Swedish is a category 1 language, according to the FSI. This means that learning it is just as easy for native English speakers as learning French or Spanish. So, this makes Swedish one of the easiest languages to learn. That's very promising for those who want to begin their studies.
According to the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI), you'll need about 750 hours of study to become fluent in Swedish. This means that if you dedicate 12-15 hours a week to studying, you'll be able to speak like a pro in just a year!
For what it is worth, Swedish is the most useful Scandinavian language to learn. Knowing some Swedish can help you decipher written Norwegian and Danish to a great extent. Swedish is also commonly understood in Finland, and the main spoken language in many places in southern and western Finnish coasts.
Swedish Pronunciation Might Be The Hardest Thing To Learn. The thing most learners need help with when learning Swedish is usually pronunciation. Swedish has some vowel sounds that don't exist in English, like å, ä and ö.
Swedish is a good language to learn as it isn't that difficult for native English speakers and is much easier than languages such as German and French. Also, once you can speak Swedish you will start learning to understand Norwegian and Danish so you pretty much get 3 languages for the price of 1!
Swedish and Norwegian are very closely related, with many words being almost identical, or at least understandable. However, there are also many words that look or sound the same in both languages but have different meanings – these are known as false friends.
But, Norwegian is definitely the easiest Nordic language to learn from the Scandinavian region. When it comes to Danish vs Norwegian, Norwegian is easier to understand. Their writing is the same, and there's not a lot of difference between vocabulary and grammar either.
In Sweden you can study for a semester or an academic year, do a full undergraduate degree, or even a postgraduate program entirely in English. Many local Swedish students take courses that are taught in English (and not just English-language courses), as English is an everyday part of academic life in Sweden.
Swedish is a category 1 language, according to the FSI. This means that learning it is just as easy for native English speakers as learning French or Spanish. So, this makes Swedish one of the easiest languages to learn. That's very promising for those who want to begin their studies.
You can watch videos, listen to podcasts, and read books to learn new Swedish vocabulary. Outside of taking lessons on italki, one of the best ways to improve your Swedish skills is to read and listen to the language.
There's no reason why you can't learn Swedish on your own. Swedish is considered one of the easiest languages to learn. That's because it's incredibly close to English in a lot of ways. So, often you can just follow your intuition as you're speaking Swedish.
The vast majority of Swedish people know English because it is taught in schools from a young age. In addition, English is widely used in the business world and in popular culture, so Swedes are exposed to the language on a daily basis. As a result, they develop a high level of proficiency in English.
Learning Swedish will help with overall communication when you move to Sweden. Even though most Swedish people speak English very well, you must remember that English is still their second language. There are often times when a Swedish individual will understand you to mean something different from what you said.
Did you know that learning a mere 1000 words covers 85.5% of conversation? In other words, you just need 1000 words to be considered pretty much fluent in a given language. You'll only be at a loss about 14.5% of the time.
Many language experts recommend immersion as the fastest way to become fluent in Swedish; move to Sweden, live with a host family and have every interaction in Swedish. The idea is that, without English to fall back on, the desire to speak Swedish will become a real necessity, a sink-or-swim survival pressure.
Across multiple sources, Mandarin Chinese is the number one language listed as the most challenging to learn. The Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center puts Mandarin in Category IV, which is the list of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers.
Many jobs require fluency in Swedish. Jobs that do not have this requirement are typically large international corporations based in Stockholm. However, even positions advertised as “English only” may give preference to those with at least a working knowledge of Swedish.
Whether living abroad or traveling to a new country, thinking about getting around an unfamiliar place when you don't speak the language can be daunting. Many Swedes speak more than one language, but do people in Sweden speak English? Yes. Roughly around 86% of people in Sweden speak English.
Sweden does not have minimum salaries, rather the Swedish model is built on the notion of salaries being defined in collective agreements.
Consequently, it's not uncommon to hear of foreigners living in Sweden for many years without learning Swedish. But while it might be easy to 'get by' in English, the perks of learning the local language far outweigh the challenges, says Stockholm University's Vendela Blomström.
Requirements to study in Sweden
The student must have graduated high school with 60% marks and must have completed the age of 18 before enrolling in a degree program. Prove your English proficiency: The English language general requirements are studies that are equivalent to Swedish upper secondary English Course 6.
SWEDISH. Swedish is the most popular Nordic and Scandinavian language on our list. It is spoken by approximately 10.5 million people around the world, in countries such as Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Ukraine, and other Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Norway.
Vikings spoke Old Norse, but we don't know how they sounded. Old Norse has since developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish. Among those, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility and are known as the Scandinavian languages.
This means that you should choose to learn Norwegian if you want to have an easy time understanding the other two Scandinavian languages. But if you prefer Swedish or Danish — go for it!