Swedish Lessons

It changes in questions too:

Jag gick till skolan - I went to school.
Gick du till skolan? - Went you to school?

I’ve also heard linguists say that the swedish “sj”-sound is very unique. :uh:

the way norwegians say æ (ä in swedish) is not anything close to the swedish ä the swedish ä is more like a norwegian e

Swedish “älvorna”
Norwedish “elvorna”
English “the elves”

Yes, ä is sometimes pronounced as “e” (like in äpple, älva etc) and sometimes as “ä”/“ae” (like in ärta, nära).
The swedish word for is is written “är”, but in spoken language it is sometimes pronounced as “e”.

Yes, but that depends on what dialekt you speak. Where I come from (the southern edge of the northern part of Sweden :eh:) we say “är”, but where you come from they say “e”.

Doesn’t anyone have a microphone? It would be a lot easier to explain the different sounds that way.
Hehe, imagine one of the non-swedish people here trying to say “kjol” (skirt), “tjock” (fat), or “sjuk” (sick). :happy:

yes it’s a uniquely swedish sound (or so i’ve read). I’ve had trouble pronouncing that one. I had one recording saying “sju” (seven) and for the first few times it sounded to me very much like “fu” :eek:

For a while i was pronouncing it like german “ch”… Then i realised i can approximate it better by saying “khu” first then removing the “k”… also i can pronounce it by flattening the “X” sound of my language… :tongue: i got that idea when i read that arab immigrants in Sweden usually pronounce “sj” as X :smile:

Now i can pronounce it fast and without pre-practice but still everytime i think in my head what a funny sound it is :content:

Yeah, tons of people have problems with that sound if they’re not originally from Sweden. Trying to think of a sound like that in english, or at least a similar sound, but I can’t really come to think of any… “Sk” can also be pronounced as the same sound, for example in “skillnad” or “skön”

When me and my family first came to sweden they spelled my name like “Olesja”, cause, well, they thought it would be “Oles-ja” but instead it turned my name into this horrible “Olescha” or something lol. Now it’s just Olesia, thank God lol.

Dream on. // Olesia

I can’t get my microphone to work :sad: But I wouldn’t be a good person to teach people how to say “sj” because I tend to say it wrong sometimes. My mother comes from Finland, so I learnt finnish first as a child. And finnish does not have any “sj” sounds, except some similar sounds in loan words. Like “sheikki” (sheik, shejk in swedish).

When I just had started school some other kids picked on me because i couldn’t pronounce “tjuv” (theif) or “sju” (seven). :bored:

I actually borrowed a microphone from a friend, but it turns out that my sound card sucks, so I can’t use it. It shouldn’t be that hard to find a recording of someone saying “tjuv” or “sjuk” etc… I would have looked for one now, but right now I’m on this 3G-card, so my connection is super-slow. Unless someone else finds one, I’ll look for one when I get back to my mom’s, that’ll be around monday or tuesday (I think).

Here you can type in swedish words to hear how to pronounce them, but the sound quality isn’t so good, so it’s hard to hear the sj sounds.

chemistry in Swedish:

Na= Natrium
He=Helium
H=väte
Cl=Klor
Au=Guld
Pb=bly
Pt=platina
Cu=koppar
P=fosfor
F=flour
(Sn=Tenn?)
Zn=Zink
C=kol
Li=litium
Ag=Silver

My chemistry teacher’s name is Zink. :shock:

Time for Lanina’s Grammar! :tongue:

Words in plural.

In english, a s is just added when it comes to plural.
“Pig - Pigs”
There are some words that are different, like
“Man - Men”

In swedish, it’s a bit more difficult.
Most words get a r when talking about a substantive in plural.
But, most words also end in consonants, how does this work?
It goes [vowel]+r.
What vowel is usually determined by what the last letter in the word is. And some you just have to learn.

-OR
Examples: Kvinna (woman), hylla (shelf), panna (forehead)
Most words in this group ends with an A.

These words will have -or in plural.
So:
En kvinna
Flera kvinnor

En hylla
Två hyllor

Some words that end with consonants are also here, like “ros” (rose).

-AR
All words in this group are words that are “n-words”, so that its “en pingvin” (a pinguin) or “en stol” (a chair) not words like “ett bord” (a table)

Example:

En fågel (a bird)
Flera fåglar (many birds)

En pojke (a boy)
Två pojkar (two boys)

There are some wierd things here too. Some words change more than just putting -ar after them. Words like “dotter” (daughter) becomes “döttrar”.

-ER
Most words in this group are also “n-words”. There are many words here that that end in e-[consonant] like “regel” (rule)
Before you can put -er on them, you have to take the last vowel out. So it becomes “regler” instead of “regeler” (easier to say).

Examples:

Film - Filmer (film, films)
Bok - Böcker (book, books)
Växt - Växter (plant, plants)


There are more groups, but I will write about them later. :razz:
Like -R, -N and words that do not change at all.

And how are we supposed to know what n-words are? Is there any logic in that?

Is it also
en film - two filmer (a film, two films)
en Bok - two böcker (a book, two books)?

chemistry in Swedish looks much like Dutch.

Na= Natrium [com] = Natrium [/com]
He=Helium [com] = helium[/com]
H=väte [com]= waterstof [/com]
Cl=Klor [com]= chloor [/com]
Au=Guld [com]= goud [/com]
Pb=bly [com]= lood [/com]
Pt=platina [com]= platina [/com]
Cu=koppar [com]= koper [/com]
P=fosfor [com]= fosfor [/com]
F=flour [com] = fluor [/com]
(Sn=Tenn?) [com] = tin [/com]
Zn=Zink [com] = zink [/com]
C=kol [com]= koolstof [/com]
Li=litium [com]= litium [/com]
Ag=Silver [com]= zilver [/com]

Owh yeha that’s rigth we had Swedish lessons, not Dutch.

I don’t think there is any logic. Most words a “n-words”. Maybe someone else has posted something earlier in this thread?
Swedes mostly just go for what sounds good. :razz:

Well, I’m lazy today. I’m going to write about words that do not change at all in plural.
Most of these words are words for professions ending on -re
Lärare = Teacher
Slaktare = Butcher
Musiker = Musician

Then, there are just some randoms words.
Träd = Tree
Lejon = Lion
Fönster = Window

I can understand why it’s hard to put a suffix on words ending on -re, but why it’s “ett träd, två träd” instead of “ett träd, två trädar” is just weird. :eh:

I skipped a few pages so I don’t know if any of these words have been written before.

Toalett = Toilet
Badrum = Bathroom
Mat = Food
Vatten = Water
Öl = Beer
Vin = Wine
Hem = Home (Weak E)
Trött = Tired
Sjuk = Sick, ill.
Säng = Bed (Weak Ä)
Kamera = Camera (Strong A)
Jul = Xmas, Christmas.
Jultomten = Santa Claus
Tomtefar = Father Christmas
Påsk = Easter
Huvudvärk = Headache
Tandvärk = Toothache
Bio = Cinema
Mobil = Cellphone
Bil = Car
Cykel = Bike
Motorcykel = Motorbike
Förstörd = Destroyed, ruined.
Pengar = Money

In Swedish there aren’t AM or PM when you talk about the time. Instead of 1-12, we have 1-24. So 10 PM would be 22.00.

Currency, SEK (Swedish Kronor - KR).
1$ = 6kr (I think)

OFF-TOPIC:

I always thought Santa Claus and Father Christmas was the same!

ON-TOPIC:
Emm-------Jag är en svamp!
runs

Is anyone still teaching/learning here? (probably not, since the last post was in 2007 :tongue:)

Is there logic to it in other languages? Grammatical gender is fairly new to me, since we don’t have that in English (afaik).

From an earlier post, -en words are for male or female, while -ett words are for neutral.

If so, then is the -OR, -AR, -ER rule related to gender? Like -OR is for female, -AR for male, and -ER for inanimate male/female or something? :confused:

Also wondering this too, and if there’s something like a BIG language topic to link to all the lessons :peek:

[size=75](I don’t remember what I was searching for when I found this… Hope it’s not against the rules, from my understanding the Bumping rule referred to just saying “Bump” to an old thread with no actual content?)[/size]

As far as I recall … the only other topic was on the Nederlands LD4all forum. It was a speak Dutch topic.

If members wish, I can edit links into the “what languages do you speak” topic in the gathering.