Swedish for Persian speakers: tips for Farsi and Dari speakers

The short answer

Persian and Swedish are distant relatives: both are Indo-European languages, and a few very old words still show it. In practice, though, Swedish will feel new. The good news is that Persian already has the consonants that trouble many other learners, such as p and v, and Swedish grammar is simpler than Persian in one important way: Swedish verbs do not change for person.

The work lies elsewhere. Swedish has more vowels than Persian and uses vowel length to tell words apart. Words often start with two or three consonants. Swedish has grammatical gender, a "the" that sits at the end of the noun, and word order with the verb in second place rather than at the end. This guide goes through each of these.

When we write "Persian" we mean standard Iranian Persian (Farsi), and we note where Dari, the Persian of Afghanistan, is different. Most of the grammar points apply to Tajik as well, although Tajik is written in Cyrillic.

What helps you

• The consonants. Persian has p, b, f, v, sh, ch and kh, so pairs like pil (arrow) and bil (car), or fem (five) and vem (who), are not a problem for you. One note for Dari speakers: where Iranian Persian has v, Dari often has a w sound. Swedish v is made like Iranian v, with the upper teeth on the lower lip, so vem should not sound like "wem".
• Simple verbs. One form for all persons in each tense.
• A big learner community. SFI classes and libraries across Sweden have many Persian- and Dari-speaking learners, and there is a free Swedish–Persian dictionary made for people learning Swedish (see the end of this guide).

A handful of words even go back to the same Indo-European roots:

Sounds

Our pronunciation guide explains every Swedish sound. Here we focus on what is typically hard when your first language is Persian.

Vowels: six against nine, and length

Standard Iranian Persian has six vowels: i, e, a (æ), u, o and â. They differ in quality, and in modern Iranian Persian length no longer distinguishes words. Swedish has nine vowel letters, a, e, i, o, u, y, å, ä, ö, and each can be long or short, so there are two things to learn: new vowel qualities, and length.

The new qualities are the rounded front vowels y, u and ö, which Persian does not have. For y, say i and round your lips tightly without moving your tongue. For ö, do the same starting from e. These pairs need practice:

The last pair is worth special attention. Iranian Persian â is a rounded vowel, so it can make Swedish long a sound like å: far turns into får. Swedish long a is made deep in the mouth with relaxed lips, while å needs clearly rounded ones. Dari speakers have an advantage here, because Dari ā is unrounded and closer to the Swedish sound.

Then length. In stressed syllables Swedish vowels are either long or short, and a short vowel is followed by a long consonant:

The spelling helps: a double consonant after a vowel almost always means the vowel is short. Exaggerate the length at first. Hold the a in tak, and make the k in tack short and firm after a quick a.

Words that start with s and another consonant

Persian does not allow a word to begin with two consonants. In loanwords, an e is added in front of s plus a consonant, which is why Stockholm is Estokholm in Persian. Carried over into Swedish, this gives "eskola" for skola and "estad" for stad. Swedes will understand you, but it is one of the most noticeable features of a Persian accent, and it is very fixable.

Try this: start with a long hiss, sssss, and without stopping slide into the rest of the word: sss-kola. Once that works, shorten the s. Other clusters, as in brev (letter), fråga (question) and klocka (clock, watch), can tempt you to add a vowel between the consonants. Say them slowly but without a vowel in the gap.

Stress and melody

In Persian, nouns are usually stressed on the last syllable. Most native Swedish words are stressed on the first: flicka (girl), pojke (boy), sommar (summer), fönster (window). Many loanwords from French and Latin are stressed at the end, as in universitet and station, which will feel natural to you.

Swedish also has two word melodies, called pitch accent, which can tell words apart: anden (the duck) and anden (the spirit). Persian has nothing like it. Do not worry about it at the start; listen and imitate, and context will carry you meanwhile.

tj is not ch, and j is not dj

Persian ch is a t followed by sh. The Swedish tj sound in tjugo (twenty) and tjej (girl) has no t at all: it is a soft, hissing sound made with the front of the tongue. The sj sound in sju (seven) is different again, breathier and with rounded lips; a rounded sh is a good start. And Swedish j is always a y sound, as in ja (yes) and jobb (job), never the j in Persian jân. See the tj sound.

Grammar

Gender: new for Persian speakers

Persian has no grammatical gender at all, not even in pronouns: the same pronoun, u, means both "he" and "she". Swedish has gender in two places.

First, in pronouns for people: han (he) and hon (she). Mixing them up is a very common slip for Persian speakers, simply because Persian never forces the choice, so it is worth practising consciously.

Second, every noun is an en word or an ett word: en bil (a car), ett hus (a house). This affects articles, adjectives and pronouns, and there is no reliable rule for which is which. Learn every noun with en or ett, and use the en or ett tool and the en or ett guide when you are unsure.

"The" is an ending

Persian has no definite article. A bare noun can mean "the book", and with a direct object the marker râ shows that it is definite. For "a", Persian uses yek or the ending -i. Swedish marks definiteness on every noun, wherever it appears in the sentence, with an ending:

Persian is given in simple transliteration. The rule to remember: if you would say "the" in English, Swedish needs an ending: boken (the book), bordet (the table), böckerna (the books). If you would say "a", you need en or ett: en bok, ett bord.

Adjectives come first

In Persian the adjective follows the noun, linked by the ezafe: ketâb-e bozorg (a big book). In Swedish the adjective comes first, with no linking sound, and it agrees with the noun:

With "the", Swedish marks definiteness twice: den stora boken (the big book), det stora huset (the big house). Possession works the same way: the owner comes first, and a name or noun takes -s, as in Saras bok.

The verb comes second, not last

Persian puts the verb at the end of the sentence. Swedish puts it second in a main clause, after the subject or after whatever comes first:

• Jag läser en bok. (I'm reading a book.) Not "Jag en bok läser".
• I morgon åker jag till Göteborg. (Tomorrow I'm going to Gothenburg.) The verb is still second, so the subject moves after it.
• Bor du här? (Do you live here?) Yes/no questions start with the verb.

The verb-at-the-end habit is strong and returns when you are tired or concentrating on vocabulary. Subordinate clauses are not verb-final in Swedish either: …eftersom jag inte har tid (…because I don't have time). The only thing that moves in a subordinate clause is a word like inte (not), which goes before the verb. Our guide to Swedish sentence structure explains this with many examples.

Verbs do not change for person

A Persian verb has an ending for each person. A Swedish verb has one form for everyone in each tense: jag läser, du läser, hon läser, vi läser, de läser (I read, you read, she reads, we read, they read). Because the verb does not show who is doing something, Swedish needs the subject every time. Läser alone is not a sentence; jag läser is. Even the weather needs a subject: Det regnar (It's raining).

Prepositions and politeness

Both languages use prepositions, but they rarely match one to one. Learn them in phrases: i Sverige (in Sweden), på jobbet (at work), på svenska (in Swedish), i morgon (tomorrow).

Persian distinguishes polite shomâ from familiar to. Swedish uses du with almost everyone, including teachers, doctors and officials, and it is not impolite. The essential phrases guide shows how Swedes are polite instead.

Reading and writing

Swedish is written left to right in Latin letters, with å, ä, ö as extra letters at the end of the alphabet. The Swedish keyboard tool shows how to type them.

Persian script usually leaves out short vowels; Swedish writes every vowel. That makes Swedish spelling a good guide to pronunciation, but you also have to spell the vowels correctly, and a study of SFI students found more vowel spelling errors among learners whose first written language does not use the Latin alphabet. Short dictation exercises, for example with the listen-and-type dictation tool, help with both listening and spelling.

Practical tips and free resources

1. Use Lexin. Lexin is a free dictionary from the Swedish language authorities, made for people learning Swedish, and it has a Swedish–Persian dictionary. There is no separate Dari version, but Dari speakers can use the Persian one, keeping in mind that some everyday words differ between Iran and Afghanistan. Our Swedish dictionary adds English explanations, example sentences and, for many words, audio.
2. Go to SFI as soon as you can. Our Swedish-language SFI guide explains how it works, and moving to Sweden covers what comes after.
3. Practise speaking. Study circles at study associations are cheap or free, and colleagues and neighbours count too.
4. Read and listen with support. The click-to-translate reader lets you read real Swedish and look up words as you go, and how to say it helps with single words.
5. Prepare for letters from authorities. Our guide to official letters explains the typical phrases.
6. Keep Persian or Dari alive at home. Children who use the language daily at home generally have the right to mother-tongue tuition (modersmålsundervisning) at school, if enough pupils ask for it and a teacher is available.

Start for free

The quickest way to get the Swedish vowels and word order into your ear is a lot of real Swedish with the words in front of you. Season 1 of our course Complete Swedish is free in full: video lessons with synced Swedish transcripts, starting from zero. Start the free course.

FAQ

Is Swedish hard for Persian speakers?

Some parts are. The vowels, vowel length, words that start with two or three consonants, gender and the verb-second word order take practice. The consonants are mostly familiar, and Swedish verbs do not change for person, which makes them easier than Persian verbs.

Why do Persian speakers say "eskola" instead of "skola"?

Persian does not allow a word to begin with two consonants, so an e is added before s plus a consonant, as in the Persian name for Stockholm, Estokholm. Practise by starting with a long s and sliding straight into the rest of the word.

Why do I mix up han and hon?

Persian uses one pronoun, u, for both he and she, so your first language never forces the choice. It is a very common slip that gets better with conscious practice.

Is there a free Swedish–Persian dictionary?

Yes. Lexin, published by the Swedish language authorities for people learning Swedish, has a free Swedish–Persian dictionary online. There is no separate Dari version, but Dari speakers can use the Persian one.

Is Swedish word order like Persian?

No. Persian puts the verb at the end, while Swedish puts the verb second in a main clause and keeps it near the subject in subordinate clauses too. Swedish adjectives also come before the noun, while Persian adjectives follow it.

Sources

Last checked 7 October 2026.

• Wikipedia: Persian phonology (six vowels in Iranian Persian distinguished by quality, Dari vowels, consonants including p and v, no syllable-initial clusters, final stress) and Persian grammar (no gender, yek, râ, ezafe, SOV, person endings, pro-drop), both citing the linguistic literature.
• Wikipedia: Prothesis (linguistics) (Persian e- before sp, st, sk, sm in loanwords); the Persian name of Stockholm from Persian Wikipedia, استکهلم.
• Wikipedia: Swedish phonology (nine vowels with length, complementary length, pitch accent).
• Fransson, Cajsa & Malin Svensson Lundmark (2022). "Spell new sounds with new letters: A study of how Swedish L2 learners' spelling is affected by their L1". Proceedings of Fonetik 2022. Lund University.
• Lexin: Institutet för språk och folkminnen, language resources (Swedish–Persian, no separate Dari dictionary) and Lexin online.
• Skolverket: Rätt till modersmålsundervisning.