It was because of my trip to Russia that I was superbly annoyed with the Swedish stewards on SAS airlines. With all the hoops, obstacles and HIV tests to get into Russia (by invitation only), I was faced with a planeful of Swedish stewards who insisted on speaking to me in a language I didn’t speak, or not giving me documents to fill out to enter Russia (which caused a lot of problems).
Aside from that (which wasn’t that bad at all), I realized I should probably learn some Swedish, while in Russia, to use on my return flight, just in case. Aside from Basshunter, I threw myself into Swedish, I was enticed by the sounds, and how close some words are to English, in my opinion. I’ve listened to many Swedish songs, and more so, following along to Sveriges Radio broadcasts.
- TeachYourself Swedish: Simple to follow. There’s enough audio to not get lost or trying to figure out which words have grave or acute accents. Sometimes, I feel like voice-artists are slowing down their speech, or over-enunciating, but nonetheless, it’s a good resource.
- SverigesRadio: I listen to this all the time. When I have time, I follow the text and listen to the audio at the same time, 95% of which is the same. The Senaste Nyheterna (Latest News) is usually 2 minutes in length and touches on big headlines.
- Folkets Lexikon: I’ve found this to be the only reliable online dictionary to date (other suggestions are welcome). Most, if not all, of the entries have an audio file to help out again with the grave/acute accent situation.
- Ord.se:
- Basic Swedish Course (1982): From the Defense Language Institute’s Foreign Language Resources.
- Tom’s Collection of Swedish Language Learning Links:
- More resources to come…
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jonathanbröhl 