Why practise with minimal pairs
Your ear is tuned to your first language. If it never needed to tell two sounds apart, it files them as one, and your mouth follows: an English speaker easily says tack when meaning tak. Minimal pairs force the difference into the open. First learn to hear it, then to make it; the listening quiz comes first for that reason.
Five minutes a day beats an hour once a week. Pick the set you find hardest, aim for nine right out of ten in the listening quiz, then switch to Say it.
Long and short vowels
Every stressed Swedish syllable is either a long vowel plus a short consonant, or a short vowel plus a long consonant. Spelling shows which, most of the time: a double consonant means the vowel before it is short.
| Long vowel | Means | Short vowel | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| tak | roof | tack | thanks |
| glas | glass | glass | ice cream |
| vila | rest | villa | detached house |
| väg | road | vägg | wall |
| ful | ugly | full | full; drunk |
| lös | loose | löss | lice |
With some letters the vowel changes colour as well as length: long a is deep and back, short a brighter and further forward; long u in ful is a different sound from the short u in full. Our guide to Swedish vowels has the full table.
The nine vowels
Swedish has nine vowel letters, and four of them cause most trouble for English speakers: u, y, o and å. The tongue barely moves between some of them; the lips decide. Say a long i (ni), keep your tongue still and round your lips: that is y (ny).
| Pair | Words | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| o / u | bok – buk | o has lips pushed out in a tight circle; u has lips pressed together, tongue further forward |
| o / å | stol – stål | å is more open, like oar without the r |
| u / y | sur – syr | y keeps the tongue high at the front, as for i |
| y / i | fyra – fira | same tongue; y rounds the lips, i spreads them |
| ö / ä | nöt – nät | ö rounds the lips; ä opens the mouth more and keeps the lips relaxed |
| e / ä | hel – häl | ä opens the mouth a little more |
sj-sound and tj-sound
Swedish has two hushing sounds where English has one sh. The sj-sound in sju, skära and chock is dark, breathy and made with rounded lips. The tj-sound in tjugo, kära and kön is bright, made with spread lips and the front of the tongue close to the roof of the mouth. Neither begins with a t: tjugo is not English chew.
| Sound | Spellings | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| sj-sound | sj, skj, stj, sch, ch, sk + e i y ä ö, -tion | sju, skjorta, stjärna, dusch, chock, skära, station |
| tj-sound | tj, kj, k + e i y ä ö | tjugo, kjol, kära, kyrka, kök |
In Stockholm and among many younger speakers the sj-sound is close to an English sh with rounded lips, and that is a fine target. Finland Swedish and some northern accents make the two sounds differently, so do not be thrown if you hear another version.
r before d, n, s and t
In central and northern Sweden, r followed by d, n, s, t or l fuses with it into one sound made with the tongue tip curled back: bord, korn, mors, fort. Compare mod (courage) with mord (murder): the only difference is where the tongue touches. In Skåne and the rest of the south, r is made in the throat and the two sounds stay separate. Both are correct.
Keep practising
- Swedish word tones: the melody that separates anden (the duck) from anden (the spirit).
- Swedish dictation: hear a sentence and write it, with hints for the spelling traps these sounds create.
- Swedish tongue twisters: sju sjösjuka sjömän and friends, with a speaking challenge.
- The Swedish pronunciation guide: every sound and spelling rule in one place.
Pronunciation sticks best with real sentences. Season 1 of our Swedish course is free in full: video lessons with synced transcripts and speaking practice.
Recordings and credits
Recordings are hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons, most of them from the Shtooka project and Lingua Libre, and are used under their licences. Words without a recording use your device's own Swedish voice. Click a word for its file page, speaker and licence:
bita (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), bok (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), bord (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), bot (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), byta (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), båt (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), fort (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), fot (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), ful (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), full (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), fyra (Commons user Peter Isotalo, CC BY-SA 3.0), glas (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), glass (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), hal (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), hall (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), hat (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), hatt (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), hel (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), häl (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), kjol (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), komma (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), kon (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), korn (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), kök (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), kön (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), köra (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), lös (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), mat (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), matt (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), mod (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), mord (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), ni (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), ny (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), nät (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), nöt (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), ro (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), ros (Moonhouse, CC0), rå (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), sil (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), sill (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), sju (Commons user Peter Isotalo, CC BY-SA 3.0), sjö (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), skjorta (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), skära (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), stol (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), stål (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), sur (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), tack (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), tak (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), tjock (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), tjugo (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), veta (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), vila (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), villa (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), vit (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), väg (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), vägg (M. Kihlstedt, N. Vion, CC BY 2.0 fr), ära (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0), öra (Commons user Karmosin~commonswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0).
Frequently asked questions
What is a minimal pair?
Two words that differ in one sound only, like tak (roof) and tack (thanks), where only the vowel length changes. Practising them trains your ear to hear a difference your own language may ignore, and your mouth to make it.
How do I know if a Swedish vowel is long or short?
Look at what follows it. A vowel before a single consonant or at the end of a word is usually long (tak, se); a vowel before a double consonant or a group of consonants is short (tack, mjölk). A few very common words break the rule: man, han, den, vem and kom have short vowels.
Why does the say-it check need Chrome or Edge?
It uses the speech recognition built into the browser, and with Swedish that only works well in Chrome and Edge today. In other browsers the trainer switches to a self-check: you listen, say the word, and compare. We never record or receive your voice.
The recogniser said I was wrong, but I think I said it right. Who is right?
Possibly you. Speech recognisers guess whole words and lean towards the more common one, and a single word on its own gives them little context. Use the result as a second opinion and trust a native speaker over the machine.
Is it a problem if I pronounce the r in bord?
No. In southern Sweden r is said at the back of the throat and rd, rn, rs and rt stay two separate sounds, so you will be understood either way. Merging them is simply what most of Sweden, and the national news, does.