by Olly RichardsIf you've started learning Swedish, it's time for you to get your tongue around Swedish pronunciation. After all, it's the first step to becoming fluent in Swedish.
While Swedish isn't really a phonetic language in the sense that Spanish is, it's miles easier than English, one of the least phonetically consistent languages.
The advantage of learning Swedish pronunciation as an English speaker is that the alphabet of the two languages is fairly similar. Swedish uses the 26 letters that the English alphabet uses, as well as the three extra letters å, ä and ö.
This guide will help you learn the basic Swedish pronunciation, so that you can take your first steps to sounding natural in Swedish.
Are you ready? Let's get right into it.
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Table of Contents
1. How To Pronounce Swedish Consonants
The first thing you need to do before diving into the rest of the Swedish pronunciation rules is to be able to read and pronounce the Swedish consonants.
There are 20 consonants in Swedish, but only 18 consonant sounds. That's because some consonant sounds, like s, are depicted with three different consonants, s, c and z.
In that sense, Swedish differs from English because English has 21 consonants and 24 consonant sounds.
The main takeaway here is that y is considered a consonant in English (and sometimes a semi-vowel) but is considered a full-on vowel in Swedish.
In other words, there are some differences in the number of consonants and the consonant sounds between Swedish and English.
Let's get into the pronunciation, shall we?
| Consonant | Pronunciation | How the sound is spelled | Word it’s used in |
| b | like the hard b in be | b | bil, bok (car, book) |
| c | like the s in see | c, s, z | citron (lemon) |
| d | like the hard d in did | d | dansare (dancer) |
| f | like the f in foot | f | framtid (future) |
| g | like the hard g in good, or the y in yes | g, j | god, gäst (good, guest) |
| h | like the h in hot | h | häst, (horse) |
| j | like y in yes | j | ja (yes) |
| k | like sh in sheep or k in keep | k, sh | kanske (maybe) |
| l | like the l in last | l | lyssna (listen) |
| m | like the m in most | m | mat (food) |
| n | like the n in no | n | nej (no) |
| p | like the p in pistol | p | panna (forehead) |
| q | like the q in queer | q | queer |
| r | like the r in red | r | röd (red) |
| s | like the s in strut | s, c, z | strumpa (sock) |
| t | like the t in tnt | t | träd (tree) |
| v | like the v in victory | v | vinna (win) |
| w | like the w in wakeboard | w | wakeboard |
| x | like the x in ex | x | xylofon |
| z | like the z in zoo | z | zoo |
Hopefully, how you should pronounce the consonants in Swedish is a bit clearer now.
I'll talk a bit more about how consonant pronunciation can change depending on the vowel further down in this post. But let's move on to Swedish vowel pronunciation for now.
2. How To Pronounce Swedish Vowels
Swedish vowels come in two kinds: hard and soft. That is a concept foreign to English speakers, so I will do my best to explain it as clearly as possible.
There are nine Swedish vowels, five soft vowels and four hard. These change the pronunciation of different words and make some of the consonants sound either “hard” or “soft”. But I will get deeper into that later.
For now, let's see how you can pronounce all the Swedish vowels:
| Vowel | Long pronunciation | Short pronunciation | Type of vowel |
| a | like a in the english word far | like a in the spanish word casa | hard |
| e | like the e in year | like the e in set | soft |
| i | like the ee in week | like the ee in week | soft |
| o | like the oo in wool | like the o in shop | hard |
| u | * | hard | |
| y | like y in the name Terry | like y in the name Terry | soft |
| å | like o in the word for | like o in the word for | hard |
| ä | like ai in the word hair | like ai in the word hair | soft |
| ö | like er in her | like er in her | soft |
* There are no sounds quite like u in swedish. It’s a bit similar to “ew”, but has a more rounded sound.
It's also important to note that each vowel usually has at least two different pronunciations, a long pronunciation and a short one.
If the vowel is at the end of the word, or if it's followed by only one consonant, the vowel has a long sound, but if two consonants follow the vowel, it's a short vowel.
In most cases, the two consonants are double consonants, like ss or tt. But that's not a rule. Occasionally there are other consonants together, like ck or rk.
This pronunciation can change a word's meaning immensely. So it's crucial that you get the sounds right, especially when speaking; otherwise, the word you think you're saying might sound like a completely different word, e.g glas (glass) instead of glass (ice cream).
But even if you don't get it right, it isn't the end of the world. So don't let the fear villain stop you from speaking Swedish.
Swedes are, in general, quite helpful, and I'm sure that they will help you out if your Swedish pronunciation is a bit off.
3. Pronouncing Swedish Consonants Depending On The Soft Or Hard Vowels
Let's finally talk about how soft and hard Swedish vowels can change the pronunciation of a word, more precisely, how it changes the sound of the consonant.
It's mainly the consonant sound that changes, even though they're called hard and soft vowels, not hard and soft consonants.
This vowel type only affects three letters/sounds: g, k and sk. Let's take a look at how the vowel changes the sounds, one at a time.
Pronouncing The Letter And Sound Of G
If you have a word with the letter g that is followed by a soft vowel, like ä, you should pronounce the g like a soft y sound. One example is gäst (guest) which should be pronounced like yäst.
But suppose you have a hard vowel instead, like a in the word glapp (loose). Then you should pronounce the g like a hard g. The hard g in the English pronunciation of Gandalf is a pretty similar sound.
Pronouncing The Letter And Sound Of K
When it comes to the letter and sound of K, you can pronounce it in two ways, with a hard k, like c in can, or with a softer sh sound (no precise equivalent in English).
The word kiosk is therefore pronounced with the softer sh sound (“shosk”), while kalkylator (calculator) is pronounced with a hard k.
Pronouncing The Letter And Sound Of SK
You can pronounce sk in two ways, like sk and like sj. If it is a word with a soft vowel, like sked, you should pronounce it similarly to the letter sju (shed).
But a word with a hard Swedish vowel like skola (school) should be pronounced with a hard sk sound.
4. The SJ Sound & Its Connection To The Pronunciation Of K And SK
The fact that k can be pronounced as sh and sk as sj sounds very strange, right?
That's because of the tricky sj-sound that exists in Swedish. It has a variety of different spellings like sj, sk, sch, stj and many more.
It's probably one of the hardest things you can learn in Swedish, and you don't need to master it at this point. Fortunately, other than this tricky sound, the answer to the question, is Swedish hard to learn? is no as a general rule.
The most important thing is that you pronounce it with the airy “shee” sound, and you're good to go. The more you learn Swedish, the easier it will be to recognise the sj sound and where and how to pronounce it.
FAQs About Swedish Pronunciation
How do you pronounce Å Ä Ö?
You pronounce å like the ‘o' in the word “for”.
Ä sounds like ‘ai' in the word “hair”.
The Swedish ö sounds like ‘er' in “her”.
How do you pronounce Ö in Sweden?
The Swedish ö sounds like the ‘er' in “her”.
How do you pronounce K in Sweden?
The Swedish ‘k' either sounds like the ‘sh' in “sheep” or the ‘k' in “keep”. The way you pronounce ‘k' depends on whether on the vowel that follows it is hard or soft.
If it's a hard vowel, then you pronounce ‘k' like the ‘k' in ‘keep', but if it's soft, the ‘k' will sound a bit like ‘sh'. The Swedish soft vowels are: E, I, Y, Ä, Ö. The hard vowels are: A, O, U, Å.
The word kiosk is therefore pronounced with the softer ‘sh' sound (“shosk”), while kalkylator is pronounced with a hard ‘k'.
5. Practice Is The Key To Mastering Swedish Pronunciation
Well, that's it! You have made it to the end of this Swedish pronunciation guide. Hopefully a bit wiser than before.
Keep in mind that this is just a starting guide on how to pronounce the sounds in Swedish, and you'll need continued practice to master it.
A great way to make the Swedish pronunciation learning process easier is to read and listen to short stories in Swedish at the same time.
As you read and listen together, you'll make links between written and spoken Swedish and your Swedish pronunciation will improve, especially if you also try reading aloud.
So read books to learn Swedish to improve not only your knowledge of Swedish grammar or Swedish phrases, but also its sounds.
Hopefully, this guide has been helpful to you, and you now have a few pointers on Swedish pronunciation.
Don't be discouraged if you don't master all the sounds initially. It will take time, but with a lot of practice, you will sound like a Swede in no time.
Olly Richards
Creator of the StoryLearning® Method
Olly Richards is a renowned polyglot and language learning expert with over 15 years of experience teaching millions through his innovative StoryLearning® method. He is the creator of StoryLearning, one of the world's largest language learning blogs with 500,000+ monthly readers.
Olly has authored 30+ language learning books and courses, including the bestselling "Short Stories" series published by Teach Yourself.
When not developing new teaching methods, Richards practices what he preaches—he speaks 8 languages fluently and continues learning new ones through his own methodology.
