Laura Wideburg, Translator
Book Excerpt
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Swedish
The Basics
Third Edition
by Laura A. Wideburg
About the book
Swedish is the most beautiful language I have ever had the pleasure to learn. As I started to teach evening classes, I noticed that the materials available were either geared toward immigrants to Sweden or else to college students. Self-study materials also left a great deal to be desired.
Finally I realized that if there were to be a book aimed at American English speakers who attend evening classes once a week and otherwise have busy lives, I needed to write that book myself.
Because Americans studying Swedish often need to know the language for visiting relatives or friends, I have concentrated on basic family language in the first few chapters. I cover basic Swedish culture, such as food and holidays.
In Swedish: The Basics I put great emphasis on repetition and review so that the vocabulary is easier to retain, and the chapters are short so that they are not overwhelming. Each chapter can be done in one evening for a two hour class. Some evening classes, such as the one I teach at the Swedish Cultural Center, meet for less than two hours, and I have made the chapters just long enough to cover two class periods. This would also give the teacher a time for additional activities.
I wish all students great pleasure in learning this wonderful Scandinavian language.
Introduction to the Language
If you are a speaker of North American English, learning Swedish is relatively easy, even compared to other Indo-European languages such as French, Spanish or German. Swedish is a cousin language to English. Both Swedish and English are descended from the same mother language spoken in Southern Scandinavia around 2000 years ago.
Many of our basic words are even spelled identically. You can guess these words: arm, hand, finger, ring, son. The pronunciation is a little different, but the meaning and the spelling is identical to English. Other words are spelled a little differently, but can still be guessed easily: katt, syster, dotter, tå (cat, sister, daughter, toe).
We also have a number of shared words due to our Latin-based academic heritage: information, position, nation. While these are spelled the same, they would be pronounced a little bit differently in Swedish. Knowing a few sound changes will also increase your understanding. For instance, the Northern Germanic language dropped w in front of the “oh” sound. So word becomes ord and worm becomes orm.
Excerpt
Here's the opening of the very first lesson, appropriately titled "The Absolute Basics."
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THE ABSOLUTE BASICS
TACK—Thank You
Tack is the most basic word in Swedish. It means thank you and it is used in many ways to smooth social interaction. A simple tack at the end of a sentence also means please. You are at the table and want to have the butter: Jag vill ha smöret, tack. = I want the butter, please. Here are a number of variations: Tack. *
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Errata
A list of corrections can be found here.
Copyright © 2002–2012, Laura A. Wideburg. All rights reserved. Design: ASMUS, Inc.