Feeling intimidated about learning Swedish? Don’t be—there are plenty of great courses to help you learn everything from the basics to advanced grammar and vocabulary skills.
Here, we’re breaking down which ones are fantastic resources versus the ones that are so-so, and even the ones you should totally avoid.
We’ll explain our top choices for learning Swedish (tier 1 picks), the runner-up choices (tier 2), the so-so options (third tier), and the ones that are not worth it (fourth tier choices).
Price: Personal plans start at $12.95/month or $6.95/month for a full year
Babbel uses a similar style to other language learning courses and apps (a bit like Duolingo), but its pricing is on point and the content is solid. If you’re anywhere from a beginner to intermediate Swedish speaker, you’ll likely feel comfortable with Babbel.
For foundational Swedish, Babbel is an excellent resource. Once you become more advanced, though, you’ll find it less useful. At the same time, you’ll need some conversational support since there’s not much verbal practice here.
Price: Free for the basic course, PLUS teacher-led courses start at $350
LearningSwedish.se is an all-around great resource for everything from verbal skills to reading and writing. It has exercises, videos, Quizlet flashcards, and level tests. There are three modules to work through, and there’s also a teacher-led session option (but it’s expensive).
One of the things we like about Learning Swedish is that it was created by the Swedish Institute and partners. So, you can expect good quality from this course.
Pros:
Completely free lesson options.
There’s an app for both Android and iOS.
Interactive flashcards for vocab study.
Cons:
The PLUS option is expensive (italki would be a cheaper option).
For now, only the first module is available on the app.
Price: Starts at $4/hour with an average of around $10/hour (ranges up to $50/hour)
If you’re the kind of learner who prefers to work one-on-one with an instructor, italki will be right up your alley. You can choose from teachers or tutors, both of which are knowledgeable in different ways, and pick an hourly rate that works for your budget.
Most of the time, teachers have professional educational experience, while tutors tend to be native speakers or are very advanced in Swedish. You can choose someone to work on specific skills or just have conversations with to practice your pronunciation.
Price: Some content is free, subscriptions start at $8 and range up to $47/month
For jump-starting your speaking and listening skills, SwedishPod101 is a great all-around resource. Hundreds of audio and video lessons make up the bulk of the materials, but there are vocabulary tools, flashcards, and lesson notes you can download.
You can take the content anywhere, which is helpful for learning on the go. And one significant highlight is that you can try it out for free—there’s a rotating selection of lessons you can access without paying a dime.
Price: Subscriptions cost $14.95 to $19.95/month. Unfortunately, subscriptions aren’t yet available for Swedish, though I suspect it’ll be added soon. Purchasing the level 1 course costs $199.95.
We love Pimsleur for learning many different languages, and it’s an excellent overall resource for speaking Swedish. You start with audio lessons that feature both female and male speakers, which gets you working on pronunciation and vocabulary immediately.
Duolingo is a more than adequate starting point for Swedish beginners. You’ll learn a lot of vocabulary through a variety of engaging exercises. From common phrases to basic sentence structure, Duolingo covers enough to help you communicate right away.
Of course, once you develop some higher-level skills, complementing your study with Memrise and some other more grammar-focused resources can round things out.
Memrise is one of our favorite resources because it’s free and has tons of content. There’s a paid option, which gives access to more than just the user-generated lessons, but the free option can help expand your vocabulary and grammar understanding, too.
Pairing Memrise with lessons through italki or a robust textbook supplement can help you build your Swedish speaking skills pretty effectively.
Price: A wide range of price points, but if you wait for a sale, courses average $10 each
You can find a course on Udemy for any subject, including different levels of and subjects in Swedish. Courses can last anywhere from one hour to 15 hours, and instructors are as diverse as the content offered.
Each course comes with lifetime access, and most instructors offer printable worksheets and other resources to add to your video-based study experience. Combining audio/video resources with some written supplements is an effective learning model, so Udemy can be a well-rounded option for learning Swedish.
Pros:
Lifetime access lets you revisit the content later.
You can choose a unit to address specific topics and vocabulary.
Udemy covers your purchase with a money-back guarantee, so you’ve got nothing to lose.
Cons:
Some courses are costly—but if you wait for a sale, you might get an excellent deal.
Each instructor (and their teaching style) is different, so you can never tell what you’re going to get.
FSI language courses vary in length and quality, and the Swedish option is a decent offering. It’s entirely free and includes 16 audio lessons (with A and B “tapes” for most sections). You can also download a PDF student text, which is outdated but still helpful as a reference.
There’s nothing modern or super high quality about FSI, but you can’t beat the quality of the instruction for a free offering.
Pros:
Completely free.
You can download the material and take it with you (or even print the PDF book).
There are both audio and text components for balanced study.
Cons:
The materials are really outdated.
The PDF student manual is somewhat poor quality—readable but clearly a scanned document.
Passable instruction for beginner Swedish speakers
Price: $7.99/mo for one language or $17.99/mo for all languages
A lot of users compare Mango Languages to Duolingo, but our judgment is that the biggest difference is the cost. Still, many libraries offer Mango for free, so it could be a worthwhile resource if you can get access.
Game-like instruction makes it fun to use Mango, even if you’re not developing super-advanced Swedish skills. If you’re studying multiple languages, Mango Languages is an even better choice since the repetitive format can help you pick up more than just Swedish.
Glossika has a ton of language options, which is the main highlight of the program. There are audio drills for listening and speaking plus comprehension. If you’re a beginner or intermediate speaker, you can pick up quite a bit of Swedish with the repetitive lessons.
The drawbacks, however, include the steep price—but it’s a worthwhile tradeoff if you’re working on multiple languages at a time.
Price: $11.99 for Start Swedish/$100 for Foundation Swedish
Unlike other Michel Thomas-branded courses, Swedish isn’t taught by master critic Michel himself. We weren’t fans of his overly critical style—but the conversational lesson format is a positive, and he doesn’t do the Swedish courses.
Roger Nyborg, a native Swedish speaker and teacher, leads both Start and Foundation Swedish. Hours of audio content makes up the bulk of each course, and you can stream or download the lessons.
Price: $36 for 3 months, $179 for 12 months or $199 one time for a lifetime subscription.
While Rosetta Stone might have been innovative back in the ‘90s, it’s not so today. Its picture-sorting teaching methods haven’t changed, and that means it’s boring and not engaging at all.
There’s a bit of reading and writing practice, but mostly the format stays the same, using picture matching to reinforce vocabulary. In our opinion, it’s boring and not worth the price.
Price: $9.99/month to $47.99/year for one language
Mondly covers the basics, but beyond that, we can’t recommend it. At this price point (or below), you can get a lot more Swedish skills with another program or combination of courses.
In short, the repetitive format is unengaging, and the lessons don’t seem to build on one another in a way that makes sense.
Price: $24.95/month or $149.95/year for one language. $49.99/month or $249.95/year for all languages.
Lots of languages are available with Transparent Language, but the quality of the materials doesn’t quite warrant the price. There’s not much in-depth Swedish instruction, and the teaching methods are severely lacking.
We can’t recommend Transparent Language, and the only thing it really does well is offers up a recording tool for pronunciation.
Whether you’re an absolute beginner or are already advanced in Swedish, our top picks for online courses can help you hone your skills. After all, becoming fluent requires the right resources—and fortunately, we’ve found them here. Have any recommendations? Share with us in the comments.
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I'm Nick Dahlhoff, the creator of All Language Resources. I'm not a super polyglot who speaks 20 languages. I'm not here to teach you how to learn a language - countless people are more qualified to do that than me. But, I have tried out an insane number of language learning resources. This site aims to be the most comprehensive and least biased place to figure out which language learning resources are worth using. To learn more about myself, the site, or our reviewing process, check out our about page.
