Swedish Profile (Collaborative writing) Language Learning Forum

Swedish Profile
Tags: Swedish
Language Learning Forum : Collaborative writing

16 messages over 2 pages: 1 2 Next >>

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Hexaglot
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Switzerland
FXcuisine.com
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Message 1 of 16

11 March 2005 at 7:42am | IP Logged

Here is an empty template for the future profile of Swedish on this website. Anybody whith a knowledge about this language, who speaks this language or is learning it is welcome to help!

The scope of each heading can be seen in the
French or Italian language profiles. Please use the scope of the existing headings ('Usefulness', 'Economic importance', etc...) for your input as I can't add new headings.

Try to write concise, informative, easy-to-read and if possible entertaining paragraphs.

You are welcome to post proposed changes to each paragraph or to write a new paragraph yourself. If you wish to insert comments, please use Italics. If you have studied the language and used it for some time, your input will be immensely valuable to prospective learners.

INTRODUCTION
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USEFULNESS
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CHIC FACTOR
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ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE
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TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES
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COUNTRIES
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SPEAKERS
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VARIATIONS
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CULTURE
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DIFFICULTIES
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GRAMMAR
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PRONUNCIATION
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VOCABULARY
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TRANSPARENCY
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SPELLING
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TIME NEEDED
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BOOKS
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SCHOOLS
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LINKS
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1 person has voted this message useful

souley
Senior Member
Joined 7240 days ago
178 posts - 177 votes

Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: Arabic (Written), French

Message 2 of 16

11 March 2005 at 12:17pm | IP Logged

Introduction:
Swedish is a Nordic language spoken by approximately nine million Swedes and also considered a official language in Finland where it is spoken and taught, especially in the areas close to the Swedish border. Even though Finns and Swedes live so close, the languages are completely different and of two different language families. The closest similarity can be found between Swedish and Norweigan and Danish, a great deal of Swedes understand the Norweigan and Danish neighbours and vice versa.

Usefulness:
With large cooperations like IKEA, Ericsson, Volvo, SAAB etc entering the international scene, Swedish can be useful, but it's really never vital to learn, since Swedes have no real patriotic love for their language, they'll switch to English in any given situation, and are more than happy to have an opportunity to try out their English skills, which among 70-75% of the population can go head to head with any american.

Chic Factor:
No text yet.

Economic Importance:
No text yet.

Travel Opportunities:
No text yet.

Speakers:
Alittle more than nine million.

Variations:
Swedish has no real variations, only local dialects. Like other languages you can hear what part of Sweden a person originates from depending on his or her accent, but the vocabulary and grammar are all the same, except for few local slangs.

Grammar:
Swedish is a relatively simple language, but for English monolingual speakers the division between masculine and feminine words will definately become an obstacle. There are two words for "a", a house, a boat etc, and every word is divided into one of these categories, and there are no rules to which word goes where, so it's all about learning from experience or memorizing each words gender. For speakers of other gender based languages this is nothing new, but they still have to learn what word goes where.

Vocabulary:
Swedish has a logical vocabulary which poses no problem what so ever for speakers of other Latin based languages, as extremely many Swedish words are very similar to their equivalant in English.

Spelling:
Unlike English, Swedish has a very logical spelling, most words are spelled just like they sound, and if there are common words that are NOT spelled like they sound, you can believe that they will in a couple of years, as is the situation if you compare Old Swedish to the modern one, letters that were not pronounced in words are often eliminated today, so in this aspect Swedish is a very adaptive language.

Links:

http://www.ielanguages.com/ - Teaches you a foundation of some European languages, including Swedish.
http://web.hhs.se/isa/swedish/ - Some more information about Swedish, and a free internet based course.
http://www-lexikon.nada.kth.se/skolverket/sve-eng.shtml
- A swedish translation service that allows you to translate words to and from Swedish.

To Francois: This is all I could write as I am a native speaker and have no real perspective on our pronounciaton or culture, anybody who has studied this language can fill these in /kind regards

Edited by souley on 11 March 2005 at 12:20pm
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maxb
Diglot
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 7182 days ago
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Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: Mandarin

Message 3 of 16

27 March 2005 at 8:21am | IP Logged

I would like to add some things about the pronouncation. I am a native speaker but I have noticed some things which people learning swedish tend to have problem with.

Pronunciation

If you want to sound like a native speaker Swedish pronunciation is probably a bit difficult. Swedish is a pitch-accent language, which means that some words are distinguished only by the pitch contour. An example of this is the Swedish word "anden" which means either "the duck" or "the spirit" depending on the pitch contour. However you can usually make yourself understood even if you are unable to pronounce these correctly. There is also the "u" sound which as far as I know is unique to swedish (although norwegian has something similar). Most people I've met who have learnt swedish as a second language have trouble pronouncing this sound correctly.

Grammar

A feature of swedish which is not present in German is that adjectives are conjugated according to the noun.
To illustrate this, here are two german sentences and their Swedish equivalents:

Der Zug ist schnell
T�get �r snabbt

Das Auto ist schnell
Bilen �r snabb

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Raistlin Majere
Trilingual Hexaglot
Senior Member
Spain
uciprotour-cycling.c
Joined 7151 days ago
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7 sounds
Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Catalan*, French^A1, Italian, German
Studies: Swedish

Message 4 of 16

15 May 2005 at 10:53am | IP Logged

Maxb, in German, adjectives are always declined unless they are predicative. Thus:

-Der Zug ist schnell

but

-Der schnelle Zug
-Den schnellen Zug
-Des schnellen Zuges
-Dem schnellen Zug

Edited by Raistlin Majere on 15 May 2005 at 10:55am
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maxb
Diglot
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 7182 days ago
536 posts - 589 votes

7 sounds
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: Mandarin

Message 5 of 16

15 May 2005 at 11:23am | IP Logged

Raistlin Majere wrote:

Maxb, in German, adjectives are always declined unless they are predicative. Thus:

-Der Zug ist schnell

but

-Der schnelle Zug
-Den schnellen Zug
-Des schnellen Zuges
-Dem schnellen Zug

Yes and they are in Swedish as well (e.g. "Det snabba t�get") but in Swedish they are also conjugated when used as a predicative. In german you say

Das Auto is schnell, Der Zug ist schnell.

In swedish you say: Bilen �r snabb, T�get �r snabbt. This is the point I was trying to get across in my post but I didn't express it very clearly.
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Sierra
Diglot
Senior Member
Turkey
livinginlights.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 7123 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Swedish^B1
Studies: Turkish

Message 6 of 16

18 August 2005 at 3:36pm | IP Logged

Response to souley's post:

(Grammar) In English at least, the two noun genders are referred to as common (en) and neuter (ett), not masculine and feminine.
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korbanx
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7041 days ago
107 posts - 106 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Swedish

Message 7 of 16

25 October 2005 at 2:38am | IP Logged

Books and/or Tapes:
*Teach Yourself Swedish by Vera Croghan
*Colloquial Swedish by Philip Holmes and Gunilla Serin
*Spoken Swedish (Spoken Language Series) by Fritz Frauchiger and William R. von Buskirk
*Learn Swedish Now! (Transparent Language computer program)
*201 Swedish Verbs by Richard P. Auletta
*Pimsleur Swedish
*Rosetta Stone Swedish

Edited by korbanx on 17 March 2007 at 2:34am
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Calvino
Diglot
Groupie
Sweden
sammafllod.wordpress
Joined 5965 days ago
65 posts - 66 votes

2 sounds
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: French, Spanish, German

Message 8 of 16

10 August 2008 at 10:44am | IP Logged

Souley:

I think that several of your suggestions are highly arguable.

The claim, for instance, that Swedish vocabulary and spelling are "logical", seems to me like a native speaker's bias. I see no reason why Swedish should be more logical than any other language. I don't think Swedish grammar is particularly simple, either. There is, as far as I know, currently no tendencies towards simplified ortography in Sweden. And then we have the odd factual mistake, such as that Swedish would be "Latin based".

Here are my suggestions for texts:

PRONUNCIATION
Swedish pronunciation poses a number of difficulties.

Swedish is a tonal language, which means that two words sometimes differ only with regard to the melody of the word: whether the stressed syllable has a rising or a falling tone. This gives Swedish a distinctly "sing-song" character

Swedish has two different vowel lengths, which means that each particular vowel sound comes in a short and a long variant. Two words can differ only with regard to the length of the vowel sound. Consonants also differ in length, but this difference is always dependent on the preceeding vowel sound: long consonants always follow short vowels, and vice versa.

Swedish has a couple of sibilants known as the tj-sound and the sj-sound, the exact pronunciation (and spelling!) of which will be hard to master for almost anyone. It also has retroflex consonants that might pose some difficulties, as well as one rather uncommon vowel sound, the close central rounded vowel, known from some dialects of English like the Australian or Cockney pronunciation of "boot".

GRAMMAR
Swedish grammar has undergone an extensive simplification since the middle ages. Today, there are very few difficult grammatical forms that need to be mastered by the student.

Swedish nouns present two sorts of difficulties. The first one is gender. Swedish nouns have two genders, the common and the neuter, which determine articles and adjective forms. The tricky part is that, unlike for instance Spanish, there is no way of seeing what gender a particular noun has. The second is plural forms of which Swedish has a whole bunch, which are distributed according to very subtle rules.

Swedish verbs are simple to learn and use, with the exception of the class of strong verbs with irregular conjugation. Swedish has lost its old subject congruence as well as the subjunctive mood.

VOCABULARY
Swedish vocabulary is part old Norse, part German, with a smattering of cultural and technical term from Latin, French and English. The extensive German vocabulary dates back to the middle ages, when German traders had a massive influence on Swedish economy, politics and language.

The Swedish vocabulary could pose a difficulty for an English-speaker, since Swedish has retained a large part of the Germanic vocabulary English has since exchanged for Romance counterparts. Prior familiarity with German, however, is a good entryway into Swedish.

SPELLING
Compared to English, Swedish spelling is rather consistent. However, it has a few peculiarities which can be difficult to master.

Double consonants are used to mark that the consonant is pronounced long and the preceding vowel short. However, you will find countless words which are pronounced with a short vowel and a long consonant, but which are nevertheless spelled with only one consonant. It is impossible to know how to pronounce it just by seeing the word written.

A number of Swedish sounds, most notably the j-sound, the sj-sound and the tj-sound, can be spelled in a perplexing myriad of ways.

Swedish spelling has no way of expressing the tonal character of the language. There is no way of reading off a word whether its stressed syllable is rising or falling.

Edited by Calvino on 10 August 2008 at 10:49am

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