The Swedish writing system may be similar to ours, but the differences in spelling can look a little intimidating to someone who doesn’t know the language. Swedish words have ö’s and å’s and j’s in many words where you probably haven’t seen j’s before. With just a little work, you can fully demystify the Swedish letters, which will give you a leg up on learning the rest of the Swedish language.

Here, we’ll guide you through the Swedish alphabet and give you a closer look at the letters that give new learners the most trouble.

The Swedish Alphabet (Svenska Alfabetet)

At a glance, the modern Swedish alphabet is nearly identical to the English one — both use the Latin alphabet as their basis — with just a few additions. The Swedish alphabet consists of 29 letters while the English alphabet only has 26. That’s three additional vowels.…