# Swedish: sju



## nymets892

I am new to Swedish, and I am confused about the pronunciation.  Is this word more like the german "ch" followed the English "w" like "*hwuh*," or is it like an English "sh" like "*shoo"*?  Tack!


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## Plopp

sju (7) is written phonetically [ɧʉ̟ː], which probably doesn't help you much...  It is one of the most difficult words, if not *the* most difficult word, to pronounce in the Swedish language! The fricative consonant -sj- is pronounced somewhere between the 'ich-' and 'ach-laut', more in the back af the throat than 'ich-laut', but without the "scraping" sound of 'ach-laut'... The vowel -u- has a pronunciation I don't think exists in any other language, at least not in Europe. It is *not* pronounced as -w- nor as -oo- in English. It is pronounced with rounded, almost closed lips, and the tongue in a central position in the mouth, the apex behind the lower front teeth. If you try saying 'geese' and then, while pronouncing -ee-, slowly rounding your lips without changing anything else in the position of your tongue, teeth etc, you should finally reach the correct pronunciation of -u-.
My mother has lived in Sweden for 45 years and she still can't make this sound...  
Good Luck!  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet


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## nymets892

Thanks so much!


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## Wilma_Sweden

Another way to pronounce the sj- sound: think of an English w, but unvoiced and like a fricative (tighten your lips until you get an audible 'air explosion' like when you're blowing out a candle). 

IPA and sound samples for Standard Swedish can be found here. 

Look at the resources for Swedish at the top of this forum where you'll find plenty of learning resources, some of which have sound.


/Wilma


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## Södertjej

My two cents:

You can pronounce sj- in two different ways. The "tough" one that has been described, and then you could say it like "sh". In Stockholm it's considered a bit posh, but in other areas it's perfectly standard. Foreigners normally start with this one, it's easier and correct.

I agree, sju is a difficult word to pronounce for foreigners, sjuk and sjukhus are also good to practice this sound.

Btw, this thread was about this same issue. http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=802479&highlight=sj


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## Plopp

I'm sorry, Södertjej, but I do not quite agree with you... I live in the south of Sweden and noone here pronounces -sj- as 'sh'. Here we think of it as posh and ridiculous and, I'm sorry  , very typical for the dialect in Stockholm.


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## hanne

I'd add that the u sound is somewhat/quite similar to y (or ü in German). Which means you'll mess up some words if you use that approximation, but there's a good chance you'll be in trouble hearing the difference as well...
(this is from someone who has been for a walk in the forest, knowing that we needed to turn right when we reached *either* a brick wall or a moor (mur or myr - we'd been give directions orally). My advantage over the other non-Swede in the group was that he was *only* looking for a wall! And of course we found a moor.)

Fab youtube-link Wilma - heard it a long time ago, but it deserved to be re-heard.


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## nymets892

Thanks everyone, I have a better sense for it now.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Plopp said:


> I'm sorry, Södertjej, but I do not quite agree with you... I live in the south of Sweden and noone here pronounces -sj- as 'sh'. Here we think of it as posh and ridiculous and, I'm sorry  , very typical for the dialect in Stockholm.


The truth is that there are several realisations of the sj-sound depending on which dialect you speak. If you're learning 'standard Swedish' (if ever there was one), you can get away with using the English sh-sound because it's close enough for people to understand you. As long as you have a foreign accent, you won't sound posh, you will just sound foreign.

It's true that some variants of the Stockholm accent are perceived as posh elsewhere in the country, but this usually applies to native speakers only. It's not something you need to worry about until you're truly fluent in Swedish.

/Wilma


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## hanne

Is the "sh" pronounciation a Stockholm thing as Plopp suggested, or are there other dialects that also have it, like Södertjej suggested? (apart from Finland-Swedish)


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## Plopp

Yes, of course you're right Wilma!  I didn't mean to complicate things for nymets892 !  If you have a foreign accent you will be fully understood with a 'sh' pronunciation of -sj-.
In my dialect we make a clear difference between pronouncing the different fricatives in the words '*stj*ärna, *skj*orta, *sj*u, *ch*oklad' and '*tj*äna, *k*änna, *k*ila' and 'ko*rs*, bö*rs*, ku*rs*'. It's the one in the middle that's the closest to the English 'sh' in 'shoe'.


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## Obil Tu

Plopp said:


> In my dialect we make a clear difference between pronouncing the different fricatives in the words '*stj*ärna, *skj*orta, *sj*u, *ch*oklad' and '*tj*äna, *k*änna, *k*ila' and 'ko*rs*, bö*rs*, ku*rs*'. It's the one in the middle that's the closest to the English 'sh' in 'shoe'.


 
This confused me! Sure you don't mean the last one? That would fit more with my experience with hearing Swedish...


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## Wilma_Sweden

Obil Tu said:


> This confused me! Sure you don't mean the last one? That would fit more with my experience with hearing Swedish...


-rs is not always assimilated into some kind of sj-sound, i.e. not in all dialects. In Scania, for example, the tj-sound in kyrka is the closest to English sh, certainly. Down here, you will hear /rs/ in kors. 

/Wilma


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## Södertjej

Plopp said:


> I'm sorry, Södertjej, but I do not quite agree with you... I live in the south of Sweden and noone here pronounces -sj- as 'sh'. Here we think of it as posh and ridiculous and, I'm sorry  , very typical for the dialect in Stockholm.


I know sj- is not pronounced as sh in Southern Sweden but it is in other areas, like in Finland, as Hanne mentioned. 

Hey, I'm a Södertjej, I'd never say sh in sj/sk (except in "kanske") but I don't think there's anything wrong with using -sh. I just meant that is a safe options for foreigners stuggling with one of the most difficult sounds in Swedish, you have an alternative (-sh) that is actually used by some natives (even if not the majority) and therefore perfectly acceptable. Scanian Swedish is not the most extended dialect (but probably the most difficult one) yet it doesn't mean it's incorrect because you use sounds which are not used in other areas. You pronounce a different sound for "r", some people pronounce a different sound for sj.

Besides, I only said, it may be perceived as posh, so that the OP knows. Whether that's a bad thing or not is up to the speaker. Some people actually think that sounding posh is not a bad thing!


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## Obil Tu

Wilma_Sweden said:


> -rs is not always assimilated into some kind of sj-sound, i.e. not in all dialects. In Scania, for example, the tj-sound in kyrka is the closest to English sh, certainly. Down here, you will hear /rs/ in kors.
> 
> /Wilma


 
True, but isn't the tj-sound in words like "kyrka" pronounced like the sound found in German e.g. at the end of "durch"? In which case it would not really be similar to English "sh" in "shoe" (but non-existent in English)?


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## Södertjej

True, k in kyrka is not exactly like English sh, just similar. I'll leave the phonetical explanations to the experts. In fact every time they write a phonetic transcription my screen only shows little squares instead of the symbols.


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## Obil Tu

Södertjej said:


> True, k in kyrka is not exactly like English sh, just similar. I'll leave the phonetical explanations to the experts. In fact every time they write a phonetic transcription my screen only shows little squares instead of the symbols.


 
I see the symbols, but little squares would be about as helpful... From my experience with Swedish (and with the similar corresponding sounds in Norwegian) I would still maintain that the most similar sound to English "sh" is to be found in the (Swedish and Norwegian) dialects that contract "-rs" to a retroflex (which might be the wrong term altogether). (In Norwegian we have the "sj/skj"-sound at the beginning of words in addition, since it's pronounced differently than in Swedish, i.e. the same as "-rs" (for the dialects that contract it).)


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## Södertjej

Yes I agree, the -rs- in words like försöka become a mild English -sh.


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## Wilma_Sweden

Södertjej said:


> I just meant that is a safe options for foreigners stuggling with one of the most difficult sounds in Swedish, you have an alternative (-sh) that is actually used by some natives (even if not the majority) and therefore perfectly acceptable.


Indeed! 



> Scanian Swedish is not the most extended dialect (but probably the most difficult one) yet it doesn't mean it's incorrect because you use sounds which are not used in other areas. You pronounce a different sound for "r", some people pronounce a different sound for sj.


I was merely pointing out that it's useless discussing the Swedish way of pronouncing the sj-sound when we clearly have so many different variants, depending on dialect. I suggested the Scanian way of pronouncing it because it's the only one I know how to pronounce, it's easy to describe in layman's terms without IPA or phonetic jargon, it's clearly distinguishable from that other sound, the tj-sound in kyrka, but also, it is in fact understood in the rest of the country, even in Stockholm... 

/Wilma


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## Södertjej

Oh no Wilma, I wasn't disagreeing with you, my reply was to Plopp's message (nº 6). Trevlig helg allihopa


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## dinji

nymets892 said:


> I am new to Swedish, and I am confused about the pronunciation. Is this word more like the german "ch" followed the English "w" like "*hwuh*," or is it like an English "sh" like "*shoo"*? Tack!





Plopp said:


> sju (7) is written phonetically [ɧʉ̟ː], which probably doesn't help you much...  It is one of the most difficult words, if not *the* most difficult word, to pronounce in the Swedish language! The fricative consonant -sj- is pronounced somewhere between the 'ich-' and 'ach-laut', more in the back af the throat than 'ich-laut', but without the "scraping" sound of 'ach-laut'... The vowel -u- has a pronunciation I don't think exists in any other language, at least not in Europe. It is *not* pronounced as -w- nor as -oo- in English. It is pronounced with ....


 
I think nymets892 tries with the grapheme <w> to represent the lip-rounding of the first consonant, not the quality of the vowel. And indeed the first consonant is distinctively lip-rounded when pronounced according to the more common quality, a labialized velar fricative, which you Plopp also implicitly accept by using the IPA-symbol* ɧ* for a fricative with articulation in multiple places.



Wilma_Sweden said:


> Another way to pronounce the sj- sound: think of an English w, but unvoiced and like a fricative (tighten your lips until you get an audible 'air explosion' like when you're blowing out a candle).


Wilma here couldn't describe more clearly the labial element of this velar fricative.

For really advanced experts in acoustic phonetics I draw the attention to a one page abstract in the following dissertation: 
http://dissertations.jyu.fi/studhum/9513918289.pdf
Here the Finland Swedish <sj-/sk->, which for all practical purposes are similar to the English <sh> or French <ch> is acoustically compared to the sound discussed above applicable to most variaties of "Sweden Swedish". Also the scope for misinterpretation by the listener is dealt with.


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