Aboutkarinafp Expertise I`m a teacher from and in Sweden. I teach Swedish as well as English, French, Spanish and music. I`m also rather good at finding information on the Internet.
Experience I've been an expert at askme.com, and was rated # 1 in the "Language" category. Must have been doing something right, then...
Expert: karinafp Date: 8/25/2006 Subject: Swedish R
Question Hej!
I am learning Swedish and I noticed that Swedish r is the alveolar trill kind. Can you please teach me how to produce the r sound in Swedish?
Also, what's the difference between 'å' and 'o'. They sound the same to me.
Tack.
Answer Hej!
Oh... our R is very hard to produce if you don't have the sound from childhood. And not even all Swedish people can pronounce it. It sounds almost like the Spanish R, but is usually slightly softer. You fold the tongue upwards and blow hard, so that the tip of your tongue starts vibrating.
Å and O sound the same, when the O doesn't sound like the phonetic U. This is one of the hardest thing to learn for Swedish kids, when the å-sound is spelled with an å and when it's spelled with an o. No rules here, you just have to learn it word by word.
