I’m learning neither Swedish nor Finnish. I’m not a university student — in fact, I’ve been a professor for more than thirty years. I’ve studied languages (mostly Asian ones) my entire life, and I’m more than twice your age. I don’t share some of your core languages like Turkish, German or Italian. We do share French, English, and Castellano — the first two are native languages for me, though like you, I prefer French.
Even so, I find listening to you talk about your learning process — the thoughtfulness of your approach and your dedication — genuinely inspiring. I’ve been studying Russian (which you speak beautifully) for about eight months, and I’ve just begun learning Euskera. Despite all my experience there are still times when the process of learning feels like a grind. That's when listening to you gives me the lift I need.

"yes, I've been to IKEA in Sweden, but I don't want to talk about that in this video ... or ever again"

😂 just killed me.

Iclal, I admire you so much that I started learning Turkish two weeks ago at age 65. Ama çok zor bir dil. Altmış beş yaşındayım ve emekliyim ama hala Türkçe öğreniyorum.
Greetings from Belgium

The "Du" thing was actually a government reform in the late 60s early 70s called "du-reformen". We used to say "ni" as a formal you and called people by their profession or saying sir and miss and such but the government wanted to create a collective feeling in society by making everybody more equal. Old people actually get mad if you say "ni" or use some formal title because you're creating space between you and them, its like saying "you are not a part of us". Ive seen some headlines tho and heard from my grandparents that a lot of young people are saying "ni" again for some reason

I am really interested in learning Swedish, but now I am focusing on French. thank you for the infos!!!

I would go for Norwegian as its easier in grammar and pronunciation.

Turkish and Swedish sound very alike to me! Every Swede I’ve heard speak Turkish has spoken it very well and vice verca

Love this video! lately I’ve been interested in learning swedish and norwegian this video is really helpful! also would love to see your multilingual book collection one day 🩷

for B2 and C1/C2 i highly recommend the books Språkporten BAS and Språkporten 1, 2, 3. Honestly, best language books i’ve ever used as a self learner. It uses journalism, literary texts and facts-based texts to teach swedish, with a column on each side with difficult words that appear in the text and synonyms for them. After the texts you have a few excercises, synonyms, etc. and i honestly don’t know how they do it but everything sticks! Each unit has some complex B2 to C2 grammar and te texts have an audio version online and the online platform for the books include even more exercises to practice grammar and vocabulary which help to expand the knowledge from the book. The one for B2 is around 200 pages but the one for C1/C2 is over 400 pages and totally worth it, way better than rivstart for those of us who learn at home

iclal you're inspiring me about being polyglot since when i see you on that +90 documentary. as a turkish person i am really proud of you. dil öğrenmeye başlamam ve devam ettirmemde payın büyük ❤

as someone who first learned norwegian and is now trying to learning german, I have exactly the opposite problem when it comes to the definite articles vs. the plural (12:16)! Really happy to know I'm not the only one struggling with things like that =D

Wow, the amount of languages you know to a high level. It makes me wonder, if maintenance of that level is a goal or something you aim to do. As I understand it, maintenance takes a lot of work. I really admire the speed you learn with and the perspective you offer. Personally, I am native Dutch and speak English because I lived in Canada as a kid, enough years to have no trouble understanding English, but I did acquire a fat Dutch accent. Now Finnish is my first language learning as an adult. I moved to Finland in 2023, and I find Finnish really hard to understand. While reading, I can analyze a sentence and more or less guess what it says, but while listening, I mostly hear a stack of words that I am familiar with. And that is the issue. My knowledge of FInnish words is not precise enough. At first, I blamed my age, but now I know there is more to it as everyone has their own way of learning languages. I am pretty confident, that after conquering the first foreign language as an adult to level B2 (for me that is high), things get easier. At least, I hope so. Thank you for your video, your presentation is both confident and inspiring, just like the professor below said. Excellent work!

I follow a Swedish course at uni and our teacher told us today that formal language was so strange for her in the beginning when learning Dutch. Literally she knew that she needed to use it, but it felt so incredibly foreign for her that she could not get it out of her mouth at the beginning.

Now she has more perfect Dutch than any of my classmates, (a class of all native dutch people), which is annoying at times. So we are in the habit to point out all of her mistakes in Dutch when she makes them (their not that much), but it is kind of funny because she wants to say everything right.

11:00 - you definately DON´T want the Stockholm pronunciation if you want to travel in Sweden. From a Norwegian grown up with Swedes all around though - you really nailed that sound. And it´s one that I´ve never really noticed until you told me right now!

you're so inspiring! I am American and I know Chinese, but this year I am starting and focusing on Russian! Your videos are a treasure trove of motivation and insight! thank you and hope you see this comment (I'll document more on my channel after this year hopefully) 🎉🎉🎉

I love that you´ve experienced the welcoming of the Swedes when you wanted to speak their language! I can only hope that we´ll do the same for you in Norway. But for now, I´m just  so proud of our neighbours!

I would love any kind of Vlog or video from you. This is my comfort channel.

girl, you really inspire me to keep my studies. thank u 🥹

10:49 There is a sort of standard swedish called "Rikssvenska", which is swedish without ANY dialect. I have however (as a native swede) never met someone who didn't speak some kind of dialect.

Rikssvenska is useful as a shared foundation, telling you how the world SHOULD sound, but your dialect changes it, maybe adding a sound or removing some depending on the dialect.

You said this yourself in your swedish part at 9:40. When you end with "men asså", it's already the shortened form of "men alltså", which would be the correct word in Rikssvenska. Still the same meaning, but the word pronounciation is different.

You nailed the sing-songy nature too, it's something you don't think about as a native. I wouldn't have clocked you as non-native just based on that part.

Your pronounciation is so damn good, well done. It's a big problem for most learners.