From English to Swedish 1: A basic Swedish textbook for English speaking students (black and white edition)

Bengt and Carol Hällgren's "From English to Swedish" series is remarkably user-friendly without sacrificing quality and rigor in their presentation and explanation of grammar and vocabulary, all while being infused with fascinating insights into “Swedish mentality”. Moreover, the fun and varied practice exercises are truly worth their weight in gold.Delightfully illustrated, their books tell a fun and relatable story of cross-cultural encounters. One doesn't even need to be an exchange student to want to know what will happen next as the American protagonist, Ashley Chapman, navigates her year in Sweden with the Lundström family. I find it charming that the authors have drawn from their very own extensive cross-cultural experiences to inform the story they tell. It makes the books so much more "real" and "alive" than most conventional beginner and intermediate language textbooks.The Hällgrens’ work is truly a labor of love, as can be seen from the fact that they painstakingly recorded Youtube videos in which they guide their readers through the pronunciation of every single vocabulary list, spanning the full thirty chapters across both books. It's also possible to follow along with their recordings of various segments of the story, though it's necessary to buy the books, of course, to have access to the full story.As a foreign language educator myself, I can say with much enthusiasm and confidence that this series is the real deal! I looked far and wide. There aren't many quality resources for learning Swedish to begin with, and of the ones I did find, this series truly stood out from the rest for all of the reasons above. I just ordered Book 2 and I feel ready to hit the ground running when I move to Sweden in the fall. Bengt and Carol, tack så mycket / thank you so much!

This is a very easy way to quickly pick up a sense of the Swedish language! I have learned other languages from many other books, and this is likely my favorite. It tells a story and introduces vocabulary, expressions, and very basic grammar along the way, which is so much more pleasant than endless exercises of hundreds of vocab words or grammar (which never seem to really sink in). I particularly like that this books tries to introduce the Swedish culture alongside the language, which makes the book particularly valuable for someone that is curious about Sweden in general.I agree with the other reviews that learning from a book makes it hard to learn how to pronounce words correctly, so I would like to see more footnotes on many more words that don't sound like they are spelled, to help the reader. The book itself does a fantastic job, considering it is a book and not an actual Swedish class, so I can give it no less than 5 stars!

I'm so grateful for this book! Thank you to the creators so much for making it so interactive with the videos, helping with the pronunciation, and offering a variety of activities to engage for different ways of learning (songs, stories, vocal lists, quizzes, vocal practice along with the videos, etc.).

This is a great book. It takes you gradually through an easy introduction to Swedish. It uses good dialogues and a good use of basic vocabulary (unlike some other Swedish instruction books that introduce you to things like "cheese platter" and "wig" before introducing "Jag forstar inte" and "Det ar bra").The best part of this book is that it lives up to its promise: It teaches you Swedish using the similarities between Swedish and English first to make you feel comfortable in the language.The only things I didn't like were the little cartoon notes explaining the things that are harder in Swedish than they are in English. I didn't find these very encouraging. It would be better to just focus on how easy Swedish is for an English speaker than to regularly remind the learner about these challenges early on in their learning journey.

This is probably the best book I've ever used to learn Swedish. Most of the ones you'll find or have recommended to you are designed for work in a classroom setting, so on their own they are. . .well, a bit annoying. Since most of the others are printed in Sweden, they are also frightfully expensive. This one is a bit more old school in method (probably like texts you might have used 20 years ago), but that method is probably the best if you are working on your own since you aren't left wondering why this or what is that. The content is modern, an American girl studying for a year in Sweden, and the format of each chapter is reading - vocabulary - grammar. Works very well. I went on to Book 2 and finished that too. I am now on to reading Swedish lättläst (easy read) novels and non-fiction books, and can read the Swedish lättläst newspaper, 8 Sidor, online without any difficult.One word of advice: there are both color and black and white versions of this book. Get the black and white version and save a bundle. If you are gettting the Kindle version, it will also be a significantly smaller download. While on that topic, having the physical book in your hand, rather than the Kindle version, is probably a better idea when it comes to this book since you can mark it up easily. Mine looks like a battlefield, which in this case is a good sign. lol

One of the best resources out there for those of us trying to learn Swedish. Very organized and clear, and a lot of fun to work through!

I am super picky when it comes to learning material. If it isn’t in the right format or in a way that catches my attention, it’s like my brain just turns off to learning from it. My fiancé is a Swede so I’m learning for him. Definitely a great book for beginners, but only if you’re comfortable with pronunciation. If not you can always type the vocabulary into google translate to ensure you’re pronouncing everything correctly. It covers grammar, vocabulary, reading comprehension, and more.