Swedish phrasebook

Swedish is a Scandinavian language, closely related to Norwegian and Danish. Spoken by over 9 million people, Swedish is the national language of Sweden and the official language of the Åland Islands. It is also an official language of Finland (along with Finnish), though only the mother tongue for about 6 percent of Finns.

Swedish, please

Please note that the swedish language has no exact match for the English word "please". This means that English-speaking visitors can be offended since Swedes in general tend to leave out the word in question when they speak English. This does not, however, mean that Swedes are rude, but the significance of the word "please" is usually put differently, either through a different sentence or by the tone of the voice. An example: An English-speaking person walks into a pub and says "May I have a pint of beer, please". A Swede in the same situation would use the phrase "Jag skulle vilja ha en öl, tack", i.e. "I would like to have a beer, thanks".

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