Swedish language

From the Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can change

Swedish (( svenska (info • help)) is a language mostly spoken in Sweden and in parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the Åland islands. More than nine million people speak Swedish. It is very similar to two of the other Scandinavian languages, Danish and Norwegian, and a person who understands one of these languages can understand the others quite well.

Some other kinds of Swedish are not much similar to the standard language in grammar and vocabulary, and are sometimes hard to understand by people who speak Standard Swedish. These kinds of Swedish are only spoken in small towns, or in the country. Most Swedish people still speak Standard Swedish.

Swedish began as a dialect of Old Norse, which was a language that everyone in Scandinavia understood. Around the 12th century it began to become separate from the other dialects. These dialects later became what we today call Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish and Faroese. Swedish is a Germanic language and share very many words with English, because of the Vikings that invaded England in the 12th Century. It is even more closely related to German and Dutch.

There are three characters in the Swedish language that is not used in English. These are å (that could be seen as a mix between a and o), ä (a mix between a and e) and ö (that is a mix of o and e). These characters are also used in the Finnish language, while Norwegian and Danish replaces ä and ö with similar characters æ and ø.

There is a Swedish Wikipedia. [1]

[change] Example of some words in Swedish

Ett One
Två Two
Tre Three
Ja Yes
Nej No
Jag I
Du You
Han He
HonShe
Vi We
De They
Jag är I am
Sverige Sweden
Hus House
Hem Home
Väg Way

[change] Basic Swedish Expressions

God dag/Hej Good day/Hello
Hur mår du? How are you?
Jag mår bra, tack Very well, thank you
Tack Thank you
Tack så mycket Thank you very much
God morgon Good morning
God kväll Good evening
Hejdå Goodbye