Swedish language facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Swedish
svenska
Native to	Sweden, Finland
Native speakers	11.1 million  (2017)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic East Scandinavian Swedish
Early forms:	Old Swedish Modern Swedish Swedish
Writing system	Latin (Swedish alphabet) Swedish Braille
Official status
Official language in	Sweden  Finland  Åland Islands  European Union Nordic Council
Regulated by	Swedish Language Council (in Sweden) Swedish Academy (in Sweden) Research Institute for the Languages of Finland (in Finland)
Linguasphere	52-AAA-ck to -cw
Major Swedish-speaking areas
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Swedish is a language mainly spoken in Sweden and parts of Finland. You can find it along Finland's southern and western coasts, and on the Åland islands. Over nine million people speak Swedish.

Swedish is quite similar to two other Scandinavian languages: Norwegian and Danish. If you understand one of these, you can usually understand the others. However, other Scandinavian languages like Icelandic and Faroese are less similar. Swedish speakers might not understand them easily.

While standard Swedish is used across Sweden, there are also local dialects. These dialects have different grammar and vocabulary in smaller towns and rural areas.

Where Did Swedish Come From?

Swedish started as a dialect of Old Norse. Old Norse was a language that everyone in Scandinavia understood during the Viking Age. Around the 12th century, Swedish slowly began to change. It became different from other dialects. These dialects later grew into what we now call Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, and Danish.

Swedish is a Germanic language. It has some similarities to English because of the Vikings who visited England long ago. It is even more similar to German and Dutch. This is partly because of the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages. During that time, Sweden traded a lot with Germany.

Special Letters in Swedish

The Swedish language uses three special letters that are not in the English alphabet. These letters are å, ä, and ö.

• The letter å makes a vowel sound between 'a' and 'o'. It sounds like the "awe" in the English word awe.
• The letter ä makes a vowel sound like the "e" in the English word bed.
• The letter ö makes a vowel sound between 'o' and 'e'. It sounds like the "u" in the English word burn.

These special characters are also used in the Finnish language. However, Norwegian and Danish languages use similar letters, æ and ø, instead of ä and ö.

How Swedish Grammar Works

Swedish grammar has some interesting differences from English. For example, definite articles are added to the end of nouns. So, ett hus (a house) becomes huset (the house).

Also, unlike English, Swedish uses two grammatical genders. These are called Common and Neuter. Nouns of the Common gender are sometimes called "en words." Many words for living things are "en words." Nouns of the Neuter gender are sometimes called "ett words."

Common Swedish Words

Here are some common words in Swedish and what they mean in English:

Everyday Swedish Phrases

Here are some basic Swedish expressions you might hear:

Images for kids

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  Front page of Gustav Vasa's Bible from 1541. The title means: "The Bible / That is / The Holy Scripture / in Swedish. Printed in Uppsala. 1541".

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  August Strindberg, a very important writer in modern Swedish literature.

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  A sign on a Swedish hotel wall, showing two ways to write "them".

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  A street sign in Helsinki, Finland, showing names in both Finnish and Swedish.

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  Map of the Estonian islands where "Coastal Swede" people used to live.

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  A map showing where different modern Swedish dialects are spoken.

See also

In Spanish: Idioma sueco para niños