You can definitely get by in Sweden speaking only English. Don’t think I could stand doing that for 15 years, though! You’d still miss out on so much.

Hey, if you know two of the teachers, maybe you actually know my cousin’s wife directly. Here’s her web site.
http://www.asarydman.com/

pronunciation is definitely hard. but i think the grammar is, too. all the articles being different, some going at the end of words, negative clauses going in between words. other sentence structure with words all over the place. it’s really weird to me. maybe once i get more of a grip and have a real teacher, it’ll make more sense. right now, it’s a pretty confusing mess!

do you speak any swedish or have you been over there? my childhood best friend has an older brother who’s lived there for 15 years and never bothered to learn the language. that completely flummoxes me! i guess you don’t need to, since everyone there speaks english so well, but c’mon!

Pronunciation is by far the hardest part about learning Swedish for a native English speaker. The grammar is very similar to English, so there aren’t many big differences except for gendered nouns. No verb conjugations is a big plus!

http://www.apocalyptica.com/us

this summer, i was on tour with a swedish music group. i was traveling daily with about a dozen swedes for upwards of 2 months. i was well impressed with their incredible grasp of the english language; not just speaking, but their grammar, spelling, punctuation, et al. was all excellent.

i wanted to be respectful and learn the proper way to say their names; no one likes having their names mispronounced. i also would pick up on some vocabulary words and phrases. before i knew it, i was doing really well and they were impressed. one of the background singers is a vocal teacher at a similar music college like where i teach and she was my main coach.

3 weeks after the tour was over – and i hadn’t heard or spoken svenksa – i randomly ran into a swedish friend of mine in atlanta, at a music festival. i blew him away by speaking his native language and before we knew it, we spoke swedish for a half-hour.

i recently picked up a swedish phrase book/dictionary and a grammar book. i’m just flipping through them on my own. i’ll go through them a bit more extensively in the coming months and really test myself on vocabulary and phrases. the grammar and pronunciation will be more difficult. i don’t have anyone to skype with though and that would surely be helpful.

my plan is, once i feel as though i’ve gotten pretty good with these books on my own, to go out and find a private tutor. i’ve already looked it up and it seems like i can get good instruction here in town. i’d look at 50 2-hour lessons over the period of a year. i figure by then, i should be somewhat fluent and would go visit the country for a “holiday.”

after that, i’m gonna learn how to play the cello! : )

i’m working really hard at finishing my 2nd CD and starting to pay some attention to getting the 3rd CD composed. catching up with my ever expanding and already massive music collection, which includes cd’s, dvd’s & books. i’m also trying to learn the Swedish language and take care of a bunch of other work and non-work related projects.

so i definitely don’t need another sport to pass away the time!

nice.