Whoops, I think I was supposed to post about this over a year ago. @_@ It was at that point that this book came out–too late for me to use in my teaching at Berkeley, but I have it in mind for next time I might get to teach Swedish. 🙂
Swedish Tutor: Grammar and Vocabulary Workbook is by MY former Swedish teacher (twice! At Uppsala International Summer Session, which anyone who wants to study Swedish should go to!) Ylva Olausson. I’ve had many Swedish teachers over the years, and in the last decade have found many more as colleagues, and amazing as they all are, Ylva is among the best. In addition to teaching in Sweden, she has also taught in Spain, Korea, Finland, and Scotland, so she is quite familiar with the needs of international Swedish learners of all sorts.
My own read-through of this book has been a bit light and scattered so far, as I got it when I already had my texts set for my beginning Swedish course. This is the sort of book I would recommend after taking a full year of Swedish at an American school (first year covers levels A1-A2 at the institutions I’ve been at, though you might find it useful earlier than that as well), and while it might be nice to teach with as a supplementary text, it is designed with the independent student in mind, the person who has a working knowledge but wants to brush up, review, or fill in the gaps. While each chapter does take the time to introduce the grammatical concepts covered (all in English, note), this is still very much a workbook, rather than an introduction (like Rivstart) or a grammar (like Essentials of Swedish Grammar or Swedish: An Essential Grammar)–the descriptions and explanations here will be most useful as reminders, or as an alternate way of explaining things (I have always found it helpful to have grammatical concepts articulated in different ways at different points in my learning process–seems to provide the space needed for those “aha!” moments).
Note that this is the first edition, and there may be some typos, etc to be fixed in the next edition. I only have one in mind that I noticed in my most recent flip-through: the rubric at the top of page 72 says “Expressing put in Swedish,” but going by what the exercise actually does, I think it is supposed to say “Expressing position” (or location, or “place”–instead of “placement” as the title implies) with verbs. The verbs used in this exercise (är, ligger, sitter, stÃ¥r) are used to say where something is, as opposed to where it is placed (in which case we would use transitive verbs like lägger, sätter, ställer). My guess is that this section originally also covered these latter verbs and they ended up getting dropped without the rubric being corrected. That said, the exercises themselves are still fine here, and the little marginal notes very helpful in sorting out the proper usage of the verbs used (which can bit a bit tricky for English speakers).
In any case, a great book and I gladly recommend it for anyone who wants to brush up on their Swedish for fun or who is getting ready for/in the midst of second or early third year Swedish (though very advanced learners may find it less exciting). And of course, you are always welcome to use some of my illustrations from my time teaching Swedish if you want to give those place/placement verbs a workout. 😉
Kan du beskriva Strindbergs rum?
Vikings, Books, etc. 