Allow us to introduce the Swedish language!

How many people speak Swedish?

Swedish (svenska, svenska språket) is today spoken by more than 10 million people, the majority of whom (9.7 million) live in the Kingdom of Sweden (Konungariket Sverige).

sweden

Did you know that apart from being the official language of Sweden, Swedish is also the second official language of Finland?
This is because the two countries have much shared history.
 
Apart from Finland, Swedish is also spoken by Swedish immigrants in Canada and Australia.

The Swedish alphabet

The Swedish language uses the Roman alphabet.
 
The Swedish alphabet has 29 letters.
When learning Swedish, there are three letters to particularly note:
 
Å / å, Ä / ä, Ö / ö

The Pronunciation of the Swedish alphabet

pronunciation Swedish abc

Would you like to hear how the Swedish alphabet is pronounced?
We have asked a Swedish native speaker to pronounce the Swedish alphabet for you. Simply press the play button to hear the Swedish ABC.

Swedish and the other Scandinavian languages

If you can speak Swedish, then you can communicate with Danes and Norwegians.
 
However it must be noted that this is not always easy.
In Norway the pronunciation of the language is sometimes quite different.
To learners of Swedish the Norwegian pronunciation of words might seem “less clear”.
The Norwegian pronunciation can therefore be a bit difficult for beginners to understand.
 
The pronunciation of Icelandic is already so removed from Swedish, Danish or Norwegian that it is difficult to communicate on the island or with Icelanders in Swedish.

Swedish – A North Germanic/Scandinavian language

swedish flag

The Swedish language belongs to the Nordic or Northern Germanic group of languages, which in turn belong to the Indo-European group of languages.

Other branches of the Indo-European family of languages include West Germanic (e.g. German and English), Slavic (e.g. Polish and Russian) and the Baltic (e.g. Lithuanian and Latvian).
 
Nordic languages are spoken today by about 20 million people worldwide.

Would you like to know more about Sweden and the Swedish language?

We are delighted about your interest in Sweden and its language.