r/Svenska May 29 '25

Discussion Updated rules – please read before posting

16 Upvotes

Välkommen till r/Svenska!

tl;dr:
• Read the FAQ first
• Keep posts related to the Swedish language or language-learning – we now have flairs!
• Use r/swedish or r/spop etc. to request movie or music tips
• Don't report posts/comments that do not actually break the rules

We're a subreddit where learners and speakers of Swedish can discuss, ask and answer questions about the language, as well as studies and research relating to it. Whether you are learning Swedish as a foreign language, a native speaker curious about a dialectal word or grammatical quirk, or a lingusitics student with a survey for your thesis, you're welcome here!

Further below are our rules, but before that, here are some links we hope you'll enjoy:

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Locally-sourced expertise has been used to answer some of the more common questions we see on this subreddit, so maybe you can find an answer to yours here. If not, try using the search function to see if your question has been answered before. But don't let this discourage your from posting; if an old answer is unclear or doesn't help you with your problem, feel free to post a thread – if you mention that you already checked the FAQ, that helps us help you.

Do you think a certain question is common enough that it should be in the FAQ? Tell us!

List of resources

A long list of resources that can help you learn the language, or learn more about it! Here, you will find dictionaries, podcasts, Youtube channels, online communities and a lot of other resources, for beginners and advanced learners alike. If you know a resource that deserves to be on the list but isn't, tell us!

The most important resources is probably svenska.se, where you can look up the spelling, inflection, meaning, pronunciation and history of most Swedish words. You can also hear pronunciations, often more natural/less enunciated, at youglish.com/swedish and forvo.com/languages/sv

Discord server

Feel free to join us on Discord! Practice reading, writing, speaking and listening, ask your questions and just hang out.

The rules

  1. Be respectful of your fellow redditors. Flaming, trolling, hate, personal attacks or bad-faith arguments are not allowed. Of course, all of Reddit's other rules apply here, too.
  2. Post contents must be on-topic. This is a language subreddit, and all posts should be about the Swedish language or language-learning in general. Posting a video that is in the Swedish language is not the same as a video about the Swedish language. On-topic memes are fine in moderation, and you're allowed to advertise your Swedish-learning product, channel etc. once or twice. Always flair your post accordingly! We no longer allow requests for non-language related media suggestions.
  3. Questions and tips are always welcome. Feel free to ask your questions about the language or culture, ask for learning tips or contribute your own tips or links to websites helpful for learning. However, we no longer permit requests for movies or music etc. Links to language-learning communities are only permitted as comments, if explicitly requested by another poster.
  4. Ask permission to post community links. To prevent a flood of community links, we ask you to contact us via modmail before you post links to Whatsapp groups, Discord servers etc. We permit Swedish-oriented communities that we deem could be helpful to our members – a newly started Facebook group with three members will not be permitted. However, users may ask for tips on niche communities, and if you know of a community that fits such a request, you can always link that in a comment.
  5. No chat requests outside the megathread. As stated above, we want to prevent a flood of posts that are less useful to the average member. For this reason, please don't make post asking to find study buddies or chat groups outside of the dedicated megathread. You're also very welcome to join our official Discord community for free, real-time feedback about all things Swedish. Please join us!
  6. We won't do your work for you. While we are happy to point you in the right direction, answer your questions along the way or check your grammar when you're done, we will not actually do your homework for you. This is a place for learning, not cheating. This goes doubly for professional tasks: most of our users are not trained translators, copywriters or language consultants. Feel free to ask linguistic questions, but don't crowdsource practical, qualified work. Contact a professional instead; that guarantees better results for you as well!
  7. No exchanging/requesting copyrighted material. We do not condone sharing PDFs of paid textbooks or entertainment media.

Reporting etiquette

We're a small mod team and always appreciate it when members take the time to report misconduct and rule violations – especially of comments. But please make sure that a post actually violates the rules before you report it. For example, the rules do not actually prohibit questions that are already answered in the FAQ, or answers that are incorrect.

Reporting poor-quality-but-technically-allowed content only leads to us having to approve the post/comment, which gives it a green seal of approval and makes it look like we like it more than we actually do. Please just downvote these instead!

Suggestions

Feel free to post your feedback on the rules and guidelines in this thread. We also welcome suggestions for FAQ entries, resources and new flairs.


r/Svenska Sep 01 '21

Penpals megathread!

147 Upvotes

Learning a new language is easier with the support of friends, be it other learners going through the same journey, native speakers to lead you along the way, or even less experienced learners that you can help out to help both of you understand things better. If you're looking for pen pals, gaming buddies, book clubs or just friends so you can practice the language – through immersion or studies alike – feel free to post a comment in this thread and tell us a bit about yourself, or reply to commenters you would like to get in touch with.

Suggested post format – add or remove headers as you like

Name or handle: (whatever you want to be called)

Swedish level: (your approximate proficiency, expressed e.g. in A1 to C2, beginner to fluent or how long you've been learning/studying)

Language: (your native language and other languages you know or are learning)

Looking for: (Duolingo pals? Native helpers? Steam friends? People in your area? Someone who wants to discuss Swedish music?)

Presentation: (A more free-form introduction of yourself as a person!)

We recommend you do not include private contact information in your post; if you find somebody you want to keep in touch with, contact them through Reddit's direct messaging instead.

Please note that this thread is only intended for finding people for the purpose of learning Swedish or helping learners. Irrelevant posts may be deleted. Likewise, asking for pen pals outside of this thread is not permitted, and any such threads will be removed and redirected here.

As always, you are also very welcome to look for chat mates in our Discord server.


r/Svenska 7m ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Ännu en dialektfråga

Upvotes

Hejsan!

Jag lyssnar på många svenska poddar just nu för att jag vill träna lite min hörförståelse. Jag blir ganska nyfiken om dialekter medan jag lyssnar, och lade in (uploaded/posted?) en fråga för några dagar sedan med en fråga om det.

Jag har en fråga till nu - jag lyssnar på podden ”bokbikten” och (jag tror att) de två talare har märkbart olika dialekter. Jag undrar om någon har tid för att lyssna på en minut av podden och hjälpa mig identifiera vilka dialekter de har. Bara för att jag tycker de olika svenska dialekter är jättekul.

Kan linka Spotify här: https://open.spotify.com/show/2KXPK9ePKFWr673MST8aQD?si=pAVj5ALySt-PUepJ5vfomA&utm_source=copy-link

Tack I förväg för hjälpen!


r/Svenska 56m ago

Studying and education How do I get going with learning Swedish?

Upvotes

Hey, I will be moving to Stockholm (on August 3rd, 2026) to pursue my masters at KTH. So, I really do wish to learn Swedish and know about the culture. Where would you suggest me to start with my journey


r/Svenska 1d ago

Text and translation help Lyssna på svenska

31 Upvotes

Hej,

I run Lyssna på svenska, a free podcast for people learning Swedish.

The episodes are spoken in slow and clear Swedish and include full transcripts. They are aimed mainly at learners around A2–B2 level and cover Swedish everyday life, culture and society — for example fika, lagom, Midsummer, Jantelagen and BankID.

You can listen and read the transcripts here:

https://lyssnapasvenska.se/

The podcast is also available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music and other podcast platforms.

I have also created a separate page for teachers who would like to use the episodes in their lessons:

https://lyssnapasvenska.se/for-teachers/

I hope it can be a useful listening resource for some of you. Feedback from both learners and teachers is welcome.


r/Svenska 1d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Learning Swedish?

1 Upvotes

Hi guys, I would really like to learn Swedish, I don’t currently live in Sweden and in my country there is no Swedish course. Do you have any recommendations? How to learn it now?


r/Svenska 2d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) dialektfrågor

16 Upvotes

hej alla!

jag har lärt mig svenska i runt fyra år nu, och har nyligen träffat en till svensktalande person med samma ålder som jag (jag bor i usa och är tonåring så det här är händer väldigt sällan) men vi har olika dialekter och det har gjort mig bara undra om några saker.
min vän har en svensktalande mor och därför lärde sig svenska som barn och med en specifik dialekt. däremot jag lärde mig svenska senare på min barndom och använde flera metoder och därför har ibland fel uttal och sånt, och jag har ingen specifik dialekt (men jag har hört att min svenska låter bara som stockholmsk).
min stora fråga är det här - jag skulle säga ordet skicka t.ex (men det här gäller många ord med ”sk”) med sj-ljudet, däremot min vän säger såna ord med tj-ljudet; vilka dialekter uttalar det här ordet på varje sätt? och har jag fel?
förlåt, det här är ganska långt skrivit… hoppsan! snälla fråga eller berätta för mig om nånting är oklart eller om jag har gjort misstag och tack på förhand


r/Svenska 2d ago

Text and translation help ond bråd död och moraliska magknip

3 Upvotes

From Det Sjunde Inseglet.

The Black Death plagues the land and the character says -

De säger att det går nån

elak sjukdom i landet

och nu spekulerar

prästerna i ond bråd död

och moraliska magknip

Hoping that someone can give me a super LITERAL translation of the bolded section.

I understand that ond bråd död is sudden death (with a sinister/evil aspect) but I am not so confident in my understanding of moralisla magknip. Also a bit unsure of the use of spekulerar, as in are they speculating or perhaps preaching....

Would like to hear peoples take on this.


r/Svenska 2d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Monophthongs or diphthongs???

8 Upvotes

I've noticed that, in Swedish, many long vowels are realized as diphthongs. Would it be incorrect to pronounce them as monophthongs, considering that many Swedish teachers describe them this way? As I understand it, monophthongal pronunciation can be found in both standard Swedish (Rikssvenska) and Finland Swedish. I'd like to sound as neutral as possible so that speakers of different varieties of Swedish can understand me easily.

In this video, the teacher explains that long vowels undergo slight diphthongization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzYArZVTD4s&t=589s


r/Svenska 2d ago

Text and translation help tips for my homework

0 Upvotes

how would i go abut writing this , like what style text what body and about what exactly.

(Förmåga att tala, lyssna, läsa och skriva – i olika genrer och för olika syften. Du ska kunna uttrycka sig i både tal och skrift i olika sammanhang.

Kunskaper om det svenska språket – till exempel grammatik, ordförråd, språkriktighet och variationer i språkanvändning beroende på sammanhang, mottagare och syfte.

Kunskaper om skönlitteratur och sakprosatexter – du ska kunna läsa, analysera och samtala om texter ur olika genrer samt förstå deras innehåll, struktur och syfte.

Tilltro till den egna språkliga förmågan – undervisningen ska stärka ditt självförtroende i att använda svenska språket i vardag, studier och samhällsliv.

Strategier för språk- och kunskapsutveckling – du ska utveckla metoder för att förstå texter, producera egna texter, föra samtal och lösa språkliga problem.

Förmåga att påverka, argumentera och uttrycka åsikter – undervisningen ska ge verktyg för att delta aktivt i demokratiska samtal och fatta välgrundade beslut.

Kritisk förmåga i informationssökning och källvärdering – du ska kunna söka, värdera och använda information från olika källor på ett medvetet sätt.

Insikt i språkets roll för identitet, makt och tillhörighet – undervisningen ska visa hur språk kan skapa och uttrycka relationer, roller och samhällsstrukturer.

Förmåga att använda digitala verktyg för kommunikation och lärande – du ska kunna använda teknik för att skapa texter, samarbeta och utveckla sin språkförmåga.

Vad är dina tankar och erfarenheter om dessa punkter? Skriv en kort reflektion och berätta hur du tänker om Svenska som andraspråk 1.)


r/Svenska 3d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Long consonants

9 Upvotes

When a stressed vowel is short in Swedish, is the following consonant always long, even if it is not geminated? For example: häs:t, fis:k, han:d, mjöl:k.

I'm using a simplified phonetic transcription from the Lexin dictionary because what interests me here is whether the consonant is long.


r/Svenska 2d ago

Studying and education Free app to learn Swedish

0 Upvotes

Hey all, my brother and I have been working on a language learning app that includes Swedish for almost three years now.

We just released Version 5 which let's you create lessons about anything and lets you play through C2 proficiency with no hearts/energy/limits of any sort.

Hoping to get some feedback and ideas!

You can find us at r/polychat


r/Svenska 3d ago

Resource request/tip I'm building an AI keyboard for cross-language communication — looking for testers who are learning Swedish

0 Upvotes

Hej allihopa! 👋

I'm a UX designer based in Stockholm, and for the past year I've been working on an AI-powered keyboard app designed to help people communicate across languages — not just translate word by word, but actually express yourself naturally in your target language.

The idea came from my own experience living here: constantly jumping between Google Translate, ChatGPT just to reply to a message from my landlord, write an email, or understand an ad on the tunnelbana. I wanted something that just works right where you type.

I'm looking for a few people who'd be willing to try it out and share honest feedback, what works, what doesn't, what's missing. You don't need to be fluent in Swedish at all; in fact, beginners and intermediate learners are exactly who I want to hear from.

If you're interested, just drop a comment or DM me and I'll share the link!

And if you happen to be in Stockholm, I'd happily treat you to a fika ☕ to chat about your experience in person.

Tack så mycket! 🙏


r/Svenska 4d ago

Text and translation help Ingenting just

12 Upvotes

Watching Det Sjunde Inseglet.

The squire approaches a man to ask for directions, but discovers that the man is dead. When he returns to the knight the knight asks what the man said, to which the squire responds 'ingenting just' (he doesn't mention that the man was dead).

Clearly the squire is saying 'nothing', but i am curious about the use of just in the statement. Hoping some can explain it's usage here, if it adds any nuance etc...


r/Svenska 4d ago

Studying and education Duolingo User Who Is Thinking About Switching To Babel

2 Upvotes

Hej guys,

I've been learning swedish through Duolingo and a textbook called Complete Swedish. I came across Babbel, and I realized it has more in depth explanations than duolingo. I have been thinking of switching to it, and all the comparisons I've read point to switching to Babbel. But I would still like an opinion on this.

I'm on section 2 unit 18 of duolingo for Swedish, and I was wondering, if i choose babbel, from where do I begin my lessons, because obviously I don't want to start from scratch again etc. So if there's anyone that could guide me on this, I'd be really grateful. Tack


r/Svenska 4d ago

Resource request/tip Learning Swedish Vowels

4 Upvotes

Hej, I am very new to Swedish - an absolute beginner. I cannot speak any other language than English.

What audiobook or app can help me learn to pronounce and read Swedish vowels?

I would like to hear the vowel being spoken. I have tried using Babbel, but I would like to focus specifically on the bowels.

Thank you


r/Svenska 4d ago

Text and translation help [ Removed by Reddit ]

1 Upvotes

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]


r/Svenska 4d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Vowel length in inflection:

3 Upvotes

Do adjectives and nouns that have a long vowel keep that long vowel when they are inflected?

For example:

  • sjuk [ɧʉːk] → sjukt [ɧʉkt]
  • god [ɡuːd] → gott [ɡɔtː]

In these cases, is the long vowel preserved during inflection? If not, are there any general rules or common patterns that explain when the vowel length changes?

I'm not sure if the phonetic transcriptions are correct.


r/Svenska 4d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Causation verbs in Swedish

2 Upvotes

I've been looking at various verbs for causation in Swedish ─ vallå, orsaka, förorsaka, åsamka, ådraga.  Would it be fair to say that all carry negative connotations, causing some sort of difficulty for oneself or someone else, with the exception of orsaka, which is more neutral, and can imply any outcome, either good or bad?


r/Svenska 4d ago

Resource request/tip Resurser för östgötska mål?

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3 Upvotes

r/Svenska 4d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Svensk dialekt frågah

1 Upvotes

Hej!

Jag lär mig svenska och har en fråga om en dialekt jag har hört flera gånger nyligen. Det låter nästan som det kommer från framme I munnen, inte alls guttural som skånska. Jag hör det särskilt med vissa vokaler, till exempel ”jag älskar” låter mer som ”jag elskar” och ”här” låter lite mer som den A i order ”hare” på engelska. Sj ljudet låter inte som norra svenska dialekter (det är inte ”sh” ljud).

Det är förmodligen en dåligt förklaring för jag har inte den bästa hörförståelse, men jag har hört det också på två poddar som jag kan link om det hjälper.

Tack för hjälpen! (Och om du vill korrigera misstag i min skrivning, det är alltid hjälpsamt!)

Edit: förlät att jag skrev ”frågah” i rubrik, det borde förstås vara ”fråga”!


r/Svenska 6d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Uttalar ni ord som börjar på ”er-” som ”är-”?

26 Upvotes

Nyligen upptäckte jag att ingen i min närhet uttalar uttalat ord såsom erkänna, ersätta och erfaren på samma sätt som jag gör. Jag säger alltså ”ärkänna”, ”ärsätta” och ”ärfaren”, slog jag huvudet som ung och råkade skifta mina vokaler till mer öppna positioner, eller är det ett någorlunda vanligt uttal? Är uppvuxen i Stockholm men brukar ofta få höra att jag låter som en utböling norrifrån, kanske eftersom jag spenderat ett par månader per år på Gotland och i Norrbotten under min uppväxt, fördel Gotland.


r/Svenska 5d ago

Text and translation help Can you please help me figure out one line in this song? Links in description

2 Upvotes

The song is Sara Zacharias - I alla fall

Starts at exactly 60s, link

My very limited Swedish tells me it's something like:

vad är [?sant? ??? ???] min längt är alltid efter mer... (I think?)

Thanks in advance!


r/Svenska 6d ago

Language question (see FAQ first) Pronouncing "ingenjör"

14 Upvotes

Hey folks, can someone please explain why the "g" here is pronounced like the "sj" sound? I looked up pronunciations from different websites; everyone pronounces it as "inn-sjuen-yuur" (sorry, I don't know how to type with IPA).

I'm just starting with Swedish, studying A1 right now.


r/Svenska 6d ago

Resource request/tip Läromaterial rekommendationer?

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2 Upvotes