.. But why do you want to learn Swedish? I figure that at the current rate, Swedish will be extinct in maybe 100 years from now. Lots of English words are used in everyday speech. I think that we are the country in Europe that has adopted the most customs from English-speaking countries. Everyone speaks English, children start learning it at the age of nine or ten. If you come here, you will notice that people upon noticing that you are from abroad, will start to speak English with you automatically.
On the other hand, if you know Swedish, then speaking Norwegian or Danish will be easier. Because Sweden is a neighbour to Denmark and Norway and the borders between these countries have varied throughout the ages, the languages are pretty close. Swedish is closest to Norwegian in pronunciation. Danish and Norwegian are closer together in vocabulary. Swedish is pronounced pretty sharply, while Danish is a language with soft consonants ('d' used instead of 't' in many words) and then with the consonants further pronounced very subtle. To a Swede, Danish often sounds like a Norwegian drunkard with a swollen tongue. For instance, a Dane may say the placename "Hvidøvre", but a Swede will only hear that as "iö".
I think a large factor in swedes learning English is that foreign-language films are subtitled, with the original speech intact. People learn a lot of English words and expressions from hearing them whilst reading the translation at the same time. Unfortunately, I don't think that would work as well in the other direction - I personally find Swedish films to be terrible...
I may be home-blind, but I find Swedish pronunciation to be more regular than in other languages.
Each vowel letter has a distinct "short" and a distinct "long" sound, not a myriad of different sounds .. but then there are also more distinct vowels than in English.
Swedish nouns have genus, but there are no articles. Instead of definite article, there is a suffix. -n or -tt.
