Basic Swedish for Tourists: Phrases That Actually Help

You won’t need Swedish to talk to people in Sweden. You’ll need it to read the place: doors, shop signs, station boards and food packs are in Swedish first. Below are the words that matter most, starting with the most useful.

When you need this

• Before the trip, when you’re choosing which handful of words to learn
• At a door marked Drag or Tryck, or a shop sign reading Stängt
• When you’re ordering food with an allergy and want to say it in Swedish
• When you’re paying, asking for the bill, or taking a queue ticket
• In an emergency, when a few words help bystanders understand you

The five words worth learning

90% of Swedes say they can hold a conversation in English, compared with 47% across the EU. So spoken Swedish is about goodwill, not survival. Five words cover almost every encounter:

The pronunciations are our own approximations for English speakers, with the stressed syllable in capitals. Two patterns help with everything else. The letter j sounds like English y, so ja (yes) and jag (I) both sound like “yah” and the h in hjälp is silent. And an r followed by s merges into a “sh” sound, which is why ursäkta sounds like “OOR-shek-ta”.

All spellings here are checked against the 2026 edition of the Swedish Academy’s word list (Svenska Akademiens ordlista, SAOL). By that standard it is hej då, two words, and the time-of-day greetings are one word each: godmorgon (“go-MOR-on”), goddag, godkväll, godnatt. Many phrase lists online get these wrong.

Please, thank you and excuse me

Swedish has no everyday word that works quite like “please”. Instead, people put tack after the request: en kaffe, tack is “a coffee, please”, and notan, tack (“NOO-tan, tahk”) is “the bill, please”.

Tack does a lot of work. People say it when they take their change, when they hand something over and when they end a phone call. Tack så mycket (“tahk soh MEW-keh”) is “thank you very much”. The reply is ingen orsak (“ING-en OOR-sahk”), meaning “you’re welcome”, or often just another tack. At the end of a meal in someone’s home, guests say tack för maten, “thanks for the food”.

When a Swede hands you something or shows you to your table, you’ll hear varsågod (“vah-sho-GOOD”): “here you go” or “please go ahead”.

For “excuse me” and “sorry”, Swedish uses two different words:

• Ursäkta gets someone’s attention or gets you past them in a crowd.
• Förlåt (“fur-LOHT”) is the apology, for example after you bump into someone.

Say hej on the way in and tack on the way out of every shop and café. That’s all the small talk anyone expects.

Signs you will read every day

This is the vocabulary that prevents real mistakes. Swedish is the principal language by law, so signs are in Swedish even where every member of staff speaks fluent English.

Watch out: Drag means pull, not “drag”. Tryck means push. At a heavy door it’s only embarrassing. At an emergency exit it costs you seconds.

Two more things surprise visitors. The Swedish alphabet has three extra letters after z, in the order å, ä, ö, so station lists and indexes put Åre after Zinkgruvan. And in winter, halka on a sign means the path or road is slippery or icy.

In shops, cafés and restaurants

At pharmacies, deli counters and many service desks, take a nummerlapp from the machine and wait for your number. How that works is covered in queueing and the ticket machine.

Food and allergy phrases

Every Swedish restaurant and café has to tell you whether a dish contains any of the 14 EU allergens when you ask, either in writing or out loud. These phrases are how you ask:

• Jag är allergisk mot… — “I am allergic to…”
• Kan du fråga kocken? — “Can you ask the chef?”
• glutenfri / vegetarisk / vegansk — gluten-free / vegetarian / vegan

Three misreadings that matter:

• Laktosfri is still milk. Lactose-free products contain milk protein. For a milk allergy you need mjölkfri.
• Nötter (tree nuts) and jordnötter (peanuts) are separate allergens. A “no nuts” answer may not cover peanuts.
• Nöt can mean cattle. The Swedish Academy’s word list gives both senses. Nötkött and nötfärs are beef.

On packs, kan innehålla spår av (“may contain traces of”) is voluntary, so a product without it has not been certified trace-free. The full vocabulary is in Swedish food labels, and restaurant rules are covered in eating out with food allergies. One more false friend: gift means poison (or married), not a present.

Emergencies

Call 112 and speak English. The call is free, and the operators speak Swedish and English. They can bring in an interpreter for other languages, but that slows the call down.

To get bystanders to act, shout Hjälp! (“yelp”) and Ring 112! (“Call 112!”). Ambulans and polis are easy to recognize. The one to learn is brand, which means fire, not a make of product. For the non-urgent numbers, see emergency numbers in Sweden.

Du, not ni — and other things that surprise visitors

Swedes say du (“you”) to almost everyone, including strangers, shop staff and officials. The language authority Språkrådet recommends it as the normal form of address. The move away from titles and the formal ni happened in the 1960s and 1970s, a change known as the du-reformen.

You may still hear ni now and then, from service staff or from a younger person talking to an older one. You never need to use it yourself, and switching to ni to sound polite can come across as distant.

A few other things worth knowing:

• Starting in English is normal and polite. Opening with a Swedish apology and then struggling helps no one. See whether Swedes speak English.
• Dialects vary. Skåne in the far south sounds very different from Stockholm, but the written words on signs don’t change.
• Minority languages have legal status. Finnish, Yiddish, Meänkieli, Romani chib and Sámi are national minority languages. In designated municipalities you have the right to use Finnish, Meänkieli or Sámi with authorities, and in the north you may see place names in those languages next to the Swedish ones.
• Greetings follow the calendar. God jul (Merry Christmas), Gott nytt år (Happy New Year), Glad påsk (Happy Easter) and Glad midsommar (Happy Midsummer) appear on shop windows and cards.
• Two famous words: lagom (“LAH-gom”) means just right, not too much, and fika (“FEE-ka”) is a coffee break with something sweet. See Swedish fika.

Practical information

FAQ

What are the most useful Swedish words for tourists?

Five cover almost every encounter: hej (hi), tack (thanks, and “please” in many situations), ursäkta (excuse me), hej då (goodbye) and hjälp (help). For reading, add drag (pull), tryck (push), öppet and stängt (open, closed), ingång and utgång (entrance, exit). With those and English, you can get through a trip comfortably.

How do you say thank you in Swedish?

Tack, pronounced “tahk”. For more emphasis say tack så mycket (“tahk soh MEW-keh”), thank you very much. Swedes use tack constantly: when taking change, handing something over, or ending a phone call. The usual reply is ingen orsak, “you’re welcome”, and after a meal at someone’s home guests say tack för maten.

How do you say please in Swedish?

Swedish has no everyday word that works exactly like “please”. People add tack to a request instead: en kaffe, tack means “a coffee, please”, and notan, tack means “the bill, please”. Varsågod is what the other person says when handing something to you. A friendly tone does the rest; asking in English is also perfectly polite.

Is it rude to speak English in Sweden?

No. Starting in English is normal and polite, and 90% of Swedes say they can hold a conversation in it. What goes down well is a Swedish hej at the start and a tack at the end. Do not worry about formal address: Swedes use du, the informal “you”, with almost everyone, including strangers.

What do “drag” and “tryck” mean on Swedish doors?

Drag means pull and tryck means push. They are the two words most often misread by English speakers, because “drag” looks like an English word. Other door signs worth knowing: ingång (entrance), utgång (exit), nödutgång (emergency exit), öppet (open) and stängt (closed).

How do I tell a Swedish restaurant about a food allergy?

Say Jag är allergisk mot… (“I am allergic to…”) followed by the food, and ask Kan du fråga kocken? (“Can you ask the chef?”). Restaurants must tell you which of the 14 EU allergens a dish contains. Watch two traps: laktosfri still contains milk protein, and peanuts (jordnötter) are listed separately from tree nuts (nötter).

What should I say in an emergency in Sweden?

Call 112 and speak English: the operators speak Swedish and English, and the call is free. If you need bystanders to act, shout Hjälp! (pronounced like “yelp”) and Ring 112! (“Call 112!”). Ambulans and polis are easy to recognise; the one to learn is brand, which means fire, not a make of product.

Related guides

• Do Swedes speak English?: where English works and the Swedish-only systems where it doesn’t.
• Swedish etiquette: the unwritten rules these words are used within.
• Eating out with food allergies in Sweden: your legal right to allergen information, in full.
• Swedish food labels: the whole pack vocabulary, from bäst före to the Keyhole.
• Emergency numbers in Sweden: 112, 1177 and 114 14, and what each is for.

Facts verified 2026-09-24. Sources: Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL 15) via svenska.se, Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Språkrådet), Språklag (2009:600), the European Commission’s Eurobarometer, SOS Alarm, Polismyndigheten, EU Regulation 1169/2011 and Livsmedelsverket (full register in this topic’s source file). Pronunciations are our approximations for English speakers. Found something outdated? Tell us and we’ll fix it.