tak
roof
The a in this recording lasts 0.31 seconds.
A long a, made further back
The long a is darker. Open the mouth, pull the tongue back and round the lips a little. Hold the sound.
Pronunciation practice for iPhone
Say Swedish words so that Swedes understand you.
Hear a native speaker say an everyday word. Say it yourself. Shablau scores each sound and shows you which one to change, and how to make it.
- Free
- Works offline
- No account
- No ads
In TestFlight testing on iPhone, iOS 26 or later. Not in the App Store yet.
One word, two tries
See which sound to change.
This is an example with the word kaffe (coffee). The scores are made up for this page. The tip is the app's own text for this mistake.
- 1Each sound gets a number from 0 to 100.
- 2The lowest sound is marked, with a tip on how to make it.
- 3When the word reaches the pass line, the app says Shablau! The pass line is 80. You can change it in Settings.
kaffe
coffee
First try
- k91
- a38
- ff88
- e84
What to change a · 38
Your a was long and at the back of the mouth, as in “tak”. In “kaffe” the a is short and at the front, followed by a long consonant.
Again
Lowest sound a 38 · pass line 80
3 of 4 sounds right
Second try
- k97
- a92
- ff95
- e96
Shablau!
Lowest sound a 92 · pass line 80
First pass on this word
How it works
Listen, say it, change one sound.
A practice round has 10 words. You do the same three steps for each word, as many times as you want.
-
Step 1
Listen
Tap Hear a native to play a native Swedish speaker saying the word. Play it as often as you like.
-
Step 2
Say the word
Tap Record, say the word once, then tap Stop. The app compares your take with recordings of native Stockholm speakers.
-
Step 3
Change one sound
The app marks the sound with the lowest score and describes how to make it. Tap Both to hear the native take and yours one after the other, then try again.
A take that is too quiet, too short or distorted gets no score. It never counts as a fail.
The sounds that matter
Tak or tack? One vowel decides.
In Swedish, a long vowel and a short vowel can make two different words. Tak means roof. Tack means thanks. Listen to both.
tack
thanks
The a in this recording lasts 0.09 seconds.
A short a, made at the front
The short a is brighter and more open. Keep it short, and hold the k after it a little longer.
Shablau measures whether the stressed vowel in your take was long or short. Length counts toward the score only on words where the app has enough native recordings to test it.
Other sounds in the 25 words
- sjuthe sj-sound: lips rounded and pushed forward, air at the back of the mouth
- tjugothe tj-sound: a soft hiss with the middle of the tongue on the hard palate
- musthe long Swedish u: lips rounded, tongue pushed forward
- fyrathe Swedish y: the tongue as for “ee”, the lips as for “oo”
- björnthe open ö before r, and rn said as one sound
Recordings on this page: Lexin pronunciation recordings, Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Isof), under CC BY 4.0.
In the app
What you see while you practise.
-
Your turn. Hear a native, then record.
-
Again. One sound to change, and how.
-
Shablau! A pass, with confetti the first time.
-
Round done. Which words passed, and what improved.
Privacy
Your voice stays on your phone.
Shablau has no accounts, no ads, no analytics and no tracking.
-
Scored on the iPhone
The app scores your voice on the phone. It works without an internet connection.
-
No network requests
The app makes no network requests. We cannot see your recordings or your scores.
-
Stored only on your iPhone
Recordings and scores stay on your iPhone. Turn off “Keep my recordings” in Settings, and the app saves only the scores.
Free, on iPhone
Join the test.
While Shablau is in testing, you install it through Apple's TestFlight app.
- Install TestFlight from the App Store.
- On your iPhone, open the link below.
- Tap Accept, then Install.
Apple reviews each test version before new testers can join. If the TestFlight page says the test is not open, try the link again later.
Where the recordings come from
The native speakers you hear in the app come from public recordings: the Lexin pronunciation recordings from Institutet för språk och folkminnen (Isof), under CC BY 4.0, and recordings from Wikimedia Commons and Lingua Libre, each under its own licence (CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA). To score your voice, the app also compares it with recordings from the NST Swedish speech database (CC0), published by Språkbanken at the National Library of Norway.
The app lists every speaker and licence under Settings › Licences and credits. The typefaces are Young Serif and Schibsted Grotesk, under the SIL Open Font License (Young Serif licence, Schibsted Grotesk licence).