First, what not to do

During my first residence in Stockholm, I dived head-first into the beginners’ Swedish course on Memrise. Within the first few weeks I had already memorised much of the material and, although this felt like an accomplishment, the result was nothing more than a novelty. In practice, I was unable to use most of what I had learnt because the course simply taught nouns and verbs, usually with inconsistent forms and conjugations, and not how to actually form words or coherent sentences. So whilst it felt great to be able to remember that ‘a bat’ translates to ‘en fladdermus’, learning Swedish in this way had a very limited application. Without understanding grammar, you will not be able to understand or engage in a real conversation.

Memrise seems to have matured over the past few years and the content now appears to be more structured and curated rather than a collection of crowdsourced words. I haven’t revisited the specific course that I took, but if you decide to check it out, I’d recommend ensuring that it teaches and tests for grammar and does more than present raw vocabulary. I am sure that Memrise is a useful platform and I do see an application for it in the future to expand my vocab, but I don’t believe that it was the right place for me to start.

What is working now

Now I’ll cover the things that have worked for me as a beginner, which in summary have been:

Duolingo

Michel Thomas

Språkkraft & 8 Sidor

Nyheter & Radio Sweden på lätt svenska

Teach Yourself Complete Swedish

Pimsleur Swedish Level 1

Swedish for Professionals

Keep reading for more info about each of them!

Duolingo

When I discovered Duolingo as an alternative to Memrise, I was impressed by how it taught not only individual words, but challenged me to use them in different real world contexts. The Swedish course is traversed like a tree, with each part of the trunk covering different topics in a logical order and becoming more advanced as one progresses. However, like Memrise, I was disappointed not to find any grammar lessons – until I happened to visit the desktop website version and found them there! These lessons are nowhere to be found on the mobile app, and as someone who started using Duolingo only on mobile, it felt like discovering a hidden treasure. At the same time, it was disappointing to realise that I hadn’t fully understood what I had been learning until that point; I had been memorising sentences and phrases rather than truly comprehending why their construction made them grammatically correct.

Nevertheless, I restarted the course and this time followed the grammar lessons along the way. I haven’t finished the full Duolingo tree yet but I definitely feel that I have learnt a lot and that I have become quicker at mentally formulating basic and grammatically correct sentences. Having initially started by using only the Duolingo mobile app, I now primarily use the desktop website due to the typing accuracy of a physical keyboard. This is important because the mobile app doesn’t spell check when you type in the language you are learning (at least not on iOS), and whilst Duolingo sometimes gives you the benefit of the doubt, it can be frustrating to make accidental spelling mistakes that result in having to repeat the same exercise several times to proceed. Duolingo also has a premium subscription which removes ads and allows one to download courses for offline usage on mobile.

Link: https://www.duolingo.com/course/sv/en/Learn-Swedish

Price: Free or optional $ 60 annual subscription

Michel Thomas Method

I first used the Michel Thomas method to learn the basics of Polish and I was absolutely blown away by its effectiveness. Having spent significant time in Poland, it was literally life changing. In what is statistically one of the hardest languages for a native English speaker to learn, I found myself able to have simple but fulfilling conversations with friends, family, and even taxi drivers without reverting to English.

The audio-only course places you in a virtual classroom with two other students. You learn at the same pace as the students on the recording and are encouraged to pause the track when either of them are asked to answer a question. Realistically, the students make mistakes, at which point the tutor deep-dives into the topic to help you better understand what you are learning.

The lessons provide you with a basic set of vocabulary and teach you the rules of the language as building blocks with which to form sentences. I tend to listen to a track on repeat until I truly feel that I understand the content and can answer the tutor’s questions without having to pause the recording.

I’ve been a big evangelist for the Michel Thomas method ever since my experience with Polish and I was over the moon to discover that a Swedish beginners’ course was released a few months after I moved back to Stockholm. Towards the end of 2018, they also published a full foundation course which includes the content from the beginners’ course plus an additional six CDs worth of content. A digital copy of both courses is available to buy from their website and physical CDs are also available to buy both online and in high street bookshops.

The physical version of the beginners’ course is also available to loan from Stadsbiblioteket in Stockholm, which is a great option if you wish to try before you buy. Keep in mind that if you first buy the beginners’ course and later buy the foundation course, you will have paid for some of the same content twice, so I would recommend first trialling the former and then commit to buying the latter if you think it is something which would work for you.

Links:

https://www.michelthomas.com/learn-swedish

https://biblioteket.stockholm.se/titel/1027256

Prices:

$ 12 beginners’ course

$ 100 foundation course

Språkkraft Reading Coach & 8 Sidor

This is actually two different things which I feel work well together. 8 Sidor is a newspaper written in basic Swedish and Språkkraft Reading Coach is a mobile app which curates Swedish news articles and helps you to keep track of the words you have learnt. In the app, you first try to read an article in Swedish and tap on the words or phrases to declare whether you wish to learn them now, learn them later, or whether you already know them. Afterwards, you are challenged to drag and drop the Swedish translations of the words you are learning into the right part of the article. I mention both the Språkkraft app and 8 Sidor together because the 8 Sidor content is available within Språkkraft, which makes for a great combination. It’s very rewarding as a beginner to be able to read through basic articles in Swedish and afterwards feel that you have a good grasp on the news of the day.