I just had my first Swedish lesson today.

[Jim LotFP]

I'd like to inform everybody that EVERY SWEDISH FUCKING VOWEL SOUNDS THE SAME, except for the I, but that's in disguise.

o u ö å y

a e ä

i

Here's how it was explained to us.

The difference between o and u:
"ooooooo" vs "ooooooo"

The difference between u and ö:
"ooooooo" vs "ooooooo"

The difference between u and y:
"ooooooo" vs "ooooooo"

How can anything be so specific? I can't hear a difference, and when I was repeating back, not making any difference as far as I can tell, the teacher was all "yes!"

I would like to use these same teaching techniques in teaching English to somebody, and then play them a conversation from Orlando, Florida between an old local, a tourist from Brooklyn, and a 7-11 cashier, and see how many hundreds of vowels they think are present in the English language.

OK, rant off.

 

[Maron]

 

[Occam's Razor]

...and we in Germany are told that the English vowel-system is the most confusing...

 

[Therionized]

English is the most confusing in general I would imagine it borrows from everything you almost have to be multi-lingual to speak English it's so bastardized

 

[Nefilim]

I just spent three months in China. THAT'S hard.

Swedish is easy

O - Like in "fool"

U - more like in "you" (or the scottish pronounciation of "you" anyhow)

Ö - like in "nerd", which actually exists in swedish, spelled as "nörd".

Å - "awe", Exactly like that.

Y - A bit tricky. Hmm come to think about it, it actually sounds like the "y" in "Tricky". Or Chlorofyll.

A - Like in "Aaargh"/"Darn" OR like in "man"/"crap"

E - A bit tricky too. Sounds like the E in "beer" mostly.

Ä - A bit like "E". Like the difference between "beer" and "bear". (bear being the "ä"-word).

I - "need" or "steal" maybe... or for the gamers out there: "Wii".

Now, start whopping up some cool swedish metal lyrics!

 

[breeding death]

Jim lotFP

And you come from Finland!
the most disturbing language on earth...except for russian and korean offcourse

 

[Therionized]

I've been sayin' Dan's last name wrong for years then lol I always went with Swan-o lol I didn't know what a Ö sounded like

 

[paradoxile]

Jim lotFP

And you come from Finland!
the most disturbing language on earth...except for russian and korean offcourse

what about Icelandic...i've been told it's far more difficult than Suomi

 

[Kenneth R.]

lol amazing swedish lesson

 

[Androz]

I've always readed Ö like a mix of spanish's sound for O and U

 

[Jim LotFP]

Jim lotFP

And you come from Finland!
the most disturbing language on earth...except for russian and korean offcourse

I live in Finland. I was born and lived for 30 years in the States. I take Finnish classes in the fall. I'm so screwed.

 

[Occam's Razor]

English learners know this:

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

 

[Therionized]

English learners know this:

I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!

Good stuff lol I like how demeaning the end is lol

 

[paradoxile]

I learned a little pronounciation from the only Songs in Swedish I have lyrics to...that is some Tom Nouga songs and Mordet i Grottan(Murder in a cave)

I think it's about time to resurrect the old "Den Svenska Tråden"

 

[Nostalgiaplatz]

I learned a little pronounciation from the only Songs in Swedish I have lyrics to...that is some Tom Nouga songs and Mordet i Grottan(Murder in a cave)

I think it's about time to resurrect the old "Den Svenska Tråden"

Try stuff by Vintersorg, as well.

 

[paradoxile]

Try stuff by Vintersorg, as well.

One step ahead of you