Learning Swedish

[milly143]

Sorry, this is probably the wrong catagory again. Is Swedish a hard language to learn?

[laurence2]

yes

[milly143]

oh. :o(

[redcrx]

Not if your'e Swedish lol

Id say it depends on how good you are with languages. Some people can learn many with no problems at all. I struggle with even English :)

[jno]

not madly - uses the same alphabet, many words are distantly related to English (since many of our ancestors came from that part of the world, as did the language).. about on a par with German, easier than Japanese.

[vehelpfulguy]

I have found most Nordic people can speak excellent English.

Have you any reason to want to learn Swedish, it is rather a minority language (as are most of the Nordic languages)

[milly143]

hhhmmm maybe I'll just have to give it a go and see how I get on. I have a good friend through work who is Swedish and while he speaks excellent English he gets really fed up sometimes of always having to talk in English. He had taught me a few things but I had considered trying to learn it so I could at least hold a basic conversation and surprise him one day.

Thanks for your answers!

[Pootle]

Hello Milly, I have been learning Swedish for a few years now. Initially, it was quite a hard language to grasp on account of the grammer which takes some getting used to. But if you can persevere for the first few months, you will find that it is fairly simplistic. Many of the words are similar to their English counterparts as its a Germanic based language. As always, if you have studied a language in the past this will help. I found the Teach Yourself Swedish in 3 months book very good as it explains the grammer very well and increases your vocab. Nowadays, most DVDs have Swedish subtitles to practise with but it always helps if you've got some body to practise speaking with and you do!

Good luck