Product Description

This is a reference guide to the most important aspects of current Swedish as it is used by native speakers. It presents a fresh and accessible description of the language, focusing on the real patterns of use in today's Swedish.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #602830 in Books
• Published on: 1997-06-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

From the Back Cover

This fully revised second edition of Swedish: An Essential Grammar incorporates a large number of changes of detail and examples throughout, all made with the aim of clarifying the explanations and updating the idioms and advice on current usage. The bibliography has been expanded and a number of tables clarified. Swedish: An Essential Grammar provides a fresh and accessible description of the language. It is suitable for independent study or for class-based tuition. The explanations are free of jargon and emphasis has been placed in the areas of Swedish that pose a particular challenge for English-speaking learners.

Features include:
- Detailed contents list
- Many tables and diagrams for extra clarity
- Separate glossary of linguistic and grammatical terms
- Detailed index, with numerous key Swedish and English words

Philip Holmes was formerly Reader in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Hull and is now a freelance translator

Ian Hinchliffe is a freelance translator, living in Sweden.

About the Author

Philip Holmes is reader Emeritus in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Hull and now runs his own translation company. Ian Hinchliffe has taught English, German, Norwegian and Swedish at schools and universities in England, Wales, Norway and Sweden. He has also worked as a translator for more than 25 years.

Customer Reviews

This book, a dictionary, and open ears are all you need!
This book was just what I needed, having moved from Ireland to Sweden, to learn Swedish quickly. With a decent dictionary (say, David Harper's Swedish Dictionary - also Routledge - which is the only dictionary I have found so far that gave the genders of nouns), and this book, I am able to understand and follow conversations in Swedish more easily, and feel much more confident to try my "Baby Swedish" out on people and improve it.
This book is designed to be used by native English speakers, and every point is compared and related to English grammar. That, alone, makes it much easier to grasp the grammar concepts quickly. Swedish is a notoriously difficult language to learn for English speakers, and the grammar is very different to any other European languages, not least of all English.
Starting with a basic guide to pronouncing Swedish words, which should perhaps be skipped if you don't want to sound like you're from Stockholm, the book is broken into a small number of logical chapters - nouns, adjectives, etc., each of which is described in excellent (but never superfluous) detail.
The structure of the book means that I can read it from start to finish, or search for and immediately find the exact topic I am interested in. The quality of the binding feels excellent, and the print is very clear, with a clean, uncluttered layout, so I feel that I will be using this paperback book for a long, long time.
Holmes also writes an excellent classroom book "Colloquial Swedish" with Serin Gunilla, and if you add this to "An Essential Grammar" and your decent dictionary, you will find that you can study and learn a lot of useful Swedish in a short time by yourself, or in addition to some language classes (the approach I'm taking).