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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.<\/p>\n
The pronunciation of the consonant combination <sk<\/strong>> in Swedish is one thing that often trips up learners of Swedish. In many cases, it will be pronounced exactly as it is spelt. In other cases, though, it’s pronounced as the infamous Swedish sj<\/em>-sound. But when do we use the sk<\/em> pronunciation, and when do we use the sj<\/em> pronunciation?<\/p>\n The rules are relatively simple, though there are a few exceptions – but no worries about the exceptions: they are so few that there’s no need to think about whether a new word is pronounced as an exception or not.<\/p>\n Rule 1:<\/span>\u00a0 If the <sk> is followed by a hard vowel<\/strong>, the pronunciation is \/sk\/<\/strong>, i.e. exactly as it is spelt. The hard vowels<\/span> are <a><\/strong>, <o><\/strong>, <u><\/strong>, and <\u00e5><\/strong>. Examples of sk + each of the hard vowels:<\/p>\n ska<\/em> – will, as in: Jag ska<\/span> tr\u00e4ffa henne idag.<\/em> – I will<\/span> (am going to) meet with her today.<\/p>\n en skola<\/em> – a school;<\/p>\n skulle<\/em> – would, as in: Jag skulle<\/span> hj\u00e4lpa honom, om jag kunde.<\/em> – I would<\/span> help him, if I could.<\/p>\n en sk\u00e5l<\/em> – a bowl. (Or, Sk\u00e5l!<\/em> as in “Cheers!” when drinking.)<\/p>\n