Are you by any chance in Stockholm? Stockholmare are quite known of speaking veeeery slowly, to the point that everyone else is mocking them for it. It is however a heavenly dream for a language learner
As for the “någon”… you can pronounce the whole thing, but it’s more common that they only say “nån” instead, “nåt” for något, “sån” for “sådan” and so on. (Sometimes it becomes a cute little diphthong of two å-sounds, “nå-ån” but that’s quite rare and might be only dialectal.) It’s more common to say [någon] when you mean ‘someone’ and [nån], when you mean ‘some’ in front of an en-word.
And for the “skulle vilja” problem: you might very well pronounce every single word in the phrase, but more often than not the native Swedish speaker will just say “skullja”, and kind of swallowing the last syllable, just like on the course audio. It you listen very carefully, you can even hear it.
As for your other complaints, I absolutely agree, the lack of consistency, the random structure of the course, the lack of grammatical awareness (and explanation) it why I gave up on the official courses, and concentrate my efforts on other courses.
Well, it’s actually a simple thing: it depends on the grammatical gender (genus) of the word you are referring to. If it is an “en-word” then it’s going to be den, if it is an 'ett-word" it’s going to be det.
Var ligger posten?
Den ligger andra sidan torget.
Var är kontoret?
Det ligger på Järnvägsgatan.
It can get a bit more complicated than this, but it’s pretty much the main idea. In this case, as far as I can recall, this sentence was referring to a toilet, that’s the line before this one in the course. (Var ligger toaletten? Den ligger…)
Is it also common for native Swedes to just say “där” instead of “den där”? For instance, the recording says “vad är där?” instead of “vad är den där?” I’m guessing it’s just another one of their things, sort of like contractions in English.
It’s not something I’m familiar with. The emphasis is on the “där” in a sentence like this, but the den/det (or at least a [də’]) should be there, as far as I’m aware.
(On another note – wouldn’t it be better to open a separate topic for things like these? Like “General Swedish help” or something like that? Where people can ask grammar questions?)
Tack! The context is what I was missing, I think. It was during a review later that I was having problems with it, and it was driving me crazy since I wasn’t getting the context of the previous sentence.
I am situated in Borlänge. They are not speaking slowly but it is not so difficult to understand them. They keep small pauses between the words and the sentence does not sound as one very long word. And usually (but not always) they pronounce the world as it “should be”.
I am hoping that they will improve the courses because I think they could attract more people and also keep the current learners if the courses are more consistent and having better materials. Unfortunately I can only help them by reporting mistakes and weird stuff but I hope it is something that helps.
Recently something frustrating has been happening when reviewing Swedish 5. I keep being asked to translate completely, and there’s no way at all to determine whether I’m supposed to use alldeles or fullständigt. I keep getting them both in the same review session, which is making me slightly crazy
In Swedish 3, level 5, it still says that "Danmark" is the Swedish word for Sweden. It would be nice if someone could fix that problem, since it can be very confusing.
Also, in Swedish 3, level 6, the audio for "författare" doesn't work at all.
Thanks!
In Swedish 3, level 5, it still says that “Danmark” is the Swedish word for Sweden. It would be nice if someone could fix that problem, since it can be very confusing. Also, in Swedish 3, level 6, the audio for “författare” doesn’t work at all. Thanks!
(I had to repost this comment because something went wrong with the first one)
On the 8,000+ Most Common Swedish Words courses (parts 1 - 4), I have tried to get around this problem by finding collocations (word partnerships, if you are not familiar with this technical term) where only one of the synonyms is used, but sometimes it is really difficult to find them!)
With “alldeles”, I found the expression, “alldeles nyss” - which means “only a moment ago”. The phrase “fullständigt nyss” doesn’t exist to my knowledge, so in the 8K+ courses it is clear - in most cases - which synonym is needed. But these changes have only been made because I - like you - got incredibly frustrated by being unable to get these word pairs right because the only way I could get it right was by simple guessing
“fullständigt” is more difficult, but if only one of the words has a prompt, then it should be clear tht the other word is well… the other word LOL
Maybe you can suggest this solution to the people at memrise, daisywreath!
Hi Amanda, thanks for pointing that out, I will look into it. Nobody ever says ‘Han arbetar på kontor’, but you do often see it written, so it’s totally reasonable to add it as an alternative translation.
So, is it true that the verb “arbeta” is not used much in spoken Swedish at all? Would it only be used in very formal situations, like, maybe in a courtroom, or at the “Arbetsförmedling”, or by very formal people?
I have the greatest trouble pronouncing “arbeta” because I always want to say the German word “arbeiten” (I live in Germany, but I am English) and then I get all tongue-tied.
I had been using “jobba” instead of “arbeta” beause it is easier to say for me Here in Germany, it would be quite normal to use “arbeiten” in everyday speech, but that is not the case with the Swedish “arbeta”?
Om du har tid, vore det väldigt snällt av dig att svara på mina frågor
Hi there, thanks for finding the missing ‘det är’ in ‘det är fantastiskt’, I will sort that out asap. About ‘ja’, that is how we would pronounce it - the j is silent!
Here in Germany, it would be quite normal to use “arbeiten” in everyday speech, but that is not the case with the Swedish “arbeta”?