My favourite Swedish podcasts
Podcasts are personally my absolute #1 learning resource. I do extensive listening (upper intermediate to advanced!) whenever I have to do one of my 20~30-minute walks. My main goal of doing this is to make understanding a foreign language a natural, effortless thing as well as finding holes in my vocabulary. Here is a list of my favourite podcasts in Swedish (that are still actively producing episodes)! I just turn on auto-download in my podcast app and consume them whenever I have time.
(Note: Iâm linking to iTunes because itâs the most common way people get podcasts. I personally never use it, so rest assured you can get all of these elsewhere as well.)
P1 DokumentĂ€r: half- to one-hour audio documentaries about social issues or personal stories / struggles in Sweden. Usually in the very standard âP1 Swedishâ. Comes out irregularly but very frequently.
P3 DokumentĂ€r: pretty much the same thing. I actually donât know the difference between the nature of the two documentaries - I think this one is more current affairs-ish? Comes out weekly on Sundays.
Historiepodden: a long-running podcast with two dudes randomly chatting about historical and sometimes contemporary themes. Probably a good idea only if youâre interested in history - but âhistoryâ here refers to a really wide range of events from ancient to recent history. One of them speaks in some sort of southern accent, which is good for training. Comes out weekly on Sundays, can be up to 1.5 hours long.
Allt du velat veta: as the name implies, itâs an hour-long podcast where experts in different fields teach you about really random topics from science to politics to Sherlock Holmes. As of the time of writing Iâve actually just discovered it through the latest episode about conlangs (of course), so I canât make too much comments yet. Comes out weekly on Tuesdays.
Den svenska musikhistorien: my favourite, even though I just started listening! (What can I say, Iâm a music student.) Itâs relatively new podcast, each episode less than half an hour long, that discusses, well, Swedish music. It goes all the way from the Middle Ages to folk and pop; itâs currently still stuck in the 1800s though, having already surpassed the total planned number of episodes. Comes out mostly weekly on Wednesdays.
Fredagspodden: guilty pleasure?! I donât even know why I used to listen to this myself - itâs simply girlâs chat for an hour, and Iâm a dudeâŠI was probably just looking for something thatâs regularly released to listen to and couldnât find anything betterâŠanyway itâs released weekly on Fridays (as the name implies).
Thatâs it for now. Iâll update this if I find any gems, even though I think Iâve looked through many different podcasts. Or if you have a favourite, tell me as well! Happy listening and happy learning!
