Short Stories in Swedish for Beginners: Read for pleasure at your level, expand your vocabulary and learn Swedish the fun way!

by Olly Richards

An unmissable collection of eight unconventional and captivating short stories for young and adult learners of Swedish.

"Olly's top-notch language-learning insights are right in line with the best of what we know from neuroscience and cognitive psychology about how to learn effectively. I love his work - and you will too!" - Barbara Oakley, PhD, Author of New York Times bestseller A Mind for Numbers

Short Stories in Swedish for Beginners has been written especially for students from high-beginner to low-intermediate level, designed to give a sense of achievement, a feeling of progress and most importantly - enjoyment! Mapped to A2-B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for languages, these eight captivating stories are designed to give you a sense of achievement and a feeling of progress when reading.

What does this book give you?

- Eight stories in a variety of exciting genres, from science fiction and crime to history and thriller - making reading fun, while you learn a wide range of new vocabulary
- Controlled language at your level to help you progress confidently
- Realistic spoken dialogues to help you learn conversational expressions and improve your speaking ability
- Accessible grammar so you learn new structures naturally, in a stress-free way
- Beautiful illustrations accompanying each story, to set the scene and support your understanding
- Pleasure! Research shows that if you're enjoying reading in a foreign language, you won't experience the usual feelings of frustration - 'It's too hard!' 'I don't understand!'

Carefully curated to make learning a new language easy, these stories include key features that will support and consolidate your progress, including:

- A glossary for bolded words in each chapter
- Full plot summary
- A bilingual word list
- Comprehension questions after each chapter.

As a result, you will be able to focus on enjoying reading, delighting in your improved range of vocabulary and grasp of the language, without ever feeling overwhelmed. From science fiction to fantasy, to crime and thrillers, Short Stories in Swedish for Beginners will make learning Swedish easy and enjoyable.

Genres: Swedish Literature, Nonfiction, Language

235 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 23, 2020

Reviews

[Sportyrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

English below:

Jag lär mig svenska igen. Jag är inte duktig ännu men kanske om jag läsa mer ska jag komma bli bättre. Bokan är A1/B2 level. Jag tycker att kort sagarna gick bra. Det var konstigt och interesant. Människor var ganske fin. Nytt ord var repertera ofta så att jag kunde lär mig.

My english review is not word-for-word as I had to navigate my expression around the vocabulary I know. I tried to say I’m learning Swedish again. I’m not very good but maybe if I read more I will get better. The book was at A2/B1 level ie upper beginner, lower intermediate. I think the short stories were good. They were weird and interesting. The characters were fine. New vocabulary words were repeated often to enhance learning.

I was surprised that the learning style worked very well for me. I had a decent sized vocabulary to begin with which made the A2 level easy enough to understand. The B1 had less common language but in the context of being surrounded by other A1/A2 words, it was easy enough to accurately guess the new words (in bold). Some were impossible to guess. I read as instructed until the last two stories where I went straight to the translation as the words were beyond guessing at that point. The first six stories I could read naturally, check vocab at the end then reread it to fully make sense of it.

The stories were cute. About pirates, space objects, time travel and other youthful wonders. Updated versions would benefit from using less old-fashioned gender stereotypes. I think we can move away from heroic males and cautious females. Let’s tell stories about the normal us’es.

Did I learn more Swedish? Definately.
Did I learn the whole new vocabulary list? Ba bowwww. Nope. I understood the new words in context mostly but when I read the vocab list as a list I couldn’t get them. That’s more about me though. I did this as a challenge. I never thought to read in Swedish as my level is still learning however thanks to my GR friend Berengaria, I was encouraged to give it a go. Thanks also to new friend Paul W for reading the Spanish equivalent and Berengaria again for reading the Icelandic equivalent at the same time. It was so nice to buddy read the same stories in other languages. Great fun way to learn. Thanks also to the Language Learners and Polyglots group chat for the encouragement. So at the end of this I learned some new words. I exceeded my own expectations without fullfilling my potential. I could build on this. I also know that I can just read Swedish books for enjoyment rather than sheer learning. I’m so glad I read this and with the people I did.

[Kyriakos Sorokkou]

Ξεκίνησα να διαβάζω αυτό το βιβλίο στις 29 Ιανουαρίου και το τέλειωσα στις 23 Σεπτεμβρίου.
Μοιάζει σαν να χρειάστηκα 8 μήνες σχεδόν να το διαβάσω. Η αλήθεια όμως είναι ότι διάβαζα μια ιστορία τον μήνα, συνήθως τελευταίες μέρες του μήνα που δεν ήθελα να αρχίσω καινούριο βιβλίο, ή καθώς περίμενα τους συναναγνώστες μου να τελειώσουν με το προηγούμενό τους βιβλίο.

Με άλλα λόγια διάβασα τα 8 κεφάλαια ως εξής:
1. 29-31/Ιαν/21
2. 09-11/Φεβ/21
3. 31/Μαι-01/Ιουν/21
4. 20-21/Ιουλ/21
5. 19-20/Ιουλ/21
6. 31/Αυγ/21
7. 01/Σεπ/21
8. 23/Σεπ/21
σύνολο 14 μέρες.

Αυτό το βιβλίο ανήκει στη σειρά βιβλίων εκμάθησης ξένων γλωσσών μέσω διηγημάτων είτε για αρχάριους (επίπεδο Α2-Β1), είτε για προχωρημένους χρήστες, (επίπεδο Β1-Β2).
Για προχωρημένους χρήστες υπάρχουν βιβλία μόνο στις ευρέως διαδεδομένες γλώσσες όπως τα Γαλλικά, τα Ισπανικά, τα Αγγλικά, τα Γερμανικά, κλπ.

Οι λιγότερο διαδεδομένες γλώσσες όπως τα Σουηδικά, τα Ισλανδικά, τα Τουρκικά, και τα Ιρλανδικά υπάρχουν μόνο σε επίπεδο για αρχάριους.

Φυσικά εγώ δεν πήρα αυτό το βιβλίο για να μάθω Σουηδικά ούτως ώστε να τα χρησιμοποιώ στην καθημερινότητά μου, ούτε μαθαίνω Σουηδικά γιατί θα πάω να ζήσω στη Σουηδία, ή τα έχω με Σουηδέζα, ή θα σπουδάσω στη Σουηδία.
Η εκμάθηση μιας ξένης γλώσσας είναι πολλές φορές ένα, ή συνδυασμός των πιο πάνω.
Αλλά φυσικά η εκμάθηση μιας ξένης γλώσσας είναι και σαν εκγύμναση του εγκεφάλου. Έτσι εκτός από το να λύνω σταυρόλεξα και σουντόκου, μαθαίνω και ξένες γλώσσες ως ένα σημείο ή επίπεδο Α2 με Β1 το πολύ, για να έχω το μυαλό μου σε εγρήγορση.

Αυτή είναι μια σειρά βιβλίων που συστήνω σε όποιον μαθαίνει μια ξένη γλώσσα και είναι σε ένα επίπεδο που να μπορεί να διαβάσει ένα απλό κείμενο με σχετική ευκολία.

Σε αυτά τα βιβλία συμπεριλαμβάνονται και ερωτήσεις κατανόησης κειμένου, περίληψη κάθε κεφαλαίου, και λεξιλόγιο για κάθε ιστορία.

[Edde Jansen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stories for my beginner’s level of Swedish and useful vocabulary lists that will definitely help me with reviewing and practicing to reach a more conversational level soon — some stories I deemed a bit too childish with its themes like pirates, knights, spaceships and kings but overall enjoyed reading them :) 4- 🌟

[Mitch Conquer · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot to like about this book. There aren't many others with stories in simple Swedish so it fills a real need. I like that stories are short and cover a variety of topics and settings so there's a nice range of vocab.

The problem for me was that the stories were a bit too childish. Characters behaved in the weirdest ways and the plots felt kind of like a steam of consciousness. Ultimately I couldn't bring myself to finish it. (But I was able to read Vinden från öster by Margit Sandemo so if you can read these stories you can probably try over of the books from the Isfolket series.)

If you enjoy the stories or can get past them and enjoy the book for its pedagogical strengths then I'd highly recommend it. Otherwise I look forward to giving a chance to any follow up Olly Richards writes because like I said there aren't very many books for learning this great language.

[Nick Howard-Bath · Rating 5 out of 5]

Have been reading this on and off for the last 6 months. I’ve read the first half of the book around 3 times. I put it down for a while and breezed through the 2nd half. I think the book was great and had a lot of useful words and vocabulary which I am trying to implement everyday. Would recommend this to anyone learning swedish. I think I’m ready for my first actual Swedish book 😬

[Louhikärmes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept is great and being able to understand these gave me faith that I could eventually work my way to "real" audiobooks in Swedish. There were helpful wordlists as well, although I only noticed the accompanying pdf during the last story. The one star missing comes from the stories themselves, which were weirdly childlish though featuring adults.

[Natalia Maćkowiak · Rating 5 out of 5]

jag älskar att jag kunde förstå så mycket.

[Bob Grenier · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just finished Short Stories in Swedish for Beginners by Olly Richards. I think it is really good.

There are eight short stories. The first has four chapters and I believe the rest have only three (did not go back and verify). Each chapter ends with a summary, a vocabulary list, and a five multiple choice question quiz. There is an answer key and a Swedish English Glossary. The book begins with an Introduction and chapters on How to Read Effectively and The Six-step Reading Process.

I was able to read and understand the stories even though I did not know all the words. I followed the six-step process. I read each story once without looking up any words and then a second time looking up words and phrases. Having the Kindle edition was very helpful since it included hyperlinks for some of the new vocabulary.

[Artair Sgot · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do think in this reader readers can get acquainted with Swedish, but the glossary, in my opinion, is incomplete, because in the stories some words appear not on the list; few pages later they appear as words to be learnt. While some other words, which I have to look up in the dictionary, never appear on the learning list of vocabulary.

However, the main reason I do not value it very much just because those stories are mostly quite banal and usual and tedious. One can easily predict the plots in these short stories. In other words, they excites no interest in continuing reading them. You may read it, but, at least I, will probably not pick it up again.

[Sanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for learning Swedish, but the story are very odd

[Abi Pellinor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was gifted to me by my wonderful Swedish friend, and I am so grateful for it because I am trying to learn Swedish and boy am I bad at it! 😂

It's actually quite hard for me to review this, because there is the reading experience, the quality of the stories, and the language learning usage. And I have different thoughts about all three!!

I'll start with the most negative, which is the reading experience. And this is all on me, because I can't read Swedish! When reading in my native English I'm a really fast reader, averaging out at around 100 pages an hour. So having to slow down and getting through 10 pages in 30 minutes? It was infuriating. And it made the reading experience that much harder. But like it said, that's not the books fault. That's completely my fault and just one of those things.

Now! For the stories. Mixed, as with any short story collection! Using what I call the "Duolingo method" some of the stories are wacky as anything, and I'm not always the biggest fan of that in my language learning because this method doesn't stick the words in my head. But I did enjoy most of the stories and found them interesting so I do think this aspect of the book was done well.

And finally the language learning aspect. I think this is a great tool. All of the stories (bar one, with 4) contain 3 chapters, and at the end of each chapter is a summary, in Swedish, a list of words that were highlighted within the text, and questions for you to answer to ensure you understood what you were reading. It also, at the start of the book, tells you how they recommend you go through the stories to get the most out of them. I truthfully didn't do their method for every chapter, but it is definitely effective.

Overall, I think that despite my frustration this is a great book. And I'm a little disappointed that I can't torture myself with an intermediate version of this book, because the only one they've done is this one for beginners!

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was a real achievement for me, because it is the first complete book I have been able to read in Swedish, and it has given me the confidence to be able to read other books in Swedish now too!
I found the format of the book really worked: each short story being three chapters long, with a Swedish - English glossary of key words, a chapter summary and a set of comprehension questions at the end of every chapter. The format definitely aided my understanding of what was happening in the story, and having the glossary of key words was much more practical than having to look them up in a dictionary or online. At first I felt the story-telling was a bit simplistic, but I think this was to aid comprehension, as as you read, it got less so!
Overall a brilliant book for learners!

[Primo S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I guess this is okay for what it was, which is a tool to help me improve my Swedish. My reading ability noticeably improved between when I began and when I finished this book. The 8 stories themselves are fine, they're perfectly comprehensible even with my relatively low level of the language (A2 at best). Even if they're not the best stories from a storytelling perspective, they're still engaging enough to keep me reading, even if it took me a while to finish the book.

next step is to either read a Swedish book for kids or a Swedish translation of a book I know very well, we'll see.

[Hector Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

The absolute best way if improving your reading ability in Swedish. Definitely need to be at least A2 fluency, but after reading the book, you will feel much more competent in reading. The book challenges you to work out for yourself what many of the words mean. For example the word 'osynliga' in the last story is not explained but you can work out it means invisible by simply reading the story. Only critique would be an easy to access audio book that would go hand in hand with this one.

[Ben Fish · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great concept and has really helped me to gain confidence in my Swedish reading ability. The stories themselves are really interesting, however there is a great satisfaction when you finish each short story in knowing that you have been able to understand a story in a foreign language. It's just a shame that there is currently no follow-up targeting the next level of reader.

[Gabriella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great selection of stories from many different genres, with well thought out vocabulary. I liked the comprehension questions too. I would love a second version of this book at B1-B2 level to follow on!

[Tom Booker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite bizarre stories, albeit memorable, this book has certainly helped me improve my Swedish reading skills and vocabulary. The benefit is seeing the same words over and over in different contexts. Highly recommend for anyone at A2-B1 level (too hard for A1 but too easy for B1-B2 probably).

[Mesut Bostancı · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never had the opportunity to read something like this while learning a new language. It was unbelievably helpful! The stories themselves are goofy to the point of being surreal, but I understand that was not the point.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to extend ones Swedish vocabulary. At least A2 level is preferable.

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good and I loved reading it while listening to the book on Audible. However, I found some of the stories boring.

[Lill ♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

det här är absolut den bästa boken för att lära sig (läsa) svenska. jag rekommenderar den definitivt! 🇸🇪🫶🏻

[David Oxley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great for intermediate Swedish learners. I need another book like this.

[soph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Det hjälpte mig att lära mig svenska mycket!

[Stacie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m pausing my reading at 17% since I’m not currently practicing Swedish. Good stories but I wasn’t ready for changing my brain in this way.

[Paulina Rowińska]

Stories were boring, but there's so much you can do when writing for beginners.

[Mimosa Tamminen · Rating 3 out of 5]

terrible stories, learned some words

[Güçhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Det är en bra bok för nybörjare. Historierna är väldigt dåliga(cheesy), men du kommer att lära dig nya ord och fraser.

[Léa Ducouret · Rating 4 out of 5]

Attention lecture bilingue en suédois et mots de vocabulaire traduit en anglais. Très bonne lecture. Facile à comprendre et fluide. Je connaissais déjà certains des mots de vocabulaire présents dans les listes. J'essayerai de trouver d'autres livres de ce type

[PaulineB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some stories were more interesting than others. But I liked the format, the word lists, the fact I could listen to the audiobook whilst reading the kindle version of the book, and the läsförståelsefrgor for each chapter.

[Marcos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent! Not too easy, nor too difficult. Just right.