Swedish Language - Do You Need It In Stockholm?

Do you need to speak Swedish or follow a Swedish language course to survive in Stockholm? Not if you go there as a tourist. But if you plan to stay longer it may be useful to speak some Swedish.

Most Swedes speak English and often also German.

Foreigners don’t need to follow a course when they plan to visit Stockholm. Especially younger Swedes speak fluent English. Hotel employees and restaurant staffs have no difficulty with English either, and all tourist information is available both in Swedish and English (also in German and French, often in Spanish and Italian too, and sometimes even in Russian).

Once you go out to the countryside you will meet more people that have only a minor knowledge of English. Knowing some basic Swedish words won’t harm you there.

But this applies to tourists.

People who want to live in Sweden will certainly have an advantage if they can speak, read and understand the language. For most jobs you have to know Swedish, although there are international companies that use English as their main language.

Is learning Swedish difficult?

Forget about the silly Swedish chef from the Muppet Show!

The Swedish sentence structure often resembles English grammar, while many words remind of German and Dutch.

Reading Swedish is not too difficult if you have studied it for a while. Even although it may look odd with letters like å (pronounce like aw in paw), ä (like e in let) and ö (sounds like e in stranger).

Speaking causes most problems.

Not only because of the aforementioned letters, but also because of the k and the g or combinations like sk, skj and sj: their pronunciation depends on the following letters.

Spoken Swedish is also very melodic. It sounds beautiful, but: it is hard to imitate for most foreigners.

Some Swedes seem to sing more than speak!

Nevertheless:

It takes some effort, but learning Swedish is very doable.

Even in a short time you can reach an acceptable level that allows you to have conversations with locals.

In Stockholm and other major cities Swedish language courses are given at centers for adult education.

Courses for self-study are available at bookstores. One of the best is developed by Rosetta Stone, specialist in language software. If you want, you can even follow an online version of Rosetta Stone’s course.

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