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- Välkommen! | Welcome!
Välkommen! | Welcome!
ÄNTLIGEN!!!
We are extremely proud to present to you the fourth incubated language course from English; Swedish! It has been a long journey with a lot of ups and downs, but finally the day has arrived to launch the Beta version of the course. As it is a Beta version, the course might still be a bit rough around the edges, but please be patient and continue reporting any problems that you encounter so that we can polish and improve the course.
The Swedish forum, which will be monitored by Anrui, Arnauti, Anders91 & Blehg, can be found among the other forums and you can post in this new forum by going to Swedish Discussions and clicking the green button New discussion. Make sure you follow Duolingo’s guidelines at all times! Posts that are not in line with the guidelines will be removed.
We have provided tips & notes for several skills. However, since the course has just been launched, tips & notes for some skills are still missing. Please, bear with us as we will add these over the coming weeks. If you run into problems and the tips & notes don’t provide the answers you need, there are always helpful members just a few clicks away in the forums and threads.
We, the Swedish team, are very well aware of the problems with the TTS (Text-To-Speech) system which has been implemented so far. We are trying desperately to find a better solution, but unfortunately, it seems to be quite difficult to integrate other TTS systems. Until we have figured out how to employ another TTS, we encourage you to report all sentences that seem to be badly pronounced. We have been forced to disable the voice function in many cases since we do not want to teach incorrect pronunciation. However, a few common words have been kept even though their pronunciation is not entirely correct.
The first one is “De” which means “They”. Even though the words is spelled “de”, it is pronounced “dom” in all cases. The objective pronoun “dem” (them) is also pronounced “dom”, but at least the TTS gets this right!
Another example is “är” which means “is”. The TTS pronounces this in the way people in the region around Stockholm would, i.e. “é”. There is a lot of variation in the country when it comes to the pronunciation of this word, but the pronunciation that is closest to a standard is “är” (as it is spelled), therefore we would suggest that you stick to that even though the TTS says otherwise.
Lycka till!
/Anders91, Anrui, Arnauti & Blehg
503 Comments
Just adding my thanks to the crowd, tack så mycket! Really appreciate all your hard work and dedication to get this course finished. :)
But straight away, questions: Do you know if/when the "words" feature/tab will be available for Swedish? I haven't used this site for a while since I learnt a little French and I sorely miss the vocabulary list. :)
In the courses page, scroll down. You'll see the "Contribute to a course" button. It'll take you to Duolingo incubator, where you can apply as a contributor to any language (you'll have to add it if it's not among the options) :)
My other native language isn't among the options, and I'd love to contribute, but my grammar (in that language) isn't very good D:
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Congratulations and many many thanks! Swedish feels at first like a more melodic English...at least my version of Mid-West American English...now mixed with open Spanish vowels, thanks to the Duolingo, Android and Chrome platforms!
It will also be a great day when the world can learn Swedish from Esperanto! ;)
Do you think that this TTS (http://www.ivona.com/en/) pronounces everything better? I've tried it and it pronounces de and dem properly.
Just another brilliant example of the superb excellence produced by DuoLingo. Easily one of the most organized, exciting, useful and aesthetically-pleasing apps on the market to date! Keep it up! I speak French and I learn German, Dutch, Swedish and Italian. I look forward to Norwegian, Finnish and Greek one day as well. Thank you for being such an amazing resource! Truly enjoying the Beta in Swedish! :D
This is our second year as a cyber school family and to supplement my children's regular courses, I suggested to my kids (ages 9 & 11) that we start learning a new language this year. My son randomly picked Swedish and we're all hooked on trying to out-learn each other. It's such an interesting language with it's similarities to English and both of my children's english reading & typing skills have increased as they learn Swedish.
Tack sa mycket!
Tack ska ni ha! I'm a bit dizzy due to sleep deprivation (that's how much I wanted to try the course right away) and not that eloquent thereat, but it means the world to me. Half of my life I've been taking every opportunity att lära svenska and having it here is a dream come true, literally. Tusen tack!
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little late, but for macs you can also edit the keyboard to being an international US keyboard that allows you to make most letters for many languages with a standard alphabet (for example I use "+u to make ü or "+a to make ä and hold option+a to make å)
I've build a custom keyboard which maps some less common characters on a en-us keyboard to ÅÄÖ where they would be on a sv-se keyboard. See the link for details: https://github.com/acrookston/us-sv-keyboard
thank you so much for the tips and notes. It makes it a lot easier to learn the language. I wish all courses on duolingo had them.
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I love you, Anders91, Anrui, Arnauti & Blehg. Thank you for the hard work you've put into this out of the generosity of your hearts!
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Now I feel smart, because I understood this after getting as far as definite articles. :)
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It can be disabled, so it's not guaranteed to work. I have it disabled because it causes issues in some online games that require holding a key; and I know how to use option to get all the characters.
Sorry for double-posting but I've build a custom keyboard which maps some less common characters on a en-us keyboard to ÅÄÖ where they would be on a sv-se keyboard. See the link for details: https://github.com/acrookston/us-sv-keyboard
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I'm a fan of the Colemak keyboard layout. It has built-in support for a ton of different languages: http://colemak.com/Multilingual
There is also the alt+numpad method. Hold left alt, type a number code, and release. Here are the alt codes for the Swedish letters:
Ä - ALT+ 0196 Å - ALT + 0197 Ö - ALT + 0214 ä - ALT + 0228 å - ALT + 0229 ö - ALT + 0246
Sometimes I cheat, I have a notepad with the umlauts and a-ring, and just copy and paste when needed.
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This might be old news for some Duolingo-users, but AutoHotkey is an excellent program if you want to set up shortcuts to type special characters which I think is better than the on-screen keyboard since it makes it much faster to type.
I have added some Swedish bindings and some instructions how to set it up in another thread if you would be interested. https://www.duolingo.com/comment/5391535
Hey it is really easy to add it to your own computer keyboard! If you have a mac, go to the top right side of your desktop or browser, and hover over the same bar that has the battery percentage and date. There should be a little flag beside it which you can click, scroll down > open language and text preferences! If the flag is not there already, go system preferences > language and text > input sources > check off whatever language you want to add and the flag should appear in the aforementioned bar.
** Make sure you change your keyboard BACK to English if you have a passlock though! ****
You can do this on your own computer, you know. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/add-or-change-an-input-language
You can also add a swedish keyboard from your own computer. If you have a Mac, then you can go to the language preferences and add the keyboard from there. Then all you have to do when you want to use it is go to the upper right hand corner and click the flag (that represents the language your computer is in) and then choose the Swedish flag and there you go!
Alt-Shift should rotate between keyboards. If that doesn't work, look in your language settings; some combination of keystrokes will. On my Chromebook, Ctrl-Space switches back to the previous keyboard as well, so it's easy to toggle between English and Swedish. I'm not sure my desktop does that, but I don't use it enough for Swedish (or Russian) to have looked into it any further. Good luck!
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How would you pronounce the word "kyckling". The TTS pronounced the "k" as "sh". Is this normal, or a problem with the TTS (FYI I know the "y" sounds like a "u" in Swedish)
In native Swedish words, the letter <k> is pronounced /ɕ/ before the vowels <i y e ä ö>. This sound is reminiscent of an English <sh>, but it's pronounced further to the front of the mouth, at the same place as you would pronounce an <s>. It's the same sound as the Japanese <sh>, Chinese <x>, Russian <щ>, Polish <ś>, in case any of those help.
Ok, starting with the first is-this-on-purpose? comment when I have raced through first two basics and phrases skills (yeah, I could have taken the placement test and probably ended somewhere halfway the tree but where's the fun in that).
Phrases section seemed to have several multiple choice questions that introduce alternative phrases that hadn't never been introduced before (e.g. in text I had got only "ursäkta" for "sorry" but then multiple choice questions spring to me also "förlåt" and "jag är ledsen").
Of course the learners learn by making mistakes but maybe toning down the amount of multiple choice questions on that section might still be a good idea (or expect to hear lots of complaints about its unfairness).
I know my comment is going to get buried, but I have to add it! Thank you SO much for all your hard work. I can't even imagine how much time and energy you all had to put into this project. I've been living in Copenhagen for a couple months, and I've made a couple trips over to Malmö, but I've been limited in my Swedish. Most of the time I speak with such a heavy Danish accent, I get giggles. I'm heading to Stockholm and next week, and I'm ready to try out my Swedish skills!
A really great website for pronunciation for any language is www.forvo.com. I would definitely check it out! It has over 50,000 Swedish pronunciations that are pronounced by REAL PEOPLE!!!
The "proper" pronunciation of "och" is "ock", i.e. with a distinct k-sound in the end. However, in real life almost all Swedes pronounce it "o". It is a lot easier to make the sentences flow when you don't have to pronounce the k-sound.
Sometimes you even see this spelling (Hon o han, Hon å han) but this is of course not correct.
I enjoy the course very much! You guys should be proud for putting in the work to create such a wonderful way of learning the language! There's a few kinks, but it's in beta, so of course it's not entirely perfect.
Tack sa mycket, jag alskar det! (Hope that's correct, minus the missing accents and all.)
I have tried some of the new beta Swedish course (even though I am fluent in both Swedish and English) and I was really impressed. My fiancé is trying to learn Swedish and this course is perfect for him. Hopefully it will come out of the beta stage quickly so that we can all enjoy it on our mobiles soon. Having the app makes it so much easier to get some practice in every day. Thanks!
First of all, thank you for all your hard work. I really appreciate the course, and my Swedish is coming along wonderfully.
I just wanted to suggest a translation improvement that may apply quite generally. The addition is the verb 'to ring' as an acceptable translation of 'att ringa'. We use it often in England, especially in the north. I flagged the translation specifically for "Han ringer polisen", as I wrote "He is ringing the police", but this could apply to any question involving calling (on the phone). You might also consider adding the more colloquial "to give x a ring" meaning "to call x", but I don't really care about that one.
Like so many comments here, I fear my own will get buried. But just wanted to express my thanks and appreciation to team Svenska for giving me something more productive to do than perusing gossip websites on my commute to and from work: Tack så mycket!
Another thing: it's a testament to the quality of the beta version and its creators when someone like me (whose only other language is English) is able to test out by the 6th skill - but I'm still going to go back and do the whole thing properly, promise :)
Thank you very much (again!)
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Thanks for this. Now I have a way to practice my Swedish instead of looking in my books :)
My wife is Swedish and I took a couple courses in college to learn Swedish. I have gotten rusty since then, and have been keeping up my Spanish on Duolingo wishing there was something as good as Duolingo for Swedish, but I wasn't able to find anything. Then I got the new years email that you guys had added Swedish and I could't be more thrilled. Thank you so much for all your hard work, these courses are amazing and second to none.
Thank you so much for this site/course... didnt wanna make a new thread just for that, but wanted to say it.. i cant beleive it, it's actually working! some of it is sticking in my poor excuse for a memory, much to my surprise. I'm only on day 3 and i already feel bilingual.. i reckon i could hold a conversation in swedish already, so long as we only talk about drinking water :p
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I have been playing hooky from Duolingo and came back this week on a whim only to find my long-held language wish has been made true. SWEDISH! YAY! Tack!
(Now about Icelandic ...)
Kul att höra :)
Det märks att du har lärt dig mycket. Bra jobbat!
Några småsaker bara:
I den första meningen skriver du med tysk/nederländsk ordföljd, det vill säga att du har satt verbet i slutet. Det funkar inte riktigt på svenska. Dessutom har du valt perfekt istället för imperfekt för verbet. På svenska använder vi hellre imperfekt när vi har en tidsangivelse ("för ett par dagar sedan"). Som du ser här också så är par ett t-ord.
Så jag skulle föreslå att skriva om den första meningen till:
Jag fullbordade den här kursen för ett par dagar sedan och är mycket glad.....
If there's anything you didn't get, just ask!
Lycka till i fortsättningen!
Hello Swedish Duolingo Team! I am a happy user of the Duolingo Swedish version, and my Swedish husband is very proud to see my progress. I can now ask him questions in Swedish and respond in Swedish. We are a multi-cultural household now, and sharing languages helps us get closer as a family. I owe you guys quite a bit. I guess I should do a review :)
Hello Swedish Duolingo Team! I am a happy user of the Duolingo Swedish version, and my Swedish husband is very proud to see my progress. I can now ask him questions in Swedish and respond in Swedish. We are a multi-cultural household now, and sharing languages helps us get closer as a family. I owe you guys quite a bit. I guess I should do a review :)
Maybe I just have awful hearing but the automated voice is really hard for me to listen to and understand what it's pronouncing. :( Such a bummer because I was so excited to learn Swedish.
I'm trying! Just struggling a lot! I'm glad I'm not alone in thinking this and of course I am super appreciative of all your hard work! I'm just not at all familiar with Swedish or any similar language so it's a bit hard for me to grasp when I don't know what I should be sounding like 100%. I'll keep trekking on to the best of my abilities. :)
yes it seems to have a different cadence than other languages, it's very lovely from what little I've heard (Moomins, skarsgards, Vikings etc). I have not encountered it to the point where I genuinely can't figure it out in the French course so far, I can't speak to any other courses though.
Hah yes Alex is quite nice and the most accessible for an American aside from Stellan (who is wonderful). I enjoy Gustaf too, although he has less readily available content for an American to see!
Yes I have sen Gustaf in several movies (Kon Tiki, The Way Back) and he's on the show Vikings which airs on the History channel in the US. I know Bill is a show on Netflix called Hemlock Grove but I haven't seen any of it. They are a very attractive family! They were kind of my gateway into wanting to learn more about Sweden!
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I see a small typo in the "tips and notes" section of "Definites". It says "socker a sugar" but should be "ett socker a sugar". Tack så mycket!
I don't know if it's because I slept on it or because I'm just getting the hang of it but I can understand the tts a bit better today. I reached level 3! I hope this course can continue to grow and I do appreciate all your hard work! I'm having such fun!
just wanted to say pretty sure this is working for me. And also tusen tack to you and the team for all your efforts - course is fantastic! I am post-beginner but a bit rusty and have found it a great refresher and makes it so fun. I also love the concise grammar notes which are especially well-written. Kudos, people!
This is what happens when I get to Level 5: Say a brand new word in a lesson is "honom," and one is introduced to the word via a sentence, such as "hon älskar homom." "Honom" is underlined and defined if one rolls over it. That stops happening for me at Level 5 when vocabulary is introduced, so there is no way to define it other than to use a dictionary as a supplement.
I think this may have been covered somewhere but I can't seem to find it, how many levels are there?
I am so much enjoying this course, in spite of struggling a bit with the TTS. Many thanks for all your hard work.
When I complete part of a lesson, the badge changes to 'redo' and I keep reading that as Swedish and thinking 'ready' as in, it's time to do this lesson, instead of English, as in, do the lesson again. So I've accidentally repeated a couple straight after doing them. But never mind.
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they do... it's frustrating but for those who really don't know any Swedish it is pretty comforting that you don't have to struggle like you do in many other countries. Just think of it as a challenge! I seriously was ecstatic the first time I ordered at Espresso House entirely in Swedish and the girl didn't change to English at any point. It's a great feeling! (granted, I got a vit mocka instead of mörk mocka because I forgot the word... but hey, progress!)
Everyone can choose the way that works best for them. I am russian and I'm learning swedish through english and it works just great because we don't have/use articles in russian as well as we don't use verbs that much as it's important in english or swedish but it's good to understand how it works in swedish thanks to english :)
Thank you! So it's only been out for a week? That explain why I couldn't find the course earlier! I'm having a lot of fun with this. I couldn't reply to tips& notes, but I liked the note to dutchies and germans with defnitive articles - I know that -en is usually the ..., but if I don't think about it I mess it up... it's confusing for us! And also, what the hell is up with your pronounciation of sked and sköldpadda... the sk-sound is somewhere between a h and the Dutch g?
You cannot reply to t&n, but you could always write in the forums. There is a note about the definite articles at the skill "definites". Have a look at that :) The "sj-sound" which your referring to is one of the most diffecult sounds in Swedish to pronounce. It is also one of the most difficult sounds to spell as it could be spelled in about 60 ways. The most common spellings are sk, sj, stj and skj. The voice usually gets this right, but it sometimes says it too often (For example handskar which does not have the sj-sound). But listen to the voice and try to imitate
Just signed up prior to a permanent move to Sweden from the UK in a few years. Just heard of this resource when one of your team did an interview on "The Naked Scientists" in Cambridge. There are some similarities to "Memrise" but also some notable differences which I like. Well done for putting this together.
You can do this on your own computer, you know. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/add-or-change-an-input-language
You can do this on your own computer, you know. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/add-or-change-an-input-language
If you click on "Discussions" in the top bar, you will see your subscriptions in the right column. Then, you can click on "Swedish from English" and all Swedish threads will be filtered out. For example, there are some really good hints in the top thread "Swedish: Useful links and discussion topics, an overview".
PS. You can also follow the guys who created the course (and other Swedes as well if you like to) and then you will be able to read their/our posts when you click on "Activity" in the top bar. Mostly, there are comments to the different phrases included in the course. I learn some Swedish myself from reading those :).
I'm loving this new Swedish course, I've been waiting for this one to get hatched for a long long time. As somebody who aspires to live and work in Sweden this has been the best thing anybody could've given me to start the year.
Well done and good job! I can use Duolingo to improve my vocabulary and get some typing practice. I did notice the TSS pronouncing "är" and "de" weirdly (I thought de was a very strict "dom" pronounced in conversations that weren't casual) but you've already addressed it. Can't wait to see how this goes :)
Hej! Det är mycket möjligt att någon redan frågat detta, men jag kör på: Kommer det en kurs från SWE till ENG snart? Är det på gång? Eftersom att ENG till SWE nu finns så tänker jag att det inte kan vara så långt borta :). Jag vet att mina elever skulle älska det. Jag är själv lärare i just engelska, och skulle mer än gärna bidra. Tack för ert enorma arbete! Vänligen, Marcus, fellow Duolingo-LOVER
Hej Marcus! Det arbetet har inte dragit igång än, men det är jättebra att veta att det finns en efterfrågan. Annars möter man främst attityden att en sån kurs skulle vara fullständigt överflödig eftersom alla svenskar redan talar så bra engelska.
Mitt mål har hela tiden varit att få vara med och bygga kurser åt båda hållen (Ursprungligen ansökte jag om att få bygga sve-eng, inte eng-sve). Vi kan inte läsa ansökningar till kursen sve-eng, men det jag vill uppmuntra dig till att göra är att ansöka genom incubator.duolingo.com. Förhoppningsvis kommer vi snart att få börja med det arbetet och då ser vi ansökan då.
Jag tror att det vore jättebra med en svensk engelsklärare med i truppen eftersom mycket av arbetet handlar om att förklara grammatiska regler och även om vi alla talar bra engelska så kanske vi inte har de bästa verktygen för att förklara svåra begrepp och koncept. Jag ska hålla dig i minnet
Hej! Och tack för ditt snabba svar!
Ja, jag har en annan profil: marcushjorth
Denna jag skriver från nu startade jag precis igår och jag använder den på jobbet. Jag har väl inte hunnit testa så jättemånga olika språk här på Duolingo ännu, men så fort jag har tid över så sitter jag med Duolingo, that's for sure :).
Jag har ansökt via Incubator, säkert tre gånger. Ska jag fortsätta ansöka?
Deltar som sagt mer än gärna med detta utvecklingsarbete. Jag är utbildad gymnasielärare i ämnena engelska och psykologi, och jag är mitt uppe i att utbilda mig till specialpedagog. Visst, vi svenskar är väldigt duktiga på engelska, men vi har också elever med inlärningssvårigheter samt också elever som är nyanlända från andra länder, och för dessa skulle ett så briljant koncept som Duolingo göra underverk. Tro mig. Jag testade Duolingo med mina elever igår, och de fick då testa från ENG till SWE. Succé! De älskar appen!
Igen: Tack för det du/ni gör!
Vänligen, Marcus
Jag har tänkt att kanske vore på tiden att förbättra engelskan. Har rest runt i världen och det gick bra men hur det gick med min engelska kan man ju fråga sig. Eftersom jag spelar Lexulous på engelska sen tre,.fyra år lär jag spelet och vissa ord, men saknar en möjlighet att träna hur jag själv uttrycker mig. På en lite högre nivå.
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Tack! I can't wait to visit Stockholm again and finally understand the menu by myself! OK, way more than the menu next time :D. Obrigada!
Som svensk blev jag nyfiken på kursen och försökte testa mig igenom den. Överlag tycker jag att det är en bra och konkret kurs men en sak jag jag upptäckt är att korta "A" som i "katt" uttalas som "A" i "val" i många av ljudklippen. Bortsett från det och att det behövs fler aternativ till svaren, är det en solid kurs.
TTS:en är ett känt problem, men eftersom jag inte vet vilken TTS du har fått så kan jag inte kommentera det vidare. Vi arbetar hårt med att lösa detta problem.
När det gäller fler översättningar så får du gärna anmäla saknade översättningar genom att använda rapportknappen längst ned till vänster. Vi lägger hela tiden till fler översättningar, men vi är ganska strikta, vilket betyder att vi undviker att lägga till "onödiga" översättningar eftersom det kan leda till inlärning av snäppet sämre svenska meningar. Det är alltid en balans!
Du kanske har den gamla TTS:en? Det pågår ett A/B test där den nya "rösten" är mycket bättre. Du kan testa den själv här genom att välja Swedish -> Astrid.
Maybe you have the old TTS? There is an A/B test going on where the new "voice" is much better. You can test it yourself here by selecting Swedish -> Astrid.
Also, as I finished my Tree in Spanish today I want to say THANK YOU DUOLINGO VERY MUCH! I have also been to schools for foregn students in Granada, Málaga and Sevilla. I could only afford to stay a few weeks in January, February and March. I also want to thank my evening class teachers, Alejandro Rio from Uruguay, and Ezequiel Marelli, arriving to Sweden from Argentina. I am singing Flamenco Cante. Nowadays I realise how different it is when you know most of the grammar ( especially in Spanish). When you know what you are singing. After only five years I am ready for sort of a little career as a flamenco cantaora. Flamenco singer. I am delighted over still making progress all the time. The more you know the more you find. I am not lying. The online Duolingo lessons has meant .... making the whole thing possible.!!! You must practise and keep learning more, repeatedly all the time. As often as possibly. Maybe just 5 minutes. Take your smartphone with you in the bathroom! It's challenging to remember the things you need to remember! . Recommending a few minutes practisig, a lesson, strengthing weak skills every day. In my case DUOLINGO has been extremely important! Love you!
Jag använder Swedish for English learners med mina studenter i min undervisning i engelska. Det fungerar förvånansvärt bra :). Blir lite omvänt, men det är effektivt ändå.
Inga nyheter kring om svenska kommer som referensspråk, i.e. om man snart kan använda Duolingo från SWE till ENG? Det skulle vara otroligt populärt bland ungdomar idag.
Vänligen, Engelsklärarn
Problemet är inte översättningen av själva kursinnehållet. Det skulle vi (kanske tom med din hjälp) kunna fixa. Problemet är ju att sidan, Duolingo, som helhet måste översättas till svenska och det är det som DL kräver översättare för. Vi har erbjudit oss att göra det, men de kräver översättare... Därför gör det ingen skillnad att kursen eng-sve redan finns. tyvärr :(
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Det verkar konstigt, det är klart att du eller jag skulle kunan göra jobbet så länge vi är två eller tre så den ena kan översätta och den andra kan kontrollera att det blir rätt och vettigt. Gör ett nytt försök att tala med dem, det är synd att så mycket utveckling bromsas av en sådan idé. Vi talar om några hundra fraser, ett överkomligt arbete.
Vore det ett alternativ att vi gör översättningen och en auktoriserad översätter kollar? I så fall blir det kanske billigare.
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Systemets textmassa har två delar. En är den man behöver för att använda systemet. En är info om Duolingo, deras manifest etc. Jag kan förstå om man vill ha auktoriserade översättare för att översätta infon om Duolingo, men den totala textmassan i denna del är ändå ganska liten. Kostnaden för översättning borde vara överkomlig. Den textmassa som behövs för att använda systemet borde däremot med fördel kunna översättas av personer som själva använder systemet och som gör det gratis.
I have an advantage in understanding spoken Swedish because I once lived in Denmark for a year. Swedes enunciate more than Danes, so even when I was learning Danish, it was easier to understand both Norwegian and Swedish. Have you tried watching Swedish tv online? You can put on the subtitles so you're reading and hearing it at the same time. My big need now is to get going on writing and talking.
The many smaller differences in spelling of words that are more or less the same as the Norwegian counterpart, is really frustrating to keep track of. Much harder than all the other words that are totally different from Norwegian I find.
Figured I would start Swedish since I haven't had the need of using it much since I was a kid. Danish is next, but that's much easier, at least in writing.
Hello, I know this is a relatively delayed critique, but I just started the course. I like it very much, and the only things that I could see so far that needs improvement are the exercises that show you a Swedish word and expect you to choose one or multiple English translations from a word bank at the bottom of the screen. On some exercises, the words in the word bank are the same with only a difference in capitalization. Perhaps a little more variance or additional words in the word bank would make this make more sense. Then again, perhaps this is entirely intentional and I have yet to understand until I progress in the course. All in all, very well done, I thoroughly enjoy the curriculum. Thank you. P.S. I have also only used the app version of this course thus far. I will try it out on my browser now.
Apologies if this question and a response to it are out there somewhere; I've been looking and can't find it. Why no Words page w/ flash cards for Swedish? I keep practicing, but I know there are words I've seen in the lessons that don't come up again. And if there's a way to create flash cards that would help me get my prepositions straight that would be extremely helpful.
Thanks.
I just have to say,after being close to finishing the Swedish tree,that it is very well done,i've been practicing for two weeks and i seem to have a good understanding,i can listen to songs in Swedish and i'll understand for the most part,and after listening for a while i can connect the dots.The only problem i have is the text to speech as is said in the post,but all in all great job!
Would love if at some point you added additional tree options like there is in German.Bless you all
Thanks for the swedish course, I just started and it's a lot of fun to learn. By the way: Since I'm a native german, will there be German-Swedish version? Because I find it a little bit tricky to do the course in a language diffrent from your native one. It still works pretty fine, but I feel like it is slowing me down a little.
Anyways, enjoy your sucess, it's nice to have the option to learn swedish. Thanks for your work.
I really like the parts when you have to speak into the mic to translate in svenska the english phrase. However I would really like it if more of those kinds of prompts could be in each session. For me reading the language is one thing but actually getting used to hearing, understanding, and responding/articulating the language itself is really what I am after.
I just wanted to say that today is my 1st anniversary since I started learning Swedish here at Duolingo and that it has been an incredible & very fulfilling journey. Learning foreign languages is a lifelong process but thanks to Duolingo the desire to learn more and the initial foundation of the language are already here!
Tack! Jag är en nybörjare här i duolingo, men har ju studerat svenska tidigare många år. Det tog mig några, intensiva dagar att gå igenom kurssen men det var jätteroligt att studera på det här sättet! Jag blev så glad när jag kunde förstå så väl fast jag fick en enorm huvudvärk! Det var bode roligt och nyttigt. Tusen tack och adjö. :)
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Ah, this explains why de always sounded like dom! I've only really used the app for learning, and very rarely come to the website (and on those rare occasions, I don't always check the forums). I thought it was just a quirk of pronunciation so I'm glad to know I should say it as de!
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This is the best app so far for learning a new language. I am so happy because my Swedish lessons are going perfectly and I can say that I've learnt a lot in only 10 days. The only downside I see now is that I can't practice my speech when logged on my android tablet and phone. I hope you will manage to implement it somehow in near future.
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I also use Pimsleur, Rosetta, and Babbel. Each has their own unique contribution, but I think that the give-a-response system in Pimsleur offers something different than the quizzy or translate-y system in duolingo and Rosetta or the cloze exercises of babbel. I wouldn't say "better", but it's something equally essential, because it teaches you to conversational context. When working on Russian, I also used RussianPod101, which had some great audiobook podcasts of various levels.
I finally joined a club. It's for Dutch speaking people. Have to say it works quite motivating :)
Because of this I thought it would be fun to start a small forum for Dutch people who are learning Swedish. So, if you're Dutch and you're learning Swedish: sign up! :)
You can find the forum here: http://stapvoorstapzwe.actieforum.com/
I'm quite late to the discussion but I really wanted to thank the developers of the Swedish course. I only "discovered" DuoLingo a couple weeks ago and it has been a lot of fun to use the online course and accompanying Tiny Cards.
Because I have a Swedish parent and have been to Sweden dozens of times, I am already considered fairly fluent in basic conversation. (After completing about 1/3 of the course I've only come across a handful of words that I didn't already know.) However, I have never formally studied Swedish grammar so I have found your course to be very useful for filling in my numerous knowledge gaps in this area.
I started my DuoLingo journey with Swedish mainly for this reason but I also thought it would be a good way to gauge the effectiveness of DuoLingo overall using a language that I already have a lot of familiarity with. I must say that I have been extremely impressed so far!
Having jumped right into the course, there are still many features of the DuoLingo interface that I am ignorant about but I hope that will change with time. As a side bonus, the course is also helping to familiarize me with the Swedish keyboard which I added to my Mac keyboard settings.
I do have one question I was hoping someone could help me with...
After completing a translation, there is a button at the bottom that reads, "Discuss Sentence." Whenever I push this button nothing happens. I am running a very old Mac OS (Version 10.6.8) on an equally outdated Firefox browser. (My ancient OS does is not supported by the newer versions of Firefox). Perhaps this has something to do with the functionality of that button. If not, please let me know how I can get involved in the sentence discussions.
Tusen tack for a wonderful Swedish course!!
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I would like to see a course where Swedish speakers can learn another language. There is no such course today in Duolingo.
Before I started learning Swedish online, I was watching Swedish crime shows and trying to decipher some of what was said against the captions. I decided that some of Swedish is the same as English, just said with a Vaguely Swedish accent. I still find it funny, and great, that so many Swedish words remind me of their English equivalent. And yes! No grammar to really learn. It's such a cute, fun language. I can't believe how much I've learned in a short time. I'm 14% fluent already! LOL