More fun ways of learning and practicing Swedish – Part 1

Are you learning Swedish but running out of motivation? Or are you just looking for new, fun ways of learning and practicing? We have gathered even more of our best tips here, to help you take your Swedish language skills to the next level!

Get a language partner!

Find a language partner, for example through Kompis Sverige or Meetup, and practice. Kompis Sverige is an organization helping new Swedes to get in contact with established Swedes to help integration on an individual level by creating meetings between people. Kompis Sverige interview candidates to make a match and many people feel they have made new friends for life. You can also attend Språkcafé at a public library (Stockholms stadsbibliotek)

Break bread together

Invitationsdepartementet (United Invitations) is an initiative, started by our former language coach Ebba Åkerman, helping new Swedes to integrate better into the Swedish society by means of – shared meals as a way to meet and connect. The idea is simple: new Swedes are teamed up with established Swedes for a cultural exchange over dinner, in people’s homes. A great way of expanding your network and horizons, learning more about the Swedish culture and practicing the language, while having a great time and yummy food in an informal setting.

Practise storytelling

Choose a picture that you like and practice to describe it. What do you see in the picture? What do you think is the story behind the picture? Do this on your own or, even better, together with your peers or a Swedish native. Look up any words you don’t know – or ask a Swede – and write them down. Maybe this will even turn into your first short story in Swedish?

Be artistic

Draw pictures from the words you know or want to learn, for example with a special theme (maybe housing and furnishing). Write down the words for everything in the picture, or make a story about the picture, using all the words in the story.

Connect the dots

Practise your associative ability. You can do this in several ways. For example, you could compete with your peers to see who can come up with the greatest number of associated words starting from a word of your choice. You could also use this to learn new words and remember them. If you come across a new verb, look for a related noun and maybe there are adjectives/adverbs too, and vice versa. Learn the synonyms and antonyms of the new word. All of a sudden you have learned not just one new word, but several!

Gamify!

Make learning into a game. Your imagination is the limit. One way of gamifying learning could be to play our syntax/word order game. Do this exercise alone or with friends.
Preparations: write words you know on small pieces of paper and group them into their different word classes. Now, find (or make) a small box for each word class and write the name of the word class on the box. Next, put the notes in the correct boxes. Exercise/game: pick one word from each box and combine the words into sentences. Use as many of the words as possible. Focus on phrasing grammatically correct sentences. Each word used gives one point (1p) and correct word order gives three extra points (3p). If you want to challenge yourselves and add some extra excitement, you can choose to have a time limit, for example, 1 or 2 minutes per sentence. The game is over when all words have been used up and the boxes are empty. The one who has scored the most points is the winner.
(If you are still on a more basic level of Swedish, it might be helpful to have someone around who knows Swedish well, in order to correct the sentences and keep track of points scored.)

Another way could be to download our new mobile app “En or Ett”, play and learn the articles of more than 2000 Swedish nouns!

Read more about “En or Ett” here.

Stay tuned for more advice…