Speak Swedish clearly: free pronunciation test
Find out how clear your Swedish pronunciation is. Take the free Swedish pronunciation test, get a score for every word you say, and learn the sounds Swedish learners find hardest, from the sj sound to long and short vowels.
Free tools
The hardest Swedish sounds for learners
Long and short vowels
Every stressed syllable in Swedish has either a long vowel or a long consonant. Glas (a drinking glass) has a long a; glass (ice cream) has a short a followed by a long s. The same goes for tak (roof) and tack (thanks), vit (white) and vitt. A double consonant after a vowel usually means the vowel is short.
The tj sound and soft k
Tj, kj and k before e, i, y, ä and ö make a soft sound /ɕ/, close to the sh in 'sheep' but with the tongue further forward and the lips spread (tjugo, kjol, köpa, kiosk). Before a, o, u and å, k stays hard: kaffe, kaka. The same rule turns g into a 'y' sound: göra, ge.
The sj sound
The famous sj sound /ɧ/ has no close match in English. It is spelled sj, skj, stj, sk before e, i, y, ä and ö, and -tion (sju, skjorta, stjärna, sköldpadda, station). Many speakers make it with rounded lips and air at the back of the mouth, somewhere between sh and the ch in Scottish 'loch'. Keep it apart from the softer tj sound: sju (seven) and tjugo (twenty).