a native Greek speaker and studied Swedish since I live in Sweden. The most challenging part was the pronunciation of the different vowels. My teacher stressed how imperative it is to use the right one using a really funny example: Rev Räv and Röv which mean “reef”, “fox” and “ass” respectively
Where I come from, sometimes Röv is pronounced Räv, to make it even more difficult for you ;)
To complicate further - Older people in Stockholm pronounce "Räv" as "Rev" - Both meaining "Fox" ;-)
@@oskich The wovel "ä" barely exists in Stockholm. "Vad eter du?"
@@carpetclimber4027 Varies a lot - Younger people in Stockholm are much better at using "Ä" than older ones...
@@oskich Så det finns hopp från de yngre generationerna i Stockholm att bevara vokalerna? Det låter som bra nyheter! ;)
"Danish is like Swedish but with a potato in your mouth"
-Every Swede re. Danish
denied, bad.
I always say that if you speak Swedish, Norwegian and Danish sequentially, it sounds like someone getting progressively more drunk. At Swedish you're sober, at Norwegian you've had a few drinks so you're cheery and funny, then at Danish you've had a few too many and start slurring your words to the point where it's hard to understand what you're saying.
An Icelandic friend of mine said exactly the same thing to me once
@@LoFIJak Icelandic is elvish norse
@@KreeZafi and when you’re about to pass out, you start speaking finnish
I dont know why im watching this when i already know all of it.
Samma här
Same.
Samma här
Javisst
Cos probably is your need to affirm yourself as swed.
You are so so good! Can’t believe all the knowledge you have and how well you explain 👌🏻
Jag har lärt mig svenska i flera år, and it's honestly one of the most fun languages to learn primarily because Swedish speakers are so damn friendly to interact with. I know speakers of many languages love it when foreigners want to learn their language, but based on my experience, it seems the Swedes tend to open up so much more because there seems to be an impression that foreigners don't purposely try to learn Swedish unless they're forced to. Svenskar: räcker det?
Sant sant sant!
When I say that I think it is one of the most important things when you come to a new country .... such as Sweden .... and intend to stay there is to learn the language for real. Then I am automatically accused of being right-wing and want to force people to learn Swedish if they are to stay here. As the right-wing parties actually want ?!
Wtf....force?!!
But what I say is a completely different thing. What I mean is that if you can not communicate properly, it creates anxiety. Being able to talk to each other is very important if you are going to have a coffee with some friends or go to the doctor or whatever.
I am Swedish by the way if anyone is wondering and certainly not right-wing.
Du har lärt dig svenska i flera år, är det enda meningen du kan eller?
@@Pellefication Så du vill att nyanlända ska behöva lära sig språket? Du är värre än Hitler
@@pierreo33 Haha, nej, jag kan skriva mer meningar, men det brukar ta för långt och jag är ofta osäker om jag säger allt korrekt.
As a Flemish speaker, when I hear Swedish there are sometimes weird similarities at the moments you wouldn't expect.
I hear similarities with German as well
@@sehabel Ja mann
It's the same for me when I hear Flemish/Dutch. Sometimes I think they're speaking Swedish but with a weird dialect. I'm like; "Oh, they must be from the north east", and then words like "gezigt" and "gegaan" pops up and I'm like: "...or they're Dutch". ;D
It goes the other way too, I am Swedish and I can sort of understand Flemish/Dutch and see lots of similarities
@@henrikl.w.4058 There is a Swedish song called DOTA , and at the beginning I first thought it was a Flemish song but it was Swedish when I listened carefully
As a native speaker (before moving to Canada) I spoke a mix of my native dialect (Angermannian) and "Realm Swedish", much because I was working partly as a teacher, and I wanted to give students a standard and most convenient example of Swedish to them, but also because I am a fan of more traditional Swedish words and phrases that goes counter to modern loan-words from American English, and it made it difficult to speak how my parents speak, because I also ended up moving a bit away from that town later in life. I would say a rough 50/50 split, much also because as you mentioned, the dialects are not that distinct as they used to be.
I can however while I am here share an example of Swedish dialect.
Å i åa ä e ö = And in the river, there is an island. Or "Och i ån är en ö" if you want to be boring.
This is great stuff, I've never seen languages explained like this before!
Swedish speaker from (mainland) Finland here. Even though we have the same standard language as in Sweden, we still have a distinct accent, with, among other things, no pitch accent, different vowel pronunciations and (usually) no retroflex consonants. On top of this, we also have distinct regional accents and dialects. I use my dialect mainly when speaking with other dialect speakers from my region, and a more standardized form when speaking with other Swedish speakers. Ostrobothnian dialects in particular are distinct, whereas the dialects of Åland are closer to dialects in nearby mainland Sweden. The geographic separation between Swedish-speaking areas in Finland are reflected in its dialects.
"no pitch accent": Also true for Överkalixmål. (One may argue that it's a Finland Swedish dialect that happened to be spoken west of the border the Russians drew 200 years ago, though. It should probably be classified as Österbottniska rather than Norrbottniska.)
"different vowel pronunciations": Vowels differ by the region here in Sweden so not so weird.
"no retroflex consonants": Just like Southern Swedish spoken by 1/3 of Sweden's population 10 times more than Finland Swedes.
It's easy to find mistakes when someone else is describing your native language, so I was prepared for that. But after having watched, I am pretty impressed. You covered the essentials without making embarrassing mistakes. Good job!
i found one spelling mistake... he spelled "glas" as glass... but that's all
XAOZ nej, han skrev glass inom parentes för att det är den engelska översättningen. därför skrev han glass (ice cream) och glas (glass) :)
@@alvaessner5769 well, that's an oopsie on my part xD
He does good research, and probaly always has a native speaker to help him too.
Also impressed. Only nitpick I have is that the characteristically "melodic" intonation which emphasizes which word is the important one, wasn't carried over in the translated pronounciations, but an attentive student could pick that out. Like:
Q:Do you like vacationing in Norway?
A:I've never BEEN to Norway.
Vs
Q: Have you been to all countries in Scandinavia?
A: I've never been to NORWAY.
And also the pronounciation of rs and the "sj" phoneme differs from north to south. RS blends to "sh" north of some latitude below Stockholm, and the sj, stj, sk[eiyäö] becomes much more similar to tj up north, while being a more unique sound (atonal expiration?) in the south, harder to learn for non-native speakers and featured in a famous shibboleth.
And as a swede, I have an obviously regional (scanian) accent, but light on the diphtongs and use less a handful dialect words daily that swedes from other regions rarely know.
As a Brazilian, I consider Swedish the most beautiful language to listen. It is unfortunate it doesn't have a great number of speakers
Funny as a Swede I have always loved the sound of brazilian portoguese
Me ho have family in both and can speak both well my Portuguese is ehhh and my Swedish is good enough
I so agree.
@viniciosbarbosa @Rage639 omg as someone who thinks the melody of both brazilian portuguese and swedish is gorgeous, I love this thread
Cara sueco é muito mais fácil do que alemão tô impressionado até, mas essa sensação é mais fácil se tu souber inglês pelo menos.
You don't think about how complicated your own language is until an outsider points it out. Great job explaining it all.
This video is brought to you by "sj" and pitch accent.
You forgot about skj
@@josejulianaguirrepinzon7666 Skj is the same sound as sj.
@@RonaldDorry Oh, yes. ¿How did I not realise? I meant "tj". And, since we are here, let's give an honorable mention to "rs".
😂
sounds about right.
English has pitched accents also. Notice the difference between "accent" and "accent".
Why am I watching a video about my native language
Ja du, kändes som att man tog lektioner från sitt egna språk, ganska kul var det. :)
I love your language so much 💕😍
@@luciathesylveon8082 Tackar! 😁🇸🇪
Om 5 år kommer jag nog ha glömt hur man snackar svenska ändå
@@Bynasf Bor du utomlands?
As somali learning English was hell it took to years learn but after that I tried learning Swedish and after five months, I could hold a conversation in Swedish
Planning to learn Swedish as I will study there next year, wanted to check out if it will be easy or not. Very comprehensive, thank you very much!
5:23 Could have mentioned here that the Swedish spoken in Finland _doesn't_ have the pitch accent unlike the standard riksvenska.
I just found out (while reading this comment section) that they do have it in Southern Ostrobothnia. I'm from Central Ostrobothnia and live in the Capital region, and I can't do pitch accents to save my life.
Finlandssvenska är ett eget språk och är ingen svensk dialekt
@@willeboppa Det finns många typer av finlandssvenska. I södra Finland och på Åland är det mest uttalet och några enskilda ord som skiljer sig från standardsvenskan. I Österbotten finns det dialekter som tekniskt sett är ett annat språk, lite som Älvdalska eller Jämtska. Ingen Finlandssvensk dialekt har dock status som eget språk.
@@willeboppa Finlandssvenska eget språk? Nej, lägg av, det är lika mycket svenska som alla andra grupper av svenska dialekter. Finland är en avstyckning från Sverige som Ryssland gjorde år 1809. Däremot finns flera olika finlandssvenska dialekter. Sverige har inte monopol på svenska språket. Det är som Storbritannien som inte har monopol på engelska språket. Över tid har vissa uttal och ordval gått skilda vägar (precis som brittisk och amerikansk engelska - som skiljer sig mer från varandra).
I JUST started dabbling with Swedish and Norwegian. So stoked that you uploaded this video!
czcams.com/users/AcademiaCervenavideos
have you seen these yet
no danish?
Gotta put a couple more weeks in on Swedish and Norwegian before exploring Danish. But I will; there's no reason to skip danish if I'm interested in it's cousins. I've heard it's unique to the other two, making danish harder to understand, so I'd like to get some sort of foundation from the "easier" languages first.
@@noxiteprova8878 To be fair, danish is a lot harder to learn, and by learning Norweigan for example you'd probably get understood the most in Scandinavia (I wanna say Swedish because I'm biased, but I know it's not true).
I've been living in Sweden for about a year and learning the language is really quite enjoyable. Its very nice to just sort of plug Swedish words into otherwise English sentences and be entirely understood, but that also means that occasionally I say things which are entirely unintelligible since the grammar obviously isn't actually identical. Really committing to memory where the grammar differs has proven the most difficult for me, presumable due to the thing mentioned above. Oh, and also getting time to practice. Swedes jump on the chance to practice their English with a native speaker and really pick your brain about it. But there are clubs and meetings, språkcafe (language cafes), where you can go and find like minded people to practice with. I'm also reminded by some of the comments that Stockholmers, at least, like to remove as much of the words as possible and speak at lightning speed, which can be a bit confusing for a beginner. Jag bor i Sundbyberg becomes (for english speakers) ya-boo-e-soonbeeby.
I highly recommend Swedish to any monoglot who wants to take up a language, even if its not the most functionally useful language in the world, it will give a lot of confidence and encouragement.
Love this. It helped me for my upcoming report on my master studies . Thank you
Standard swedish: "Nej det gör han inte"
Me: "Näedegöerhanente"
Jodegöanvisst
Näejöaninte
In Finland, Swedish-speakers pronounce it slightly slower and easier to understand.
Näedegöranintalls
Jagläserdettaklockansjupåmorgonen
Expressing future tense with "ska" sounds more intentional and planned to me, while "kommer att" instead sounds more accidental. You wouldn't say "jag ska missa tåget" (I'll miss my train), you'd rather say "jag kommer att missa tåget", because "ska" makes it sound like the intended outcome. You can also express future intent with the verb "tänka" (to think): "jag tänker gå och klippa mig" (I'm going to have a haircut), this only works with actions where the subject has agency and can actually think, or it would sound weird.
Quite similar to how it used to be in English (I shall/I will)
@@philipwq I shall cut my hair!
Ska is closer to "shall", and kommer is closer to "going to"
While both terms can be used somewhat interchangeably, ska is usually used when something is certain to happen, whereas kommer att is used for a prediction.
"Jag tänker missa tåget"
15:14 I would say that I don't speak Standard Swedish, I absolutely speak my local dialect. When speaking to people who aren't locals I still speak my local dialect but I adjust it a little bit to make it easier for non-locals to understand. For example, I usually conjugate verbs in past tense as "tröck" (pushed), "böt" (exchanged), "lös" (enlighten/shined) etc, but while talking to a non-local I change to "tryckte" (pushed), "bytte" (exchanged), "lyste" (enlighten/shined) etc, at least if they give me a weird look when I use my local conjugation, because I know that look of "What the f was that word?". The word I most often change when talking to non-locals is "tynre" (thinner), because most non-locals hears it as "tyngre" (heavier), so in that case I change it to Standard Swedish "tunnare" (thinner). When writing I always write in Standard Swedish.
Ayo, I am at the border of the field of ”Tröck”. Because I study in Örebro but I live 40 km away and I get shit for the Tröck
Native Swedish speaker here.
I largely speak standard swedish, or "rikssvenska", for which the direct translation would probably be "Realm Swedish". One of the things that stand out a bit with my regional dialect is that the final three vowels, å ä ö, tend to be longer than say the Stockholm dialect (if there is such a thing any more). I've moved around a bit in Sweden, and there are a lot of regional words and ways of expressing things which can be quite amusing. For example, the Swedish word for "potatoe" is "potatis". I the region of Östergötland, the local word is "pära".
Grammar can vary humourosly too. For example, there is a dialect where words ending with -nde ends with -t instead. Obviously, this presents non-natives with difficulties, but it gets even funnier - there are certain rural dialects that are closer to being separate languages. I know of one which has very significant mutual intelligibility with icelandic, that speakers of standard Swedish REALLY struggle with understanding. We're talking maybe 25-50% intelligibility to speakers of standard for that particular dialect.
I've tutored several foreigners in the Swedish language. The main difficulties tend to be pronounciation, cadence, and spaces between words (or rather lack thereof, as in word formation). Take for example "kassamedarbetare" ("cash register coworker") and "kassa medarbetare" ("bad coworker"). A very big hurdle for learners is also that most Swedes don't articulate all consonants when they speak casually. Example: "Vad gör du?" -> "Vagöru?". Spoken swedish is often "softer" than what newcomers learn in language classes.
Homonyms can also be tricky. Classic example: "Far, får får får? Nej, får får inte får, får får lamm" -> "Dad, do sheep get sheep? No, sheep do not get sheep, sheep get lambs".
The thing which stays tricky the longest for pretty much everyone learning Swedish is probably picking the correct indefinite article. The proper rules for it are convoluted and unwieldy, and are not helpful to those learning. The simplified rules basically demand that you know the definite article in order to pick the indefinite article. I know people who have lived here for 25+ years who still frequently get it wrong.
3rd reflexives are also very tricky. Even native Swedes mess them up sometimes.
learning swedish right now och jag älskar det, tack så mycket for doing this vid!
dicxjo Duolingo?
The Mermaid's Tale yep
Try to speak the word nurse in Swedish: sjuksköterska. I like Swedish language. I'd like to visit Sweden again. Kind regards from Brazil
There are other tongue breakers: sju sjösjuka sjömän sjönk i sitt skepp.
Sju sjösjuka sjuksköterskor sjöng om sju sjösjuka sjömän i sitt sjunkande skepp.
@@finnelkjaer7461 good one. Perhaps this long constructed word can help sj.. pronouonciation.
Sjukhusskeppssjuksköterskeskärp.
@@herrkulor3771 Yeah our stupid, yet practical ability to combine words... some of them ain't even official but people always seem to understand what a person mean.
Every language has these tongue twisters.
Sju skönsjungande sjuksköterskor skötte sjuttiosju sjösjuka sjömän på det sjunkande skeppet Shanghai.
Thank you Paul, what an excellent Series of Language Examinations you offer, I speak English and German and would also love to speak Swedish.
I was in Sweden for a week in 2003! I was on the island of Gotland. Sweden introduced me to salt licorice!
As a Brit who did a degree in Swedish one of the hardest things in pronunciation to master - besides the intonation - was the sj/sch/skj/stj phoneme. There is a famous tongue twister which is - sju sjuksköterskor sköter sju sjösjuka sjömän!!! (It means "seven nurses look after seven seasick seamen".)
longer and funnier version: "Sju sköna sjuksköterskor skötte sju sjuka sjömän på det sjunkande skeppet Shanghai", means: "seven beautiful nurses looked after seven sick seamen on the sinking ship Shanghai"
Danish would probably be even harder.
@@OlaLGbg På det *sjunkande skeppet* shanghai
@@colcasey3853 Tack, redigerat
Even though I am a native Swede I have never heard that one, but it is very good :)
Swedish and Norwegian are so fun to learn and speak. I love how musical the language is. That fact that it’s so easy is even better.
They sound pretty much the same... Only that one of them are drunk and the other one is sober
I grew up in Stockholm suburbia so I would say I pretty much speak standard Swedish with a certain regional inflection easily spotted by any other Swede😃👍 Love your channel, I have been watching it a lot! Keep it up🎶
Thanks, excellent video! I thought the history section was really good. I’ve e been thinking of learning Swedish and this helps. It would be interesting to do a quiz to see what language to learn next. Simple grammar and proximity to English score high with me so Swedish looks good. Cheers
Danish: mumbling
Norwegian: singing
Swedish: sexy
Depends everyone from goteborg sounds like a dim burly man.
As a danish speaker Swedish sounds very feminine actually
Danish: mumbling!
Norwegian: too happy!
Swedish: a little gayish!
@@rasmusb6636 Just a little gayish. But nothing wrong with being a little gay.
makkonen Haha
I find the hardest thing about Swedish is that while you can just say what you would say in English, it doesn't sound Swedish until you really get a lot of input and learn to form thoughts that way. Also, the definite articles thing can be harder to get the hang of than you think. Like in full flow, if you have to say "I left the keys on the table before I locked the door but this house has no windows so we can't get in." then you have to have a very strong subconscious model of the language before you're going to get "THE keys / THE table / THE door (this is three different definite forms already)/ THIS house (demonstrative) / no WINDOWS (an irregular indefinite)". Basically 5 forms whereas in English we would just say "the/this" or not say "the/this".
So basically you're saying that it's harder to know the gender of a noun if a language has two genders instead of one?
Roses are red
Voilets are blue
I'm subbed to this guy's channel
And you should be too
Can somebody translate that sentence in Swedish please?
@@frenchfry5030 Yes
@@frenchfry5030 Jag glömde nycklarna på bordet innan jag låste dörren men det här huset har inga fönster så vi kan inte ta oss in i huset.
Swedish native here, you did an absolutely amazing job man!
Every time I watch this, I get different details from it. Thanks!
Swede here. Local dialects and verities are quite endangered, at least when it comes to vocabulary. I myself am from Skåne/Scania in southern Sweden. Many regionally specific words are in much less use today than a couple generations ago. Scanian generally differs quite a lot from standard Swedish in terms of pronunciation, especially when it comes to vowels (which are often changed), the use of diphthongs (even triphthongs in som verities) and in the pronunciation of the letter R, as you stated in the Video. These differences from standard Swedish are still prevalent, but are being flattened out over time. 100 - 200 years ago Scanian would be considered it’s own language, not so much nowadays. Fun fact, the Scanian identity is actually quite alive and well even today. Even with a small independence movement, but usually just being sceptic of Stockholmers and maintaining the identity.
Redet glyttet
It's sad to see dialects and accents disappear. I'm from värmland but my accent has almost disappeared, especially compared to the older generation. It's fascinating how much a language can change depending on where you come from!
Disa Sundström Accents are charming right, sure is fun to compare them
@@disa1767 same for many dialects in Dalarna
SKÅÅÅÅÅNEEEEEEEEEE
Finally another North Germanic language!
Edit: I don't think I've ever gotten this many likes. Thank you!
Did you find this video through a playlist? It's not released yet, but I added it to a playlist in preparation. :) I'll release it in a few minutes.
@@Langfocus yes. I was binge watching your videos, and wanted to find more. Thanks for uploading!
My man so early that the video wasn't out yet lol
Hopefully we will have icelandic in the not so distant future :)
@@Langfocus will you do all the Nordic languages?
I’m from Skåne, out south and I have some accent. We pronounce words closely to the Danish Copenhagen accent but regional words are not being used in formal contexts such as school or work environment. Regional words and/or expressions are dying and mostly being used as a personal joke among friends at parties and gatherings and older people.
Skånska is more of a dialect tbh, you guys still use a lot of words others don't, without noticing. A lot of northern accents or dialects have a hard time understanding skånska (depending on the region in Skåne, Malmö being the hardest). The most northern dialects are the worst though, it's like a different language sometimes.
@@Theodor1cool Do we? I’m from Malmö. Well, maybe we do. 🤭
@@dominichsweden "gump", "kräker", "räligt" är exempel på skånska ord/uttryck. Fick en del reaktioner från en stockholmare. (Ska vara "rumpa", "kräks" och "äckligt" på standardsvenska.)
@@P3vlogVid Tha’s right but, although we know the expressions they’re most used between the elderly and some farmers. On the cities people under 60 don’t use such terms, least of all on formal contexts such as school or work.
@@P3vlogVid "Grina" vet jag fortfarande inte om det betyder gråta eller skratta, tror det sistnämnda. Orka Google liksom 🤣
At the moment I am learning Dutch, but I still have an interest in Swedish, & might learn it later
I was surprised of how much I could understand (just by audio, without looking at the English translation), because of how similar to Dutch it is! Thie video has taught me a lot, thank you
Pronunciation was definitely the big thing holding me back (as an English speaker). Partly I had to be brave, and dare to sound like a Swede when speaking, then I got to finish conversations in Swedish without them switching to English on me. But beyond that there were a whole lot of sounds that were just unfamiliar to me, lips tongue and throat going through some kind of oral gymnastics to get those "sj", "sk", "tj" etc sounds out, not to mention ä, ö, å.... (or å is easy, o takes more thought). Learnt so much about English from learning Swedish, do love it.
I'm a native Finnish speaker, learned Swedish at school. I've studied 4 languages (English, German, Russian, Swedish) and Swedish is by far the easiest of them, though knowing English helped a lot. Once you get past the hardest part, which is learning how the genders behave, the rest is fairly simple and straightforward. For me, the pronunciation wasn't hard since I could just learn the Finnish accent.
I learned English, Swedish, German and French at school. For me, eight years of Swedish learning did not help me very much to learn Swedish. Yes, I can understand newspaper articles but I have no idea what people are speaking or how I will myself talk in Swedish beyond a few basic phrases and words. I wrote L (highest grade) from A-svenska (long Swedish course) in the matriculation exam yet I feel like I have already forgotten everything lol. I haven't had to use it at all, I live in an area without many Swedish-speaking residents and I don't consume any Swedish media or culture.
@Stibe Happily for you the Finnish dialect is a classic dialect in the Swedish language.
Thanks for your amazing job,the best channel in yt,what a big source of culture. For me as a language lover it's a real treasure 😁😍