The vowels indicate how to pronounce a K, G, or sk that comes before them.įor example, katt (cat) is pronounced with a hard K, while köttbullar (meatballs) is pronounced with a soft K, similar to the English in “ship.” The same pattern applies to the letter G. Swedish has five soft vowels: E, I, Y, Ä, Ö, and four hard vowels: A, O, U, Å. You might have noticed the first sk in sjuksköterska is pronounced soft as the sj-sound, while the sk at the end is pronounced hard, like the in “scar.” What gives? The difference in pronunciation is determined by whether the vowels are soft or hard. If you’re still having trouble pronouncing the sj-sound, here’s a comforting fact: In some Swedish dialects (up north, for example), it’s pronounced like in “shop.” This can be a (temporary) solution for you until you get the hang of it. Finally, round your lips slightly while the air is coming out. Move this further backward in your mouth, like a deep H. Our tip: Start by pronouncing an H-sound, which involves a quick puff of air. the voiceless fricative phoneme, for all the aspiring linguists out there ), as in sjuksköterska or sjuttonhundrasjuttiosju from the video. To make things even more complicated, several different letter combinations can be pronounced this way ( sj, sk, skj, stj, sch and ch, as well as ti and si before – on), and this sound is unique to Swedish! As there’s not really a sound in English that we can compare this to, you have to learn it from scratch. To start, we’ve got the infamous sj-sound (a.k.a. To get you on track, we’ll guide you through some especially tricky aspects of Swedish pronunciation, and with a few tricks (and a bit of practice), you’ll soon master it! The Infamous SJ-Sound As you can see in the video above, Swedish pronunciation can really be an uphill battle! Where did all these consonants come from? How on earth is someone supposed to get this sj-sound right? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
In American English (and I suspect other dialects, but I'm hesitant to say absolutely), they rhyme with "doughy" /ˈdoʊ.Even though Swedish is said to be relatively easy for English speakers to learn, anyone learning Swedish will stumble sooner or later with the pronunciation of certain words. break in the IPA, which is a casual notation) compared to one. They have two syllables (indicated by the. Examples include the given names Chloë and Zoë, which otherwise might be pronounced with a silent e.įor example, "Chloë" /kləʊ.i/ and "Zoë" /zəʊ.i/ do not rhyme with "toe" /təʊ/, even when written without a diacritic. The diaeresis mark is sometimes used in English personal first and last names to indicate that two adjacent vowels should be pronounced separately, rather than as a diphthong. The use of both, however, is considered to be largely archaic. The grave accent and the diaeresis are the only diacritics native to Modern English (apart from diacritics used in loanwords, such as the acute accent, the cedilla, or the tilde). A diaeresis, which denotes that the vowel marked does not form a diphthong with the vowel before ("hiatus").
This is what it means in German but isn't really used that way in English.
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