As you may have noticed, I really enjoy learning and using Swedish. But how do I learn Swedish? For quite some time now, I have been able to have normal conversations and I’d consider myself to be at level B1 or B2.
Most of my learning happened using babbel.com, but as I’ve completed all the lessions a while ago, I’m just using babbel to refresh all the vocabulary. I can really recommend learning Swedish with babbel. You can try the first lesson for free. With babbel, it didn’t really feel like learning and therefore it didn’t feel like work. Which is why I really enjoy learning with babbel. Plus you also learn very quickly compared to a language learning course.
Since I’ve completed everything babbel could offer me for learning Swedish, I began to look for podcasts to train my listening comprehension. These are the podcasts I found especially helpful:
Radio Sweden på lätt svenska is a podcast targeted at people who have learned enough to understand normal spoken swedish. It’s spoken slowly and with a clear pronounciation.
Klartext is a bit more difficult, but still a bit easier than normal spoken swedish. Listen to it when the above mentioned podcast becomes to slow and boring.
Stockholmsnytt is a normal news podcast. Search it in your podcast app.
All of the above mentioned podcasts give you around 5 minutes of spoken swedish every day. And these five minutes make a big difference.
Språket (RSS-feed) is a podcast by the broadcaster P1, where you can learn about the Swedish language. A great way to keep learning as an advanced learner. They talk about different topics like grammar or sayings.
Sometimes, I also read newspaper articles published on dn.se or the articles on the website of radio sweden (sverigesradio.se)
A very important thing to do: Talking to people. So try to find someone to practice with. I do that via amateur radio or by talking to a friend in Stockholm once in a while. You can also train your reading skills by following Swedish folk on twitter.
I will keep adding material to the list on my wiki: https://wiki.dc7ia.org/doku.php?id=languages:swedish