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Getting by difficult pronunciation | ||
Tags: Swedish | Pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6718 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 25 03 May 2011 at 12:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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It seems to be a common thought that Swedish is a quick language. We do tend to reduce many sounds (but French has to be worse in that aspect, I think). Consonants disappear, verb endings change... "Lazy" pronunciation is one of the keys to sounding Swedish.
In all dialects north of the r-border (where the throat-r isn't in use anymore), there are 'supradental' (or 'retroflex') sounds. Dentals consonants are d, n, t, l s ("DeNTaLS"!) and thus rd, rn, rt, rl and rs are prpnounced roughly as in American English (e.g. hard, burn, heart, curl och harsh). More info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_consonant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroflex_consonant 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6125 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 10 of 25 03 May 2011 at 2:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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One of the biggest problems I have with Swedish is the tonal words. Is there any way of knowing which words are differentiated by tone? Is there a list somewhere I can consult?
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| Akao aka FailArtist Senior Member United States Joined 5145 days ago 315 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Toki Pona | Message 11 of 25 03 May 2011 at 4:14am | IP Logged | |||||
Linguistically there actually aren't many tone-changing words (to my limited knowledge of swedish). There are still hundreds (or thousands) I imagine but I haven't come across many yet and I hear natives saying there aren't many. Edited by Akao on 03 May 2011 at 4:16am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Akao aka FailArtist Senior Member United States Joined 5145 days ago 315 posts - 347 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Toki Pona | Message 12 of 25 03 May 2011 at 4:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Sorry double post. Edited by Akao on 03 May 2011 at 4:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6391 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 13 of 25 03 May 2011 at 7:38am | IP Logged | |||||
While this is roughly true, the Swedish 'rd', 'rn' and so on are all single sounds, whilst the American 'rd', 'rn' and so on are combination of two sounds. So do listen to and mimic the pronunciation yourselves!
While it's true that there aren't many word pairs that are distinguished solely by tone, if you get the tone wrong on any word you'll sound weird. So pronouncing "lasso" as "las4 so4"*) will sound weird (it should be "las3 so4"), but so will pronouncing "lycka" (happiness) as "lyc3 ka4" (it should be "lyc4 ka4"). So you'll still need to pay attention to the tones of regular words, and this is not indicated in the spelling, just like word stress isn't. And it gets even worse when you get to family names. For some reason, Astrid Lindgren's last name is pronounced "Lind3 gren4", but Fredrik Lindström's (Swedish linguist and comedian) is "Lind4 ström4". However, take solace in the fact that there only seems to be two variants: those beginning with third tone and those beginning with 4th. There are no words, I believe, beginning with any other tones, and once you get the first tone right, the others are predictable (though they depend on the number of other factors). * Using Mandarin tone markings. 1st: high level, 2nd: rising, 3rd: falling-rising, 4th: falling. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5143 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 14 of 25 03 May 2011 at 8:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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Don't worry. We have the same thing in Norwegian, and even if I agree with Ari that it is nice to get it right, I would not fret over it. If you get the rest right,this is ust the icing on the cake :-)
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| schoenewaelder Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5369 days ago 759 posts - 1197 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 15 of 25 03 May 2011 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The Assimil Swedish course begins with a quite substantial audio introduction to the pronounciation, which is pretty unusual (AFAIK), so presumably it is considered more difficult than average.
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| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6468 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 16 of 25 03 May 2011 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lista_över_svenska_ordaccentss kilda_minimala_par list of minimal pairs differented only by tone. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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