Learning to Speak Swedish
 

<BR>We will be hosting a Swedish family this Summer who's son will be marrying my niece. While we are looking forward to meeting them at the wedding and knowing that their English is very limited and our Swedish, well....non-existant, I'm hoping to help family relations by learning a few words and phrases that I may even use at the wedding and after. Trouble is that I'm not having much success in finding such learning material in any of our book stores in Canada. I've tried Coles, Indigo and Chapters but they don't have much of a choice, if any at all. I'd appreciate any book (or tape, which I prefer to use in my car) suggestions and possibilities on where I may get them from. Thanks !

I liked the &quot;Colloquial Swedish&quot; book and tape set. Unfortunately I never studied it seriously enough to figure out what my relatives were saying. <BR><BR>Have you tried Amazon.com? Their selection is huge and I've never had problems with their site or service.

Hi<BR><BR>It may go better than you think.<BR><BR>English has been the official 2nd language since the 50's. It is widely used, particularly by the young. English language TV and films are not dubbed into Swedish ........ they are shown in the original version and subtitled.<BR><BR>Peter<BR>ex Swedish resident)<BR>http://tlp.netfirms.com<BR><BR>

Mathieu, are you sure that their English is limited? Usually Swedes speak good English. I speak normally Swedish with Swedes, but sometimes I change into English if the topic is difficult, because my Swedish is a little worse than my English. They have never had any difficulty in changing the language.<BR><BR>But if you want to be polite and learn a few words, I also recommend you take a look at Amazon.

I think Pimsleur books are outstanding.<BR><BR>http://www.multilingualbooks.com/pimsleur.html<BR><BR>Good luck.

I agree with Snoopy. Pimsleur is great. You can order their products from Amazon.ca and, once they get the product in stock, it arrives in a day or two. I'd recommend that you combine the Pimsleur tapes with a basic Swedish phrase book, so that you can look up what you're learning to say (I know Pimsleur is turning in his grave as I say this because he believed in a pure audio method, but I need to see what I'm saying and not just hear it).

Oh - and Amazon generally is much cheaper than Indigo's website for these materials, and it has better selection.