If you’ve already learned and practiced Swedish 1 For Travel you’ll be ready to tackle the next 12 essentials.
These are words and phrases that’ll help you ask “Where is …?” questions – if you’re looking for the bathroom, a pharmacy, a bus stop, or the subway or railway station, a bank or an ATM.
You may also want to know if the person you’re talking with speaks French, German, Spanish, Italian, or English – that is, one of the languages you may speak as well.
The Next 12 Swedish Phrases: “Var är…?”
Learn and Practice Tips
- Click the black arrow to hear the Italian speaker.
- Click the red dot once to record yourself, click the black square to stop recording.
- When you click the black arrow again, you’ll hear the native speaker and then yourself.
- Do it several times until you sound like the Italian speaker
- Then “Choose a Study Mode” and test yourself with one of the Quizlet games! (You may need to adjust your Options with the top right icon
.)
Pronunciation Tips for Swedish:
In the following group of phrases, you can practice a few typical Swedish sounds:
r – is a rolled tongue-tip “r” (like a Spanish “r”).
u – say “ee” but round your lips.
s before ä – has a “sh” sound: “ursäkta”
-tion ending – in the phrases below, it’s pronounced “hon”, with a very breathy “h”.
Traveling in Sweden…
A few years ago – after taking a Hurtigruten trip along the Norwegian coast – we spent a week in Stockholm . We learned a lot about the history of Norway and Sweden and wrote about it in A Cruise and Norwegian Language Politics…
When you arrive at the Stockholm Arlanda airport, which is located about 25 miles north of Stockholm, you are immediately impressed by the Arlanda Express train, both by its fare (+/- $40) and its speed.
You can catch the train right below the terminal. It has WiFi, runs every 15 minutes and takes about 20 minutes to Stockholm Central Station.
A less expensive option (about $13) are the Flygbussarna airport shuttle buses, or the Flix Bus, starting at about $6. Both take close to an hour, depending on traffic.
While we were in Stockholm, we took a train ride to Uppsala, which takes about 40 minutes. Exploring the fourth-largest Swedish city with the oldest Scandinavian University (founded in 1477) turned out to be a very pleasant day trip.
Now, that we have also been to Denmark, we can really appreciate the similarities between the Nordic languages.
“Var är…?”-Questions Answered…
Asking “Var är…?” questions could let the person you are asking assume that you speak Swedish.
The result will often be an answer and a stream of Swedish words you may not understand.
It would therefore be good to know some basic directional words and phrases in Swedish – left, right, straight ahead, etc.
Hear and learn these phrases in Swedish 3 for Travel.