My Journey Learning Swedish: 6 Tips To Learn A Language

A Short Prologue:

Swedish is a language I've known all my life. However, as a child, French had a bigger presence in my life and I didn't want to have to put in the effort to maintain and increase my Swedish skills when I could just talk in French.

In the summer of 2017, my family and I visited my mother's small hometown in the province of Norrbotten, Sweden. We hadn't travelled back to Sweden for a few years, so I wanted to improve my Swedish before going back to Kiruna. That's when my journey learning Swedish really started moving.

To make things clear, before I started learning Swedish again, I could understand it quite well, but I had a harder time expressing myself in the language, both orally and in writing.

My (Swedish) Language Journey:

Below are the steps I took to increase my Swedish skills. If you want to follow these steps, make sure you follow them in the order that feels most comfortable for you.

Method 1: Language Courses

I first started off practising my Swedish with Babbel, an online language learning system, and while it did help me learn certain new things, I personally did not enjoy the overall experience. To me it felt more like a task to be done than an enjoyment.

However, I feel that Babbel is a good option if you are learning the basics of a language as through this site you can hear the pronunciations, learn the grammatical rules, vocabulary, etc.

I later moved on to Assimil, another language learning method which offers bundles composed of a language book and audio recordings. I personally feel like Assimil is a good quality language learning method.

The Assimil methods offer conversational narratives in the language being learnt and their translations, as well as grammatical rules and practise exercices. The methods start off with very simple phrases and slowly increase to more complex dialogues. It's also helpful that you can hear out the dialogues on the audio recordings as you go through the book!



Method 2: Make Use of Apps and the Web

There are plenty of convenient free apps out there, and many can be useful learning tools. Many apps and websites function as language dictionaries (such as Glosbe, bab.la, or Linguee), language courses, and more. You can find many helpful and free language learning apps and sites out there, such as Duolingo, HelloTalk, or HiNative.

You can also make use of other useful apps and websites to learn a language, such as YouTube, Spotify, MusixMatch and Simple Radio. For more language learning apps and websites take a look at FluentU's list of 52 Free Language Websites.

Method 3: Listen to Music

In December 2017, I started wanting to listen to music in Swedish to feel more connected to my Swedish identity. The problem is that I had nowhere to start. I didn't know any Swedish artist or music group that sung in Swedish, and I had only heard Swedish songs on radio stations in Sweden.



This is were Spotify was of great help. Using Spotify, I quickly found artists I really liked and started building my own Swedish playlist (take a look at it if you like electro-pop beats!). If you wish to use Spotify to help you learn a language, FluentU has a great article where you can learn how to use Spotify as a useful language learning tool.

Listening to music in Swedish was a turning point for me. I felt more connected to my language and discovered plenty of new artists I like. I quickly fell in love with Swedish and seriously wished to keep practising it. 

Method 4: Focus on Vocabulary

Swedish being one of my native languages, I know it pretty well intuitively, but the practise I've done over the past months has definitely helped me improve and grow more confident in my Swedish skills. However, I know that I still have a lot of room for improvement and vocab is probably what I need to work on the most!

I started making a colourful list of words I didn't know or needed to remember in Swedish and I had their translation in French next to them. Every day I try to remember two or three words from my list and what they mean. So far, this method has worked well for me.

If you enjoy learning through quizzes, I've just recently found out about this helpful online learning tool called Quizlet where you can make your own quizzes and tests. It is really helpful to learn things you need to memorize, such as vocab!

Method 5: Write, Even Just for Yourself



Before I started practising my Swedish, I would write, and read, very rarely in Swedish. One day in December 2017, I wished to write in Swedish to test myself and see how well I could express myself in Swedish through writing. It certainly took a lot of reviewing and I often had to look up how to say certain things, but I had fun with it!

From then on, I started writing in Swedish more often. I now write in Swedish on my social media accounts and in my journal – something that helps me both linguistically and personally.

Writing in a new language is certainly challenging, especially if you are just starting out, but it will definitely help you improve! I would really recommend you to do it, even if you don't think of yourself as a good writer or if you don't know what to write about. The most important is to start writing. Write about whatever comes to mind. You'll see that once you get your mind stimulated, words will start coming!

Method 6: Read, Read, Read

There's no shortcut to learning a language, so when you feel enough at ease with the language you are learning to start reading in it, you'll probably have to start with children's books.



My tip would be to read books which you already know the story and/or books you have already read before in your native tongue. It's important to find books you'll enjoy, even children books!

I also find it helpful to directly highlight or underline words I don't know or write them in a notebook. What's important is to go back to those words and remember them and their meaning. Personally, I enjoy the physical contact I get with books when I write, but I know that for a lot of books I don't feel comfortable marking them up, especially if they're new or really beautiful books! That's why I also enjoy studying from magazines.

The nice thing with magazines, and journals, is that they are generally not particularly difficult reads, they are inexpensive and provide short articles, and you probably won't feel too bad about writing in them! So try to snatch yourself some magazines or journals in the language you are learning and use them as study tools!

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This resumes my linguistic journey so far. It's been about 7 months now since I've started to pick up Swedish again. Following these methods has definitely been of a huge help for me. Thanks to them, I've started seeing quite some improvements in my Swedish skills and they have definitely increased my interest in the Swedish language.

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What about you? Are you currently learning a language? If so, what has been the most helpful way for you to learn that language? Let's talk down in the comments!

See you soon!

Mara