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Learning Swedish is among the top recommendations everyone gives when it comes to “how to find a job in Sweden” tips. At the same time, the experience of acquiring sufficient language skills to be proficient in a professional setting is vastly different for everyone, including those who take the path of the “official Swedish learning courses”. Thanks to a series of advantages, coupled with some luck and a lot of determination and hard work, I managed to go from zero to fluent in 18 months: this is my Swedish learning journey.
My Swedish learning journey
The pathways to learning Swedish are endless: there are public and private courses, individual lessons, classes, language teachers, YouTube channels, you name it; but from the first moment I came to Sweden, I heard wonders about “SFI Swedish for Immigrants”, a course that was supposed to give the basic knowledge and produce semi-fluent (albeit not very eloquent) speakers in one year, so as soon as I got my personal number, I made it a priority to apply to SFI in Gothenburg. At that time I had no idea that other courses were available after SFI. Unfortunately, information about official language courses online is as abundant as it is confusing: things change all the time, rules are different in every city, and much of the actual path you find yourself on depends on politics and the individual teachers you encounter.
The most important piece of information I can provide is that this entire journey is free of charge: SFI is a free Swedish learning course, which means that you do not have to pay to attend courses or take the exams.
SFI – Folkuniversitet Göteborg
Let’s start from the very beginning: I applied for SFI online and registered for an appointment a few weeks later, which turned out to be an introductory session with around 30 other students. We watched a short video explaining the course structure, followed by one-on-one interviews to determine which of the three SFI tracks we would join. Considering my years of school, fluency in three languages, and familiarity with the Latin alphabet, I was placed in SFI course C as a beginner. I also opted for the “distance course” (SFI på distans), which was the only solution that worked for my schedule at that time.
Choosing the distance course of SFI proved to be one of the main factors that helped me in completing SFI in a shorter time: since there were no mandatory classes, I had the liberty to pace myself at my leisure with weekly assignments.
SFI C (15 / 27 weeks)
SFI Course C was very much an introduction to Swedish grammar, syntax, and general language rules. Since it is intended for students with higher education, a strong knowledge of how grammar works is essential. In other words, SFI Course C will start by telling you how verb conjugation and adverbs work in Swedish, but will not explain the concepts of verb, conjugation, or adverb. It’s implied that you are already familiar with them in your own language(s).
The main issue I had was the absence of vocabulary, which I tried to compensate for by using all sorts of strategies. I felt that trying to read books (the best way to enrich vocabulary) was pointless because I lacked so much knowledge that reading would turn into a constant trip to Google Translate or the dictionary: I resorted to other ways, such as digital window shopping, or vertical deep dives into particular topics.
As far as interaction with teachers and other students goes, there was a weekly online workshop of about one hour, to ask questions and do some exercises together. Once a week we also had the possibility to attend a school-organized språkcafe session. This was not mandatory, but it was highly recommended in order to get some Swedish conversation practice.
Since I had completed all of my assignments early, and was making very good progress, I had a meeting with my (wonderful!) teacher, who agreed that I could proceed on to level D: at that point I had completed 15 of the expected 27 weeks of course C. This wasn’t exactly news: from the very first orientation call, the rector had told us that the path was flexible, and a faster progression might be possible for particularly meritorious students.
SFI D (10/20 weeks)
SFI Course D was not very different from the previous one, although the growing vocabulary and the firmer grasp of grammar allowed for more interesting exercises and even writing longer texts (300 words). Because I proceeded to complete all my assignments early, I once again contacted my teacher and asked whether it would be possible for me to take the exam sooner. She fortunately agreed, and I only had to do 10 out of the 20 expected weeks of the course.
Please note: finishing early does not mean that I skipped over any part of the course, but rather that I managed to study all of the sections and submit all of my assignments in a timeframe that was shorter than the expected one. For me, personally, the timing was very generous, and I found myself sometimes going ahead without even realising that I was in the next section. This, however, is not the case for every student: there are many who struggle more than I did with assimilating concepts and internalising grammar rules, so my experience should not be taken as universally applicable.
NATIONAL EXAM – I then booked the national exam, which included four sections: Listening, Writing, and Reading Comprehension during the first day, and Speaking during the second day. The result was graded with a G (godkänt) or IG (icke godkänt), which roughly translate to pass or not pass. You do receive a breakdown of all the points you got in each section, but it’s more FYI than anything else.
I finished SFI in half the time, and many people kept asking me how I did it, which is why I put together a guide with all of my tips and strategies that I used throughout my journey.
You can download it for free at Newbie Learn!
Path to (actual) fluency
This is where the majority of the Swedish language learners stop, and although I must admit that SFI gave me some very good basics, it was far from enough to be confident in a conversation. If this is also how you feel after finishing SFI, know that you too have options to continue with more advanced courses. My SFI D teacher recommended me for SVA Grund 4 (see graph above): this choice depends on a variety of different factors, such as the student’s Swedish language competence, the initial SFI path that they were assigned to (students who start with SFI A will generally be advised to proceed with SVA Grund 1, for example, whereas those who start with SFI C will generally be fast-tracked to SVA Grund 3 or 4), and the teacher’s assessment of each’s students capabilities.
SVA Grund – Folkuniversitet Göteborg
SVA Grund 4 was the course that I felt brought the biggest advancement in my linguistic skills: suddenly everything around me became comprehensible. Conversations on the bus, billboards on the street, news, magazines, books, TV shows… I felt like I had achieved that critical point of vocabulary volume that allowed me to understand the majority of Swedish I was exposed to, so I doubled down and started consuming even more Swedish content, for example in the form of TV shows such as Masterchef Sverige.
SVA Grund also had the very first mandatory reading assignment, which I could choose from a list of about 20 books on different topics. I chose Bröderna Lejonhjärta by Astrid Lindgren because I knew it was a beloved children’s book classic, which every Swede will have read. In my opinion, language is much more than just being able to express yourself or understand what’s going on during a meeting.
There is a gigantic cultural factor to it, children stories, fables, fairytales, content that shapes generation after generation of a country’s inhabitants. If I am truly going to be able to integrate in society, then I must be familiar with the same stories, topoi, characters, and places that everyone else knows and loves. A heads up if you’re planning to read this book: keep your tissues close, because it’s a real tear-jerker, as is most of the Swedish literature I’ve encountered so far.
EXAM – At the end of the SVA Grund 4 course I had an exam, but it wasn’t a national exam like the one for SFI D. It was only a writing test, and I did it remotely from home.
SVA – HERMODS
Folkuniversitet Göteborg did not offer SVA 1, 2, and 3, which meant that the next chapter in my Swedish learning journey happened at another school, Hermods AB. The city of Gothenburg has 4-year long contracts with the schools that provide these distance courses, and the 2024 tender granted the contract to two new schools, ABF Vux and Arena Utbildning. This means that I finished SVA3 in the very last class that Hermods offered in the summer of 2024, before the other schools took over the new classes in September.
All three courses were free, but we were expected to purchase our own textbooks, either in the physical (about 800kr) or digital (about 250kr) version. Each course had a different book, so I chose to save some money and purchase the digital versions through Gleerups, since the physical copies were always unavailable at the city library.
SVA 1
If SFI teaches how to walk, SVA teaches how to run! The premise of these courses is that they are at a high school level, so no more talking about grammar, syntax, or rules: from the very beginning, the assignments consist of writing long texts, learning the rules that govern different types of texts (referat, debattartikel, utrendande text), and practicing over and over again, which translates to a lot of writing. There were also mandatory weekly Zoom lessons with our teacher, who gave us a long list of books to choose from for our reading assignment. I picked Hemsöborna by August Strindberg, because it was one of the only Swedish classics: my idea was to build as much knowledge as possible, and read books originally written in Swedish instead of books translated from English.
NATIONAL EXAM – At the end of SVA 1 there was another national exam which consisted of 4 parts: Reading comprehension, Listening, Writing, and Speaking, all done within one day, from 8:30 AM to 4PM. Although the exam results do account for part of the final grade, it was my teacher who finally decided what grade to give based on the performance on the exam, the performance on each assignment, and the final oral exam (muntlig examination) that was done digitally in a Zoom call.
SVA 2
As the courses progress, there are more and more personal reflections and argumentative texts to be produced: SVA 2 had a very strong focus on language, language learning, parallels between Swedish and my mother tongue, experiences learning a new language, analysis of the Swedish language from different perspectives, and so on. It was also the first time we were presented with an obligatory choice of 3 books to read during the course, and the idea was to pick books that had a common theme to connect them.
My choice fell on Ett nytt land utanför mitt fönster by Theodor Kallifatides, Din stund på jorden by Vilhelm Moberg, and Kejsarn av Portugallien by Selma Lagerlöf, and the red thread was how people change when they move to a new country or city. Unfortunately, the books that I picked were unavailable at the library, which is why I started using BookBeat*: it allowed me to read on my phone, quickly search for words I couldn’t understand, and even listen to an audiobook version to figure out prosody.
EXAM – There is no national exam at the end of SVA 2, but there is an oral exam with the teacher via a Zoom call, during which I had to do a presentation about one of the books I read during the course. This, along with the grades I got on all of my assignments, was taken into consideration by my teacher when deciding my final grade.
SVA 3
SVA 3 was by far the most difficult Swedish course I took: there was a lot of writing, (as was expected), and one of the end goals of the course was to produce an expository essay on a topic related to language. It was very detail oriented, with tedious corrections of in-text citations and bibliographies. We had covered these aspects in previous courses, but SVA 3 required absolute precision. In the beginning of the course we were again presented with a list of choices for our mandatory reading assignment.
This time the books were already paired by theme, so the choice was a bit easier. I picked the only pair that had both books written by Swedish authors: Mor gifter sig by Moa Martinson, and Sorgenfri by Mary Andersson. Once again BookBeat* came to the rescue, because I couldn’t find these books anywhere else. These two books were quite difficult, and we were expected to present a comparison between the two during our final oral exam with the teacher, along with an argumentative presentation on the advantages of studying SVA 3.
My expository essay was a 12-page long document called “Flerspråkighet som verktyg för sociokulturell integration” (Multilinguism as a tool for socio-cultural integration), and by all intents and purposes it was a high school level essay.
NATIONAL EXAM – At the end of the course we took a one-day national exam (from 9AM to 4PM). We received the reading materials in advance, which meant that there was no Reading Comprehension section, just a Writing section, and later a Speaking section.
It might be worth pointing out that SVA courses have more to do with the capacity to formulate arguments, structure texts, provide compelling evidence to a thesis, and essentially write well. This isn’t a skill linked to a particular language, which means that if you already have it (because you’ve studied and written in your mother tongue), it will be easier to do the same in Swedish. If you don’t have it, then you also need to build this skill in parallel with acquiring sufficient Swedish to express yourself, which will inevitably take longer.
From zero to fluent: final thoughts
There are, unfortunately, no “tricks” to learning a new language, the key is to get as much exposure to the language as possible. There are other factors that can also constitute an advantage: for me, it was knowledge of four other languages, one of which a Germanic language not too different from Swedish in terms of grammar and etymology, along with a natural propensity for learning languages. I do realize it’s a matter of luck, rather than skill, but the talent alone isn’t sufficient to achieve fluency. There is also a lot of work, immersion in the language, both written and spoken, and effort in acquiring vocabulary, idiomatic phrases, pronunciation, and so on.
For me, SFI was easy. There was also no small part of luck in the timing, the teachers, the general experience I had, which was overwhelmingly positive. For others it is not, and that’s perfectly normal. My goal is to give everyone the tools I used to get here, in the hopes that they might be useful and encourage others to achieve a skill that is becoming increasingly important not only in securing a job, but also for permanent residency.
What is your experience with learning Swedish? Have you studied SFI or SVA? Let me know in the comments below!
Na says
I was actually fluent at 11 months and finished all the courses as well as the National Exams.