english language “insticts” are a terrible place to start for most languages using latin letters. if you start from what the letters meant in latin and know a little bit of what the hell went on in the middle ages (or are at least vaguely familiar with the spelling of a few european languages), these arent that odd. okay, the å is, because that’s a uniquely nordic replacement for “aa”, the older spelling. and the pronunciation has shifted over the centuries to an o-like sound.
but ä/ö are pretty standard forms for what used to be ‘ae’ and ‘oe’ (or æ and œ). they sound pretty similar to german or finnish (or a bunch of others) ä/ö, even when they’re not identical.
swedish tips:
ä is pronounced “ehhhh”
ö is pronounced “uhhhh”
å is pronounced “oh!”
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the letters do match with how they’re pronounced though…
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english language “insticts” are a terrible place to start for most languages using latin letters. if you start from what the letters meant in latin and know a little bit of what the hell went on in the middle ages (or are at least vaguely familiar with the spelling of a few european languages), these arent that odd. okay, the å is, because that’s a uniquely nordic replacement for “aa”, the older spelling. and the pronunciation has shifted over the centuries to an o-like sound.
but ä/ö are pretty standard forms for what used to be ‘ae’ and ‘oe’ (or æ and œ). they sound pretty similar to german or finnish (or a bunch of others) ä/ö, even when they’re not identical.
It’s got a tiny lil o up there too though!
(easier to notice in actual print than on a zoomed out computer screen)
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Are you sure? I’ve always struggled with how to explain the ö sound to English speakers
I’d say it’s kind of sort of like the ir in “whirlwind” if you dropped the r sound but even that’s not too close
For extra hard mode: try to teach English speakers the Finnish “u” and “y”
Sure, next you’ll be telling me the Swedes don’t call their country Sweden