Thank you for sharing your great “How to maintain your Swedish”-tips, I hope you don’t mind me putting them together in a post like this. Some people might never look through the comments, and it would be a right shame to miss out on these treats:

For the very novice, the “GoSwedish” videos on YouTube are a good way to practice.

There are people who keep up their foreign language speaking using skype. I’ve never tried it, but any time spent in contact with the language you’re learning is time well spent.

Don’t forget that Klartext is available as a Podcast on the iTunes store… I don’t have to do anything and every morning I can listen to the previous evening’s news in a Swedish I can understand (well, actually only about 50%… but I keep pushing!!!)

My wife and I subsribe to the weekly SESAM (www.sesam.nu) We subscribe for the postal version but you can also get this by PDF. Written in lätt svensk It contains a number of useful articles including simple crosswords and word puzzles as well as idioms. Aimed at immigrants I think from the range of articles. The organisation producing SESAM produces the weekly NYHETSTIDNINGEN (NYHETSTIDNINGEN.NU) which is more of a paper based on news from around the world. It also has TV pages. Both of these papers has a short list of new words/organisations at the end of each article. I have tried to subscribe to 8-SIDOR which is a weekly paper also available in PDF and MP3 version. However they have the most stupid subscription basis where I would have had to subscribe to the paper version if I wanted to subscribe to the MP3 version. If I wanted the PDF and MP3 versions I would have to double subscribe i.e to paper/PDF and paper/MP3!
(http://8sidor.lattlast.se). That would have cost be a couple of thousand Kronor!

If you have Swedish friends, get into the habit of emailing them regularly, only in Swedish, and ask them to reply only in Swedish. Read Swedish newspapers online. If you get to Sweden, stock up on books at whichever level is best for you. Swedish books on tape are also an option

I download “På Minuten” and “Rapport” (svt.se) podcasts. “På Minuten” is good for a laugh and a great way to tune your ears to fast Swedish, or when the players get stuck, slow Swedish.

I read Swedish Newspapers online from several selections and areas in Sweden…Google “Swedish Newspapers”.

At the library at the Norwegian Seamen’s Church in Los Angeles/San Pedro we usually have quite a few used Swedish books for sale at $.50 or three for $1.00. Also, we lend books from the library for a few months and have a book list at “sjomannskirken.no” .

You can also try http://www.listenlive.eu/sweden.html it works in Calgary i alla fall!

I’ll update the post when more tips drop in. Happy practicing!

(Thanks to Keith, BM, Nic, Alastair, Allan, Doug, Stephanie, Carol and Justyna!)