"De lär mig kinesiska."
Translation:They are teaching me Chinese.
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Is the use of object pronouns the only indication as to whether "lär" means "learn" or "teach"?
Well, the object pronouns don't even really tell you that – jag lär mig means 'I learn' but de lär mig means 'they teach me'. There's a word undervisa which is unambiguously teach. Like, 'I teach Spanish' would be Jag undervisar i spanska. Or Jag undervisar honom i spanska - 'I'm teaching him Spanish'.
Thank you! I was confused with this word meaning completely different things and having to say "I teach me" or whatever the literal translation is. Is undervisa as common as lär?
It's common too, but it's more tied to school situations and professional teaching.
Correct. Both de and dem are pronounced dom in Swedish. You could say de as well, but it'll make you sound formal and/or snobby.
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Oh wow, dem too? Somehow I missed that, I had just been pronouncing it like it was English.
It does happen in a few certain dialects, mostly in the Swedish spoken in parts of Finland, but pronouncing both dom is by a huge degree the most common option.
I understand that there are several languages spoken in China (Mandarin, Cantonese, etc). Does Swedish distinguish between these, or is "kinesiska" just used for all Chinese languages?
It's the umbrella term. We'd use e.g. mandarin or kantonesiska if we wanted to be specific.
No, kinesiska is the name of the language - so it's a noun, not an adjective.
When read within the sentence the first sound in the word 'kinesiska' seems to be like 'h' but read alone it is pronounced like in the word 'köper', which I think is the correct version. Is it Duo reading it wrong or is it a feature of Swedish?