[tapland]

My SO has lived in Sweden for a few years, gone through the provided Swedish classes to be eligible for university studies, but really feels the need to consume more swedish text.

The easier-to-read books in the libraries are all too simple, and they don't want to learn by regularly reading a lot of news (which is probably the easiest way to be trickle fed new and niche words), but this seems really nice.

This looks promising for their situation. I'll plop LoTR, Antimemetics Division or something in there later and see how it turns out!

[dehrmann]

The problem with learning Swedish is 95% of Swedes speak English and are more than happy to speak English.

[amarant]

And will switch to English as soon as we detect the slightest hint of a foreign accent, in a often misguided attempt to be helpful.

[cycomanic]

Except when asked if they speak English, where they then very hesitantly say (in perfect English btw) "a little bit".

Quite interesting cultural differences btw. In my experience, if you ask the same question in Denmark, the answer is "of course... Everybody here speaks English"

[stevesimmons]

When I was learning Dutch, I found the same gap between kids' books that were too simple and proper novels that were too complex.

Newspapers were the easiest and best way to bridge that. They made it easy to pick a story where you had both some interest and enough background context.

I started with De Telegraaf, a popular newspaper, with short, simple stories and lots of photos. And over the course of 18 months worked my way up to serious papers like NRC Handelsblad and de Volkskrant.

So I'd give newspapers (and magazines) a go.

Back then, I'd sit in a cafe with my dictionary, reading their newspapers, and handwriting lists of words to learn. Nowadays it would be reading the paper's website on my laptop, pasting paragraphs into GPT, and adding the words to Anki etc :)

[marssaxman]

Funny timing - I just finished today's episode of "NOS Journaal in Makkelijke Taal". I have not regularly followed "the news" in many years, but this channel offers a pleasant way to get some daily practice; it's simple enough to follow along, with a few new words and phrases to learn each time. I'll check out De Telegraaf as well - thanks for the recommendation.

[mistrial9]

news is uniquely terrible for learning a language IMHO. One word changes meaning substantially.. lots of long form statements when a short form would work; lots of references that take local, political or cultural context to know; lots of ideas and words, very fast.. etc..