This lesson isolates the three vowels that set Swedish spelling apart from English: Å, closer to the oa in boat, Ä, near the vowel in bed or air, and Ö, a rounded sound close to the French eu. Pair it with the reference guide lesson for the fuller consonant tables.
Transcript
The full transcript of this free lesson. Swedish lines have their English translation underneath.
Okay, now let's try to finish the remaining three letters, and we said that these three letters are very unique to Swedish, and therefore they need some special consideration, and they are å, ä, ö. Å. År. Åt.
Åska.
År. Åt. Åska. År means year. Åt, that means ate, as in past tense. And åska, that's thunder.
So when you're trying to form this letter, it's important that your mouth is sort of, you form almost a circular or cylindrical form, so your mouth becomes like a cylinder, the opening, and you say å. Å.
Å.
Ä on the other hand, ä. It requires that you open up the mouth, ä. Ä. You can think about how sort of a sheep or a lamb sounds, ä, bä. That is the sound we're going for, the ä sound, ä.
First word is äta. Äta. Ära. Ära.
Älta. Älta.
So äta means to eat. Ära means honor. And älta means to dwell, as in stop dwelling on those thoughts.
Finally, we have the last letter of the Swedish alphabet, which is ö. Ö. And in English, the only really, the only real time you'll hear this is when somebody's sort of very dismayed and you have like a disgruntled, you know, teenager and they're like, öh. Öh, I don't wanna go. Öh.
That's the sound we're looking for, ö. Ö. So the first word is öva. Öva.
Followed by önska. Önska. Finally, ört. Ört. So öva means to practice. Önska means to wish.
And ört in English becomes herb.