Hej! Hur mår du? I'm trying to learn swedish for my partner, would you happen to have any tips? Babbel is very useful, but I loved your blog so much I scrolled all the way to the bottom last night so I wanted to ask you. Tack (so? Sa?) Tack sa mycke!
Hej, tack så jättemycket för dina snälla ord! :) I’m really glad if you liked my blog.
I’m not sure I can give much useful advice, but I’ll do my best to describe what worked for me. So, here’s how I’ve been teaching myself Swedish:
I used several grammar reference books at the same time, to get a fuller overview of the language + get to do as many exercises as possible haha. The ones I used were the Routledge essential grammar and comprehensive grammar (as well as one in my own native language but well, that probably won’t be useful to you…). They’re all available as pdfs online. I would pick a grammar topic, scan all my books and do an additional internet search if necessary to compile and condense the information in my notes, then do some exercises. Initially I tried to do one or more topics every day but then found it more productive to alternate “grammar days” with “vocabulary days”
Speaking of which, I approached vocab in a similar way in the beginning: pick a topic, like colours or numerals or body parts, make a list and cram it. For adjectives, I found it an efficient strategy to learn them in pairs of antonyms
I kept a diary in Swedish for some time, which was helpful because that way I learnt and used specific vocabulary relevant to me and my life
I started reading, watching and listening stuff in Swedish quite early on, which I highly recommend to get comfortable with the language. To translate new words, I tried to refer to a monolingual Swedish dictionary as much as possible. Note: I could post a list of particular podcasts/YouTube channels/news resources etc that I liked if you guys want me too! But obviously it largely boils down to what you’re interested in.
Related to the previous point, I follow both teachers of Swedish and Swedish natives on social media to increase immersion
Good old Duolingo was rather nice, especially early on, to get the basic vocab and some grammar down
Quizlet and thematic Tumblr vocab lists proved rather useful too, especially when I wasn’t too lazy to review them
+ Some cool resources I use for Swedish as well as other languages:
Omniglot (a great place to start with any language: basic info + resources)
Glosbe (Reverso context but make it better)
obviously, Wiktionary (useful to look up declensions)
Last but not least, I encourage my followers to add their tips too!
Jag hoppas att det hjälper dig :)
