Swedish survival kit

About this kit

Swedish is spoken by around 10 million people in Sweden and Finland (where it is co-official). From Stockholm to Gothenburg, from Malmo to Umea: with this kit, you have the bare minimum to get by in Sweden and to recognize the most widely spoken Scandinavian language.

Swedish (svenska) is spoken by around 10 million people, mainly in Sweden where it is the official language, and in Finland where it has co-official status for the Swedish-speaking minority (300,000 speakers). It belongs to the North Germanic language family, alongside Norwegian and Danish, with which it maintains partial mutual intelligibility, especially in writing. For French speakers, Swedish presents several specifics: a tonal system with two distinctive accents (which can change the meaning of a word), three additional letters after z (a, a, o), and specific sounds like the "sj" which sounds between "sh" and "h". Grammar is relatively simple: no person conjugations, two genders (common and neuter), and a fairly flexible word order. Common vocabulary is often transparent for those who know English or German. Culturally, Sweden is known for its clean design, egalitarian values, intimate relationship with nature, and untranslatable concepts like lagom (just right) and fika (the ritual coffee break). Swedes are known to be reserved but of great integrity: trust is earned slowly and kept long. This kit gathers the bare essentials to handle an airport arrival, a taxi ride, a restaurant order, a medical emergency and a smooth departure. You will find indispensable greetings, survival phrases for orientation, key words for eating and sleeping, as well as cultural tips to avoid faux pas. Memorize these expressions before leaving and you will gain confidence from the very first hours on site.