Swedish is a Germanic language of the Nordic branch, and is spoken through-out Sweden and in some parts of Finland. Swedes, Danes and Norwegians can however, make themselves mutually understood since their languages are similar. Most Swedes speak English as a second language.

Since they share common roots, and the Old Norse language left sprinklings of words in Anglo-Saxon, it is easy to find many similarities between English and Swedish. The pronounciations alter, however, and there are sounds in Swedish that are not found in English. There are also three letters not found in English, viz., å, ä, and ö.

Like other Low-Germanic languages, verbs are the same regardless of the person or number (e.g., Jag är, du är, etc. for the verb to be), and definite articles, like in the other Scandinavian languages, are determined be endings on the noun. Swedish has two genders, common ("en" words), and neuter ("ett" words).