Complete Swedish Beginner to Intermediate Course: Learn to read, write, speak and understand a new language with Teach Yourself (Complete Language Courses)

I speak both Italian and Brazilian Portuguese and have a C1 CILS certification in Italian. I have friends that I speak to in both languages who do not speak English well and pursue several hobbies through these languages almost exclusively. I am stating this simply to demonstrate that I have used a lot of self-study resources for foreign languages and I have been successful with at least two languages. I am a firm believer that I do not have any specific gift for language learning and that anyone will be successful if they make engaging with the language as it is used by native speakers a daily priority and also have friendships, even if just Internet friendships, that are lived through the language they are learning. That is to say people and processes (systems) are more important than resources. Good resources can get you far if you do things right. And there is a lot of room for us to do things "right". But there are certain resources that are so well crafted that they make things easier for you. They are not just good, they are great. I believe that Complete Swedish is one of these and should actually be used as a model for all of the Teach Yourself Complete series books. Complete Swedish clearly owed a debt in how it is structured to Rivstart. I know that Dr. Haake is familiar with the series and likely used it in her own classes. This is not to say at all that she plagiarized but the structure of that course and how it follows the CEFR and focuses on communication and relationships very clearly influenced Dr. Haake when she created this course. But Rivstart is not a self-study course! You either have to be very patient and put in a lot of work or you need a competent instructor to use Rivstart. Dr. Haake, I believe, has distilled the most important aspects of Rivstart and combined it with her experience and education to create a real gem. I wish I had had something like this for Portuguese back in the day! This, combined with resources like 8Sidor and Lätt svenska med Oskar, will get you to B2. Oh, and Bluey. The Swedish Bluey is the best Bluey. And at under $30, it's a steal. Just the student's book of Rivstart A1-A2 will cost more than that! Some folks who are learning a language on their own for the first time may find this book a bit too hard at first. It might be best to start with something like Pimsleur's Swedish before moving on to this book. In my experience, it can be difficult for some folks to understand that languages are not fungible in the sense that in English you say X but in Spanish you say Y. Other languages are not simply cyphers for English, the same as English with just different words. Some first-time learners can get very hung up on this and fixate on things that are not important making the process seem harder than it is. If you start using this book and early on you get to the point where a few things just don't make sense and you find it difficult to move past them, then it might be best to start with Pimsleur and ease in a bit to the process. But do not doubt that this book is excellent.

It's an excellent book to learn the language.

the book is a really good language course. It contains all the necessary items like reading , listening, writing and speaking. The grammar and the vocabulary is useful. as I am a language teacher myself I think this is one of the better courses in my career as a teacher.

Though I still consider myself a beginner in the Swedish language, I have learned some Swedish through an online language software program provided by my local library (Mango languages) and have learned some conversational Swedish. If I didn't have this background, though, I think I would be completely lost with this Teach Yourself Program. As I do have some background and I am an intuitive learner, I find this to be an enjoyable course. I don't know how the absolute beginner with no background would fare. (That being said, the Teach Yourself brand does have a "Get Started in Swedish" course for absolute beginners.) The "Complete Swedish" course moves quickly. The audio that you can access for free online moves along rapidly; the word lists are gone through quickly, and when one is asked to listen and repeat, there is not a lot of time given for repeating - no room for fumbling around. The accents/pronunciation of some words are somewhat different from what I've heard in the Mango languages and the conversational Swedish lessons.

It’s a really great book to learn beginner Swedish - I was already doing some Duolingo before this book, and it made me happy that I could read and understand the words. The book tells you the “why” on the grammar and how the language works and “how” to form sentences that are grammatically correct within the language. The audio is also available with the book and helps me understand how to speak the words, even the tricky ones. This is definitely a great first step into the language and very beginner-friendly!

I started Swedish lessons a month ago and wanted to have a little more extra knowledge when I found this book, I follow the author and her videos on tiktok so I was confident of her teaching skills. This book is easy, practical and helps me improve my skills. And I must say that I was worried to try learning Swedish with an English book, as I am a native Spanish speaker, but is great, a must have for beginners!

insightful!

I have just finished chapter one of this book and I have found it easy to use alongside the app and have had fun working my way through it so far. The author is a really great teacher too!

I love the structure from this book, highly recommend it!

最初はほかのテキストと併用していましたが、やはりこちらのテキストの質はいいです。しかしながら、レッスン1でも相当難しいです。次のレッスンに進めるまで時間がかかります。 I used other textbook as well in the beginning but soon focused on this one only. However, quite difficult even for the first Lesson 1. It takes some time before moving to the next lesson.

Helps a lot with my studies.

If you want to learn swedish so you will actually be able to SPEAK a language - this is the book for you! I have been learning swedish for a couple of years now, and this book is now a very valuable part of my learning progress! Whilst other language books just teach you to repeat phrases in a parrot like fashion (and no idea what people say in reply) , this book actually explains the nitty gritty aspects of language so you can speak and converse with anyone about anything! Anneli writes clearly about all the aspects of grammar you will need, explaining and building it up step by step so over the course of the book you can talk about anything you want! The book has a large amount of vocabulary and built together in themes so you can easily learn related words together. Perfect for building your own vocabulary and word association. Its perfect to help your mind link and bring 2 language together. Unlike other swedish courses, the audio files actually sounds like 'real Swedes'. So often you learn swedish in this sort of 'BBC' type accent and when you go to Sweden you can't understand people because no one actually talks like that! Here you will hear and learn the little tricks that mean you can understand native Swedes easily and actually sound like a Swede when you speak back! Top marks for anyone wanting to learn a second language. The book covers a lot of topics/areas of life, including emergency situations and how to tell someone you are ill or even what number to call if you need the police etc. This, and other examples in the book, explain the culture and country of Sweden to you so when you go or move there, it won't feel like a foreign country but maybe a home from home. Anneli has been my swedish teacher for a few years, and with her I have gone from total beginner and speaking fairly fluently (theres always room for improvement!). This book for me is like having Anneli with me at home all the time! I can listen to the audio files on the bus, in the waiting room, whenever! I can use the book to explore grammar and themes easily and its a great resource to have. I also have the old Complete Swedish course book by Teach Yourself and Anneli's book is just leagues better in comparison. I wholeheartedly recommend Anneli's book to anyone learning Swedish, whether they are new or old to it as there is something here for everyone no matter their level of experience. The little tests, the exercises, the listening, reading, speaking - everything about it makes it work perfectly for any level student of Swedish!

good enough