Learn Swedish
Svenska · 10 million speakers · Lemmatizer: spaCy
Swedish is the largest Nordic language by speaker count and literary output. From Strindberg to Lindgren to Mankell to Stieg Larsson, there's no shortage of things to read. Laesi handles Swedish compound nouns, particle verbs, and two genders through spaCy — solid support on day one.
What the big apps miss
The biggest Nordic literary tradition
Strindberg alone is a lifetime of reading. Add Lagerlöf, Lindgren, Mankell, Larsson. Swedish has more published material than Norwegian, Danish, and Icelandic combined.
Handles Swedish's long compounds
Swedish stacks nouns into sesquipedalian compounds — realisationsvinstbeskattning. Laesi lemmatizes them so your vocabulary entries stay reasonable.
Particle verbs, handled
Swedish has extensive particle verbs (tycka om, komma på). Multi-word lemma selection saves them as single entries with their own knowledge level.
Bröderna Lejonhjärta, opening
Astrid Lindgren, 1973
Nu ska jag berätta om min bror. Min bror Jonatan Lejonhjärta, det är honom jag vill berätta om.
What to read in Swedish
Swedish gives you access to the country that arguably invented modern Nordic Noir (Sjöwall & Wahlöö in the 1960s) and never stopped exporting it. The audiobook subscription ecosystem is also the most developed in the Nordics — three major services compete for your monthly fee.
The best children's book series that waited over 70 years to make it to America.
Everyone knows Pippi Longstocking.
Adult crime novel series. Stieg's overly descriptive writing style makes this series perfect for language learners.
Nordic horror, cerebral.
Nordic horror, fun.
Several Glass Key winners in this series. Highly recommended.
Proto-Nordic Noir.
Fantastic Nordic Noir series. Henning Mankell also has written several children's novels.
Not a series, but a fantastic novel.
Look Swedish up properly
Wiktionary and Google Translate are built in. Wire in the references serious Swedish learners actually use.
Recommended dictionaries
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Wiktionary Built in
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Google Translate Built in
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Svenska Akademiens Ordböcker ↗ Monolingual
The three Swedish Academy dictionaries (SAOL, SO, SAOB) in one interface. This is what I use.
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DinOrdbok ↗ Translation
Still the best translation dictionary.
Analyzers
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spaCy Available
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Stanza upcoming
Get Swedish to read & listen to
Ebook stores, audiobook subscriptions, news, and learner material — bring any of it into Laesi.
Site dedicated to Swedish as a second language. Free, hosted by the Swedish public educational broadcaster.
Curated by the Laesi team · last reviewed 2026-05-26
Features, for Swedish specifically
Swedish is well-tested in Laesi. Features that matter most here:
See everything Laesi does →-
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spaCy sv_core_news_smMature Swedish pipeline. Handles verbal compounds, definiteness, and the supine tense properly.
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Compound-splitting on lookupClick a 25-character Swedish compound and Laesi returns both the full compound and its component words as separate Wiktionary lookups.
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SVT and SR subtitle importSVT Play's SRT files load cleanly — great for crime-drama vocabulary study.
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Reads Easy Swedish (Lättläst)Lättläst versions of classic novels are a staple for intermediate learners. Laesi imports them like any other EPUB.
More from Nordic & North Germanic
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