simplehan

swedish is hard to pick up and understand by ear, which is most languages but i do find it harder with swedish (maybe that's me) because a lot of words are strung together and there's not as many pauses in between each word as there is in english. but a looot of swedish you can understand by just looking at the words, even if you've never heard the word before, there's a lot of word similarity to english. so you can read a lot, a lot easier than you might be able to listen. and a lot of listening comes with familiarity of a lot of vocabulary, so don't feel discouraged!

simplehan

oh hello!!! :-) glad she could send you over my way, bc learning languages is best with other people! 
          one thing i did was start a blog where i could dump all the swedish posts from swedish blogs; certain cultural aspects, difficult parts in the lang, etc. this helps to store everything in one place and also to meet other people who are practicing! i have regular chats with someone in australia who is learning swedish and we practice baby sentences together which is great! 
          there are also podcasts you can listen to and be able to point out words you may know and to get sentence formations down. there's music artists, there's people's blogs abt their day-to-day that are great for reading and comprehending!
          duolingo is yr best friend. there are also a few websites online that will help you too! and videos on youtube! 
          just surround yourself if you really want to learn! and i found that listening to songs you already know in english that are translated (great example: disney songs) really helps. i sing moana in swedish on the frequent and it's taught me so many words and you feel like a pro even tho u kinda don't know a lot (i know nothing, i'm very much a beginner haha)