Now for those of you that were interested and clicked the thread, I don't really mean for you to answer that question by just simply saying to study.

I'll give you a little background first; I have been teaching myself Swedish for the past 6 months, I've made lots of Swedish friends online and I have even visited the country once (and many more times to go) whilst staying at my girlfriend's home and socialising with her parents. Though I hadn't learned nearly enough so we mostly kept to English there.

I have and still do study the grammar very diligently, because I can't learn in the way they tell you to "go to the country, live there and surround yourself in the language and culture". Trust me if I could I would but not as a student; I hope to complete my bachelors in Computer Science in England then go do a Master's course in Gothenberg in Sweden afterwards.

I can say quite a bit, nothing too complex I guess; if any of you can speak any swedish feel free to post something here in Swedish I'll give you a go.

So this brings me to my question. Have you learned another language without starting from birth or having it picked it up easily due to family? If so, how? How did you do it and is there anything you can suggest to help a person with little downtime to be able to communicate in another language?

Tack så mycket. Om du kan hjälp mig vänligen gör

Language is essentially associating sounds with meaning which is simple. When I was going into grade 5, i could speak english and polish fleuntly, my french was good enough to communicate and I could do bits and pieces of german having gone there a couple times.
personally, I found that thinking of an english counterpart of what I was trying to say and associating objects with words was how I learned french. tbh,
Use the language as often as you can. If you meet someone Swedish try making conversation with them. Study and actual use of a language are quite different as people don't actually always exactly obey grammar perfectly. Expressions and whatnot change how you speak a lot, making it difficult to actually be able to get your point accross clearly if you're reciting a textbook.

Associate words with meaning.

Swedish looks kind of similar to English.

"Om du kan hjälp mig vänligen gör"
... you can halp me ...

Grammar is not that complex either and similar to English.


Use ankii spaced repetition to pick up knowledge. Don't just use it for vocabulary, the hardest part of a language is intuition, so you need to learn general phrases so that grammar is subconscious (if you have to stop to think about word order or infinitive forms then you are not going to be very good).

Associating words with meaning is good. Don't anchor your new language to your old one. Don't think "hjälp means help", think "hjälp is what I say when I need hjälp!"

Some Swedish can be translating using lazy text.
We will use ImmortalPigs statement as an example:
Om du kan hjälp mig vänligen gör
Well, let's start off with du: a lot of people say ju, so I got that one imediately.
kan is how a lot of people think can is spelled.... so that is also fairly easy.
hjalp looks exactly like halp, which is what everyone uses.
mig looks like mi, which is what 6-year-olds with laptops write for me.

I cannot translate vänligen gör better than this:
vänligen looks a lot like vagina to my dirty mind.
gör looks like it says gore. :/
Vagina gore!
I need help....


Can someone reward me for my stupidity? please?

I'm Canadian and speak English, with some French. I study French in school and I am taking it all through high school. I enjoy the subject, and I really want to learn the language. I learn in the classroom, and then translate things I read or hear in my head sometimes when I'm at home. For example, if I get a song stuck in my head, I'll try to translate and sing it in French in my head. One of my only problems is vocabulary. Sometimes it's hard to remember words. Then, I have to just look it up and try to remember it for next time. They don't really teach vocabulary in school, you're just supposed to pick it up haha. I can write and speak French when it's pre-written, as well as understand it (as long as they talk slow and don't use really obscure words). My problem is thinking of, and speaking the language on the spot.

So yeah, try and translate what everybody around you is saying into your desired language.

Uh, i should probably point out that that sentence isn't very accurate.
I don't have much to say about self-studies though.

Which sentence?

And thanks for the help everybody, that's the problem with learning this language. As a first time language learner I can't really relate it to anything else but I do have to sit there like a robot and do infinitive forms and what not for sentences I have never delved into.

When it comes to the more easy stuff like "I have learned, I want this, can we go there? maybe I will play LoL with you if you-- going off track).

The Swedish grammar is as you said Pig, very similar to English. But only for the more simple matters like the sentence I used. When it comes to talking about anything a level higher than that everything get's a little weird.. I'm sure people who have picked up German as a second language could possibly understand what I mean :s Logic doesn't seem to apply to it although clearly there must be, it's just my ability to understand these rules and why things are the way they are that stop me in my tracks when it comes to learning.

It was nice to get some insight on how others have learned the language.

I just use words everyday, I have a session of swedish conversation (typing) every night for 2 hours and we only hop into English when it is absolutely necessary. I have 5 years to learn the language so I'm not in a rush, and I know 100% that I won't be even nearly fluent until I have lived there a while. Just a nice hobby that fuels my goal

Anymore useful info is appreciated though ^^
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A bad word for vagina (another word for a cat) in swedish would be fitta.
Add an "n" on the end of that word and there you are using the definitive singular form if you want to refer to one particular one ;o xd

dw, I'm also in need of help
jag behöver också hjälp

Tack så mycket. Om du kan hjälpa mig vänligen gör det
The problem is that you've been taking the english and directly translating it. Help in english means both to help someone and to recieve help but in swedish we have different forms.
(I suck at grammar so don't expect a detailed explaination or anything)

Anyways good luck.

Haha thanks, that was the first time I used the word vänligen to be honest ^^'

Well, taking the english in my mind and directly translating it for that sentence mostly works.
For other things I can correctly do the grammar, such as V2 word order
it seems a bit like this in your language

suddenly called my mum
instead of say
suddenly my mum called
verb must come after adverb if sentence begins with adverb followed by subject.

uh and the other one being
subject verb object
so like in my sentence

jag behöver också hjälp
instead of what I first did naturally without thinking
jag också behöver hjälp

getting used to swedish is truly a brain breaking thing for me ^^'

Thank you!

If you can remember SVO and V2 I think you can nail the grammar, after that it's remembering plural forms, genitives, etc, and vocab ^^