Archive for 'Pronunciation'
Pronunciation Breakdown: Swedish Sj-Sound Posted by Chelsea B on Sep 24, 2021
Learning about phonetics is cool. And if you ask me, pretty difficult! A recent blog commenter said they have difficulty with the Swedish sj-sound and asked for tips to practice it. Classified as a “voiceless fricative phoneme” it’s one of the most difficult sounds in the Swedish language to reproduce. While I’m not a phonetics…
Tribute to Peps Persson: Swedish Blues and Reggae Legend Posted by Chelsea B on Jul 2, 2021
Swedish blues and reggae musician Peps Persson passed away earlier this week. Known for infusing social criticism with music, and doing so in excellent skånska, this Swedish music Hall of Famer was a legendary collaborator and ambassador for his genre. This week, we’ll pay tribute to Peps with some music and honor his southern Swedish…
A Master List of Swedish Resources for Christmas Posted by Chelsea B on Dec 24, 2019
God jul, folks! This year for Christmas I’m giving you all the gift of web resources! The internet is truly a magical place nowadays for language study, but there is a lot out there and it can be hard to sort it all out. Below, you’ll find some of my favorite web resources for grammar…
Sound Swedish with speech tones! Posted by Stephen Maconi on May 10, 2017
The Swedish language is known by many to be a melodic one, and many say that Swedes sound like they’re singing when they speak. Is this true? Well, in truth, it depends largely on who’s speaking! Less individually, more regionally. In many parts of Sweden, people speak with a rather “flat” tone – compare Gothenburg…
The mysterious Swedish “sk” Posted by Stephen Maconi on Dec 5, 2016
Swedish pronunciation is known by language learners as having rather particular rules, but rules nonetheless. The idea is that once you’ve mastered the rules, you can pronounce most words naturally without having heard them pronounced by someone else. The pronunciation of the consonant combination <sk> in Swedish is one thing that often trips up…
Swedish Tongue-Twisters. Part Two. Posted by Marcus Cederström on Nov 25, 2015
Have you mastered the tongue-twisters from last week? Personally, I think “sex laxar i en laxask” is the trickiest. If you haven’t had a chance to practice yet, take a look at Swedish Tongue-Twisters. Part One. If you have, get ready for a new set of tongue-twisters. These are a little bit harder and maybe…
Swedish Tongue-Twisters. Part One. Posted by Marcus Cederström on Nov 19, 2015
Tongue-twisters are a lot of fun. I remember several from my childhood, trying to say them faster and faster only to eventually be spitting out vowels and consonants in complete disarray. Then laughing. A lot. I was easily amused. But it turns out that being able to spit out “Sally sells sea shells by…