Counting to ten in Swedish
One to ten, for prices, platforms, rooms and how many beers. Play the ten Swedish words against the clock, with a note on how locals really use each one after every answer. All ten are written out below.
All 10 Swedish phrases in this lesson
- Enen
- One
- Tvåtvaw
- Two
- Tretreh
- Three
- FyraFEW-ra
- Four
- Femfem
- Five
- Sexsex
- Six
- Sjushoo
- Seven
- ÅttaOT-ta
- Eight
- NioNEE-oh
- Nine
- TioTEE-oh
- Ten
Ett (et) for neuter nouns. When counting, say en.
The å sound is a rounded back vowel, like the "aw" in "law" but rounder. Three through nine: tre, fyra, fem, sex, sju, åtta, nio. Sju (shoo) has the distinctive Swedish sj-sound; the rest are phonetically close to their English cousins.
Swedish numbers above twenty are logical compounds: tjugoen (21), tjugotvå (22), trettio (30), fyrtio (40). Unlike Danish, there is no vigesimal (twenty-based) counting system. Swedish numbers are much kinder to the learner.
The sj is a breathy sound, between sh and wh.
Twenty: tjugo. Thirty: trettio. Forty: fyrtio. Fifty: femtio. The pattern holds entirely. One hundred is hundra, one thousand tusen. Above that, beware: a Swedish miljard is a thousand million, and en biljon is a million million, so the English word billion has no safe direct translation.