Swedish: Accent Reduction – Intrusive ‘R’

What is the ‘intrusive R’? The intrusive R is something that is mainly relevant for English speakers, when they want to reduce their English accent while speaking Swedish. Other speakers can sometimes also experience intrusive R’s, but let’s say that it’s more common for English native speakers. So what is it? The intrusive R often […]

How to say the Swedish SJ-sound

The Swedish SJ-sound When you’re learning Swedish, you’ll pretty soon come across the SJ-sound. Or ‘ɧ’, as it is symbolised. Most learners first encounter this sound in the number 7 = sju. Some Swedish learners find this sound hard to pronounce, and others find it a bit easier. It depends on what your mother tongue […]

Swedish vowels – Å, Ä, Ö

Swedish vowels Å Ä Ö Would you like to learn or improve how to actually say those last three confusing letters in the Swedish alphabet? We’re talking about the Swedish vowels Å Ä Ö. Swedish has 9 vowels in the alphabet! Apart from the ‘extra’ letters Å Ä Ö, we also consider Y as a […]

Swedish vowels – hard and soft

Swedish vowels As you may already know, the Swedish language has 9 vowels. They are: A, E, I, O, U, Y, Å, Ä, and Ö. Note that y is always a vowel in Swedish! However, there is another way of grouping the vowels, rather than just alphabetically. This grouping is according to whether they are ‘soft’ […]

Dropped letters in Swedish

Dropped letters in Swedish We have a saying in Sweden that goes Har man sagt A får man säga B (If you’ve said A, you should say B). However, this doesn’t translate into how Swedes actually speak; the saying continues with …så får vi C vad D E (…and we’ll see what it is). The […]