Over the past 2.5 months, I’ve been devoting some of my free time to learning Swedish. At some point along the way, I made it into the top 2% of language learners with Duolingo. Foreign languages are one of my many passions and I’ve picked up a few in my 33 years on this planet. At one point I was fluent in German. This skill runs in my family. One of my great grandparents spoke seven of the dang things.
As a writer, Swedish appealed to me from my interest in the Norse and now Sweden is becoming relevant to current events. It’s granted me insight into my Norse characters, Kori and Idunn. Odin may have spoken it as a native Swede as some of the sources attest. So I thought I’d try my hand at learning it to stave off boredom and expand my skills. There are things I want to read in Swedish academia, analysis of the runestones, deeper delves into topics that have captured my interest. So I’m trying my best. I hope to follow this with Norwegian, Finnish, and Icelandic. We’ll see how far I get into these successor languages of the Viking world.
Swedish is fun, with its singsong cadence making it a joy to speak. It’s like a weird mix of English and German, with many elegant aspects that have made it easier to learn than others I’ve tried (I’m looking at you, Gaelic).
I wrote this post in haste on my phone yesterday so please excuse the typos. The bottom line is that I’ve been learning Swedish and enjoying the helvete out of it.
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