How to pronounce the Swedish K? - Swedish pronunciation - Learn Swedish in a Fun Way
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- Опубліковано 14 лип 2021
- How do you pronounce the Swedish letter K? The answer is not that simple.
Swedish uses a lot of the letter K. And it has 2 sound depending on what comes after it!
The Swedish K sound like a K if followed by a back vowel also called hard vowel.
But Swedish pronounces K as a "sh" sound if followed by a front vowel also called soft vowel.
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These are a few things that makes swedish interesting for me: the suprise prononzation.
I’m here learning Swedish after watching young royals and this video really help me not having anymore headaches
Nice! Great way of training.
Happy to help 😁
ME TOO OMG lmao
@@conyjara6124 SAME
haha sameee
Same!!
Not lazy, just logical. Out of the 3 Nordic languages I’m studying (the other two being Norwegian and Danish), you guys have the clearest pronunciation and accentuation.
Impressive that you are studying all those languages! And thanks for sharing about your experience. Had no idea that Swedish was the clearest in pronunciation and accentuation. Super interesting!
Absolutly! Great idea :)
@@FunSwedish Du missade: Kåt.
@@FunSwedishbtw it’s true. I have just started learning Swedish, decided to do it with Norwegian at the same time (saw somewhere a piece of advice it might be easier to study 2 languages from the same group in parallel), and I can say pronunciation in Swedish is truly clearer.
Maybe once I’ll extend my strength for Danish as well, but not for the time being 🙃
@@daianasheludkevych3335 It seems that after the Kalmar Union was dissolved and Gustav Vasa had defeated the Danes, older forms were purposely re-introduced into Swedish to make it different from Danish and Norwegian. Note that the Swedish name for Sweden ironically is still Danish, though - Sverige. Since the long form is 'Svea rike' it really ought to be 'Sverike', but it isn't. 'Rige' is the Danish form. Alternately it should be 'Sverie', which was an alternative form that still existed to the late 1800s. It might also be a so called hypercorrection, like when older people in the Stockholm region say "Det snögar" instead of "Det snöar" (If they actually still say so. I'm from Bohuslän, so I only know that they said so a few generations ago). But still strange that 'rike' becomes 'rige'.
Swedish sounds so Sweet and pleasant to ears for some reason
Aw, I am glad you think so.
@@FunSwedish : ) ❤
A great word for this rule is kanske(maybe). K(hard k) as it is followed by an A, then a sh-k as it is followed by an E.
thank you so much. so helpful video again 🥰
“But kex is a little bit better” 🤣🤣🤣
😁😁
Thank you for your amazing little lessons! It was funny to see the word (or is it purely a noun?) Keso orrowing from the Spanish word for cheese “queso” 😀
I was waiting for the Kex explanation. Did not disappoint! 😍😁☺️
...OCH KIOSK.
You are Great, Daniella!
Jag njöt av att höra Göteborgs och Stockholms uttalsskillnad för keks
I like the way you teach. Amazing!
Glad to hear that!
Very very helpful 👍
Tack så mycket för videon! Grazie tante per il video :)
😍😍😍
Tack så mycket!
You are a great swedish language teacher lovely Daniella
Thank you!
@@FunSwedish you are welcome my dear by Friendship? 💋on your💋
@@FunSwedish ooopssss sorry for the 💋 on your Lips or is that okay by you?
Sweetdreams sweet lovely Daniella 💛💙💙💛🇸🇪🇸🇪🇸🇪💋💋💋
Vacker video. I learned few new words with the right pronunciation. Thank you. I watched the whole video for Kex though 😀
Great job! Happy you liked the video! If you want to learn more Swedish with us then you can check out our Swedish courses.
Zoom live courses: elansutbildning.com/
Pre-recorded courses: elansutbildning.teachable.com/
This helped me so much! I couldn't figure out what K to use... now I just think of the ä, ö as having nose holes above them to remind me :P
Nose holes 😂. Amazing way of remembering.
Tack👍🏻
How romantic your teching style.... Mind blowing. Bless for you.
Happy to hear that!
Amazing. That Molly Sanden song has been breaking my mind for years 😂😂
Think smart, not hard. I love it.
The best way to think of the K is actually a C, but different vowels to make a SH
I can only watch Young Royals in dubbed English as my Netflix does not have the Swedish version. I think it might help me learn the language faster. Swedish is such a beautiful language.
终于找到一个讲课不乏味地老师 。 语言学校老师怎么叫我都听不懂。你授课方式灵活多样，举例生动幽默，条理清晰，讲解很透彻。赞❤
😍😍
没错！
没错！
Kör and kör, too
Kör, sounds like shore, is drive, and I think motivated going? Like 'Nu kör vi' is literally 'now drive us' but it's more like a motivaltional 'let's go'!
Kör, sounds like core, is a loan word for choir.
Exactly! 👏👏
In any proniounciation, Kex are DELICIOUS!
Hi, Thank you for the video of K. I am wondering if Skugga is a Swedish word and it's pronounced as Sa-kook-ja.
Can u make a video about how to pronouce the "sh/kh" sound like in "sked" or "sköldpadda"? I'm having a hard time pronouncing it 😬
I was going to suggest that 🙌🏼✨
I understand that is quite difficult from English, but the sh/kh is the quite soft G in Dutch where we really have a hard G also.
Good one! Don’t they already have that though?
We Dutch people find that one easy btw. It sounds exactly like our G sound with a bit of extra air added to it. Lucky me 😊
That one is coming soon 😁
if you can pronounce Juan in spanish, then you are gtg.
Amo tus videos!! Muchas gracias. No sabía que "keso" era "queso" en español. Pensé que "queso" se traducía como "ost" en sueco, ¿o ese es otro tipo de queso? Muchas gracias como siempre porque cuando tengo una duda, siempre me aparece la explicación desarrollada por ti n.n saludos desde México.
Me alegro saber que te ayuden nuestros videos para resolver dudas :) Tienes razón que "ost" es la palabra general para queso pero hay otro tipo de queso que se llama "keso" (más como cottage cheese) y se pronuncia igual como en español.
Interesting, thank you!
It’s notable that the difference in pronunciation of K letter depending on a vowel that follows can be seen with letter C in Latin, also pronounced as [k] before [a, o, u] (calendula, corda, culpa] and as [ts] before [e, i] (caeli, circa). It’s still reflected in English, for instance: cobra, cafe, cooperative VS center and city. It some other languages they just use different letters to mark different sounds.
So it completely made sense to me with Swedish K as [k] and [~sh] now :)
Funny to see those Roman traces in Swedish as well (and makes me wonder how was it with the language before Latin influence 🤔)
I believe more than likely convergent... Like how Latin went from Hard C's to soft, W's to V's. Germanic languages mostly repeated hit replay. How Th became either T's or D's.
You are thinking of so called Church Latin. In classical Latin the C was always hard. Hence 'Kaiser' in German, which is almost as 'Caesar' was pronounced 2000 years ago. The Germans still pronounce it almost like their forefathers being the Roman emperor's bodyguards did. And the V sounded like a modern English W.
Make a video about pronouncing skjorta, sköldpadda, sjuksköterska.. etc :D
We have one here!
ua-cam.com/video/RG_INusqsUY/v-deo.html
@@FunSwedish tack tack 🤗🤗❤️
Tack for your videos! I'm, well, some sort of intending to learn Swedish 🙂 ... and I#d like to comment:
the "k" as used in "katt" - it is the same role as in German. You mentioned a "borrowed word" from English - but I think katt (in German: Katze) origins from the Germanic languages, and as far as I know, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian are also based on the old Germanic things.
So: it's no wonder that "K" is frequently spoken as in "katt".
And, funny enough: here, in Germany, IKEA is a well knowned place to go (should it be pronounced as "i-she-a" ? 🙂). In its restaurants, they offer "Köttbullar", in German: expressed with the "katt" - K ... and when I had the luck for having a short trip to Swede, I learned that it is spoken as "shöttbüllar" ... ! And even more: kickling , and, with a certain similarity: skinka ...
In brief: I love to be in contact with Swedish lessons, like yours! Tack så mycket!
Hej hej! Not Danielle herself, but I've been learning Swedish for a while so I will help) IKEA is pronounced as ee-kay-ah, with a nasa 'ee' sound. Köttbullar is pronounced as you wrote, chicken as spelt as kyckling) The difference here, why 'k' has a 'k-uh' and 'sh-uh' sound is because of the vowels that come right after the k. It has to do with where the vowels are produced from within the vocal cavity)
One thing I discovered is that in Swedish (and English too) people put an emphasis on the consonnants, so it kind of sounds like a K followed by a H. So, for example "att kolla" sounds like "kholla". I guess English speakers have no problem with it, but in the Romance languages, we put the emphasis on the vowels. So it is an aspect of the pronounciation that I struggle with. No language teacher ever told me that, but I know it because I studied phonetics. Even though I am aware of this phenomenon, it is hard to pronounce well all the time in a real conversation.
can u explain more? with my dialect i see 0% of H when i say this. Can it be the width of the mouth or something? Kolla K is K - no doubt.
@@brickan2 It is hard to explain, but yeah it is how the "k" is pronounced that makes a kind of "h". When people say a "k" both in Swedish and English, the sounds comes from the back of the mouth, and you do almost nothing with your lips when you say it, the sound is aspired. And it is not done only with the "k" but also with "p" and "t" also.
In French the sound is unaspired and the lips are rounded just as much as when we pronounced an "o". The "k" is palatalised in French. The k is prononced much stronger, but in French the stress is often on the vowels. If "att kolla" was pronounced in French we would pronounced the "k" very minimally and the stress would be on the vowel like that: "kOlla".
To compare
Listen to this word in Swedish : en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sv-kon.ogg
And this word in English: forvo.com/word/call/
And now listen to this word in French: fr.forvo.com/word/le_cours/
I hope my explanations are clearer. 😊 It is a very subtle difference anyway, but when one wants to be accent-free, it is good to know.
Funny thing is that yes this mostly true. Though I know I don't speak standard American and notice a slight favortism of vowels in Southern or over rhotic due to where I live has more Irish influence. So words with two stressed vowels lose a consonant when there's two so a city becomes from a standard cidy, to ci'Y. Butter turns into bU(y)ER A y semi-vowel not combination. Due to more contact with Romance speakers and 2 non standard varieties if English being spoken in the same area... It makes saying dental fricitives difficult to discern thought and fought with a change of vowel pitch and stress. Also I swear everyone is speaking faster these days leading to these changes. Also it makes pin and pen annoying
Noticing quite a few letter (combinations) that have the shh sound👀 But now I know that it's because of the vowels that follow after the letter(s) and how they're pronounced, that influences how the letter right before the vowel is pronounced. And if anything, Swedish, Russian and Ukrainian have the clearest pronunciation. I can't say the same for some English speakers🤷♀️ And yes, k-ex does make more sense then sh-ex😌
Great! You got it! :)
Pronunciation in Czech is also quite clear, but there’s difficulty on the level of consonants 🙃
@@daianasheludkevych3335 I was going to put that all Slavic languages sound just about as clear as Swedish, but then I realised I'm not so familiar with Polish and Czech.. and Latvian and Bulgarian.. and a few others, so I just put down my Mother Tongue and the one other Slavic language I did study 😂😂
@@aliceberethart If I haven't remembered wrongly, there is also very slight similarities in certain grammar rules, pronunciation, etc, between Scandinavian and Slavic languages, because of a crossover of introduction of cultures to each other at one point in time, which may have contributed to the above and the clarity or slight familiarity
German, Italian and Spanish also have pretty clear pronunciation. English is totally messed up. It comes from the fact that it went through the Great Vowel Dance, just like the Nordic languages, but partly the Great Vowel Dance is still going on in English and partly authors and printers started changing the spelling to reflect the new pronunciation but then changed it back to the old spelling or changed it to a spelling that words never had in the first place.
Aha!
NOW I understand "Linköping"
Awesome! happy to help! 😊
Kex och kex. 🙂 I Norrbotten heter det som i Stockholm. Inte säker på att det gäller i hela Norrbottens Län.
Super intressant! Tack, då vet vi att kex med k-ljud även funkar i Norrbotten. Kanske mer i södra Sverige som man säger shex?
Kön with the "normal" K sound in french is the word "queue". Maybe it comes from there
Yes, I agree! Could be that we borrowed it from French like many other words.
@@FunSwedish and make french want to learn swedish 😊
what you call "be silent sound" I call "the Baltic sound" - I'm Polish and as far as I know, the Polish language is the only official Slavic language among 13, using this sound... I guess it's a matter of geography because historically speaking, the predecessors of Poles are the only Slavs who were in constant touch with the predecessors of Swedes, Danes & northern Germans (southern Germans & Austrians don't use this sound)... we have a special "ś" letter for this sound, so a Pole who has no clue about the Swedish language will write: "śemi, śina, śiklink, śarlek, śook" hearing the words "kemi, Kina, kyckling, kärlek, kök" :)
Same in Russian...
Then this will be easier for you I guess! 😊
I need help with the Swedish “I” like at the end of the word “demokrati. It’s a hard one for me to pronounce.
Hej! Check out this video we made about "i" maybe it helps ua-cam.com/video/aS9xpqjoXmE/v-deo.html
Tack! Ha ha, kex är bättre med sh. Jag är från Skåne och vi där nere i södern håller också på den svenska versionen. En riktigt bra video. Jag har delat den med mina engelska vänner. En fråga till: Har du pratat om tonfallet, som i 'den heliga anden' (spirit) vs 'den heliga anden' (duck)?
Haha, ja. Även om jag säger k med k-ljud så håller jag med om att det nästan borde vara sh-ljud eftersom det följer regeln. Tack för att du delar med dina engelska vänner. Ja, vi har pratat lite om det i denna video ua-cam.com/video/17jcpsyDgII/v-deo.html&ab_channel=FunSwedish
Thank you what about this"kissa" and "kyssa"
Check out her Valentine's Day video: ua-cam.com/video/Pc6S8GEYyXU/v-deo.html
@@hochstapler tack tack
To bad there isn't a fun Swedish from Dutch. Dutch and Swedish are much closer than English and Swedish and sometimes have a hard time in translate Swedish trough English to Dutch by using for example Duolingo.
I understand the feeling. If we knew Dutch we would make one for you!
Oh fun than there is kon(cow) pronounced like cone in English like ice cream cone?
Yes! Very close 😂
Can I have some explanations about the word "Människor" and its pronounciation please ?
I once met a Swedish couple while on vacation, and I told them that I have ancestors from Blekinge. I said Bleshinguh, but was corrected to say Blekinguh instead. Is that more of a local custom or dialect?
No, that is standard Swedish.
It's because it's a compound of Blek+inge. Blek is Swedish for "pale" and might mean "white". Blekinge was called so because of the water along its coast is almost "white" by sunny weather. It's cognate with 'Bela' in Belarus ("White Russia") and Belgorod ("White city").
BTW: Blekinge was mistakenly given to Denmark when drawing up the first border between the countries in the 1200s. It's not an original part of Skåneland but would rather be a part of Småland. This is not commonly known, I think.
Why is "U" a back vowel if it's pronounced almost as a front one? Was it earlier a really back [u]?
Yes, the Swedish u sounded like the German until around 1400 or so.
C often sounds like S, like citron
kul i ett skjul med ett hjul i jul
How do you say, I love you in Swedish?
Very interesting! Keso comes from the Spanish 'queso', which sounds literally like you pronounced keso!
What about kö as in English queue?
Great question! Kö is a borrowed word from French originally. And those have a tendency to break the normal Swedish rule since they are borrwed words :) Same thing with "keps".
@@FunSwedish My impatience got the better part of me. You explained everything clearly as always towards the end of your video. In just few days after I got a wind of your videos, I have learnt a lot from them. Thank you very much. Will like to get your video courses as soon as I can.
Is 'kissa' (to pee) a non-swedish word as we pronounce it with K but not sh sound?
Exactly, it is an exception because it is a borrowed word from another language (romani I think).
In my view, it is English that has made the mistake of holding on to Latin orthography. K is more natural for Germanic languages, and it’s funny that you mention Canada, because that name comes from the Iroquois tribal word _Kanata_ , meaning village. 😊
Thanks for sharing! That is very interesting.
And the obsession with the letter K has only gotten more exceptions with the letter K not making making the Sh sound before front vowels in words like Kex, Kille, two ways of pronounced Kör, etc. and students confusing the Sh for a [k] sound and vice versa
And one of those sounds that could be written with the less ambiguous Tj and the other with Q (without U).
Gotta make sure you remember that kissa is a borrowed word otherwise it sounds an awful lot like kyssa 🤣
Haha , yes 🤣
Wikipedia says that it's a Swedish but onomatopoetic word.
☺️☺️☺️👏👏👏
🙂
wouldn't kex also be a borrowed work from the German work "keks"? so that's why it doesnt follow the rule
Rather English "cakes" but yes, still true.
Don’t you have live online classes?
Yes! We do :)
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Pre-recorded courses: elansutbildning.teachable.com/
Let us know if you have any questions :)
I was here for Swedish k submachine gun
Hey 😊 i want to learn swdish but can't 😒
We can definetly help you with that 😁.
Our goal is to make Swedish fun and easy to learn.
If you want to learn in a more structured way, you can try our video courses.
Here it the link to our 100% beginners course. Check it out and you will be learning Swedish in no time 😜
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You can do it! Nu kör vi!
Kvinna?
Är "en kille" även ett lånat ord?
Precis, troligtvis så är det så (det finns lite olika teorier varifrån det kommer).
@@FunSwedish Det troligare är att det gamla uttalet på något sätt har bevarats eller att k:et är hårt för att det finns ett kortspel med samma namn med mjukt k. Wiktionary säger att det kommer från 'killing', ungefär som 'kid' på engelska. Vi har ju kvar det gamla uttalet av o i ord som 'sova' och 'kort' (adjektivet), som är helvenska ord.
❤❤❤❤❤❤🎉
Then how to say IKEA????
I kod slova K kod prefiksa se kaže Češko slovo Ř.
How about names like Kikki Danielsson? That K is a k sound
Great question. Names can sometimes break the general k-rule because they are not Swedish names originally. Kikki is (normally) a nickname for Kristina / Christina.
@@FunSwedish tack! And there are also some words like enkelt, the k is a k-ljud
Brirish: love
Russian: lubov
German: liebe
Swedish: kärlek
French : mon chéri, charité. English : I care for you, charity.
Why Swedish don't use "c" instead "k"?, "k" is better when the language uses "k" to reprsent always /k/, if it doesn't happen with some vowels or consonants, is better to use "c"
Scotland?!
So kiosk sounds like shiosk
Det finns också något som heter "KK". Det betyder en intim men icke bindande relation mellan två människor. Bäst att inte använda det här uttrycket bland andra människor om man inte vill skapa en stor bestörtning 🤭😳
Köra
👏
I’m here learning Swedish after watching young royals and this video really help me not having anymore headaches
😂 That is great to hear