Hello! Someone sent me a request for recommendations regarding Swedish literature/shows/series. So, I thought I would share it with everyone just in case. Now I don't really know what level of beginner you are (imo there's several steps for that!) but I'll try nonetheless ☺️
Last edit: 2025/05/09
I always recommend to watch or read things that are well-known for you to begin with, like for example Disney shows or movies you already know, right, but dubbed! That way you know what the story and details are about as is, and it's a great tool to get used to a language. To make it more advanced you can skip the subtitles.
Some Disney examples would be
Aladdin
Kim Possible
Lilo & Stitch
Recess
Tangled
But honestly, there's a lot of different animated and non-animated productions that we have dubbed, whether it's from Disney or Dreamworks or whatnot. Like Shrek have a dub, Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run, and so on.
Now material that are actually Swedish from the start!
Old tv shows for kids:
Bamse
About a bear called Bamse, and he grows mighty strong by his grandmother's honey. It's basically a story about him, his family and his friends.
Doktor Mugg
*"Muggen" is slang for toilet, so it's not a show about mugs and kitchenware but toilet villain and silly macho hero!
Eva & Adam
Romantic comedy about school and friends in elementary/primary school.
Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter (Five ants are more than four elephants)
There are three hosts and they have sketches and songs while also educating the viewer about the alphabet, numbers and other things.
Tillbaka till Vintergatan (Back to the Milky Way)
Basically a space adventure about astronauts and aliens.
Vi på Saltkråkan (Seacrow Island)
Astrid Lindgren made plenty books that turned into tv-shows at the time, this one is about a small island and the people living there and their everyday life.
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Eva & Adam have books as well (never read them myself, but they exist) and Bamse used to serialise comic magazines and I loved them as a kid back in the day.
Tv shows for adults:
*Disclaimer: Some of these I haven't really watched myself but I know a lot of people enjoy them, so therefore they're included in the list!
Farmen (The Farm)
It's about a certain amount of participators that are supposed to live like farmers in the 1800s for a couple of weeks. So they don't have running water or electricity, and so on.
Frostbiten (Frostbitten)
Documentary about life in the North Arctic. The host and viewer meet people that live in the world’s most isolated places and about temperatures dropping as low as -60°C degrees.
Första dejten (The first date)
Reality show about singles that get matched by the tv show itself and they meetup at this bar. It's based on the British series called First Dates.
Robinson
Survival game on an island for participators. I believe every country have one of these, just like Idol and × Got Talent.
Another thing I recommend is children's books, or picture books, and they're great if you're a beginner. For classic children's literature go to my #Swedish-literature posts! I haven't updated them with more authors though, so besides Astrid Lindgren & Elsa Beskow, there are plenty more!
📬Some oldies
Adjö, herr Muffin (Goodbye Mr Muffin) by Ulf Nilsson, Anna-Clara Tidholm
Petter och hans fyra getter (Petter and his four goats) by Einar Norelius
Picture books series✨️
Emma by Gunilla Wilde
Kotten by Lena Anderson (*The title and name of the character would be translated as "the (pine) cone" and it's a wordplay of the Swedish word for hedgehog which is "igelkott")
Mamma Mu och Kråkan (Mamma Moo and Crow) by Jujja Weislander, Sven Nordqvist
Pettson och Findus (Pettson and Findus) by Sven Nordqvist
Let's see, a few recent picture books are:
Jag vill ha min hatt (I want my hat back) by Jon Klassen
Sigrid och natten (Sigrid and the night) by Jöns Möllgren
Siv sover vilse (Siv sleeps herself lost) by Pija Lindenbaum
I think it's probably Pettson and Findus, and Goodbye Mr Muffin that tends to lean towards more text in their books. BUT I'm not entirely sure, so take it with a grain of salt! If you want books that are more heavy in text, I recommend the posts I mentioned earlier since I list some more of them there. They are still children's books but for older ages. There are books for ages 9-12 year old, which should be more challenging, but that one I would need to make a separate post for another day. Do tell me if that's something interesting for you, and I will compile a little list! Anyways, I hope this was helpful in any way for you and others! 💗














