I will be heading to Sweden this August. And as any good traveler should, I hope to learn a little tiny bit of Swedis--enough to communicate some basic needs. .And while I know everyone in Scandinavia speaks perfect English, I feel like it's only respectful to say hello, thank you, please. etc in the native language. Normally I find these in the back of the Rick Steves guidebook but the Scandinavia guidebook, likely because it covers so many countries, does not have these. I'm looking for suggestions on where to get similar set of Scandinavia survival phrases. Thanks, everyone.
Posted by
Uppsala, Sweden
7193 posts
Wikivoyage to the rescue: https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Swedish_phrasebook
They also have Norwegian and Danish available, although the languages are really not that different.
Posted by
Schwerin
3244 posts
I learned from a one hour lesson of Swedish embassy in Berlin how special the Swedish pronounciation is. A little insight (for kids) of writing and spelling basic Swedish words give this page of IKEA.
Posted by
31 posts
Hi there, Kaye. To help you out, the Scandinavia guidebook does include survival phrases, but they’re located at the end of each country’s introduction rather than in one consolidated section. Here's where you can find them:
Danish: Page 40
Norwegian: Page 222
Swedish: Page 543
Finnish: Page 700
Estonian: Page 758
Happy Travels!
Posted by
Uppsala, Sweden
7193 posts
I learned from a one hour lesson of Swedish embassy in Berlin how
special the Swedish pronounciation is.
It can be a bit tricky to pronounce since Swedish (and Norwegian) have pitch accent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitch-accent_language
Posted by
Gothenburg, Scandinavia
101 posts
The RS chapter on Sweden is partly incorrect. No one, and I mean no one (!), greets anybody else in this country by using the phrase "God dag!", which has long since gone extinct. Not even 85 year olds do it. Not even 85 year olds I met decades ago did it. I will write a note to RS about it.