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Swedish/Alphabet

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Revision as of 13:39, 2 March 2008 by 213.114.80.39 (talk) (vovels and consonants)
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Return to Introduction to Swedish.


The Swedish alphabet contains 28 letters:

Aa Bb Cc Dd Ee Ff Gg Hh Ii Jj Kk Ll Mm Nn Oo Pp Qq Rr Ss Tt Uu Vv Xx Yy Zz Åå Ää Öö


Notes
The last three letters, Å, Ä, and Ö, are regarded as distinct letters, separate from A and O. Whereas in English you might use the term "A - Z", in Swedish it would be "A - Ö". Unlike in English, Y is always a vowel, except in the case of some loanwords. For a time, W was part of the alphabet, treated as a variation of V, but it is no longer a part of it (it is still used however, in some loanwords).


Special Characters

On a PC:

Alt+0229 = å
Alt+0197 = Å
Alt+0228 = ä


Alt+0196 = Ä
Alt+0246 = ö
Alt+0214 = Ö

On a Mac:

Option+a = å
Option+A = Å
Option+u to get ¨ then type a = ä
Option+u to get ¨ then type A = Ä
Option+u to get ¨ then type o = ö
Option+u to get ¨ then type O = Ö

The Vovels

Vovels are divided into hard and soft vovels:

The hard vovels are: a o u å

The soft vovels are: e i y ä ö

When reading new Swedish words you should pay attention to if the vovels are short or long. Each vovel has both a long and a short phonetic variant. The basic rule is that a vovel is short if it is followed by more than one consonant.

Examples of words with long vovels:

Tal, sko, lur, vår, stel, bil, dyr, säl, öl

Examples of words with short vovels:

Tall, troll, surr, sånt, tenn, svinn, pynt, fält, trött

The Consonats

Most cononants can be doubled. k, is doubled with ck (Like in rock n' roll. c, sounds like s when not combined with k (Like bicycle). C does not occur doubled. z, q, and w are very uncommon letters but are used in names. m is not doubled at end of words with some exceptions.

Examples of words with doubled consonants: flabb, ledd, klaff, ragg, back, pall, damm, spinn, kupp, pirr, triss, titt