Re: Pleasant enough place
The country is officially bilingual. IIRC only about 6% of the population have Swedish as their mother tongue. My Finnish friends speak Swedish, Finnish, and English fluently. They learned Finnish as that is the standard language used by most Finns - most of whom don't learn Swedish. With the population imbalance many Swedish speakers marry Finnish speakers - so the Swedish speaking population is probably declining.
Swedish is not that different from English. Three extra letters in the alphabet and a few tricky sounds - like the "whistle k" in "kanske". There is the breathy number "8" - for which you can cheat by using the "female" pronunciation. Letter combinations can often have an unexpected pronunciation - you have to remember the group sound and not try to do it by letter phonetics.
A Northern English background is a great help as Swedish has both long and short vowels. People with Southern English pronunciation often struggle with the latter.
I learned it in three months by living in a small village in the 1970s and buying lots of "Asterix the Gaul" books. However I do not have an ear for languages. Unfortunately people would often assume I was fluent when I asked about something - and my favourite phrase was "slowly please". My colleagues in the Stockholm office said I spoke it like a native - of Gothenburg. Apparently that is the equivalent of Scouse English.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
