The three additional letters are considered distinct letters, not letters with diacritic marking. Foreign words containing letters with accents may either have the diacritical markings retained or replaced with the same letters without the accents. Immigrants with letters in their names other than those of the Swedish alphabet and Ç, É and Ü may have the diacritic marks removed in order to register with the National Population Register.
Vowels in the Swedish language are a, e, i, o, u, y, å, ä and ö. "Y" is only pronounced as a consonant in words borrowed from other languages. Swedish has both long and short vowels.
"Q" is not found in native Swedish words, except for quisling. It was replaced with "k" in a 1906 spelling reform. "W" and "z" are only found in names or loanwords. "W" is treated as a form of "v", even though it is officially a separate letter of the alphabet. It is listed in dictionaries as if it is actually a "v".
The phoneme "sj" has several rules as to its spelling. There is an estimated 22 ways to spell this sound. For example, in Swedish words it can be spelled either "sj" or "sk" depending on its position in the words in relation to vowels. In German loanwords, it is spelled "sch". In English loanwords, it is spelled "sh". For French loanwords, it is spelled "ch".
There are several regional pronunciations for Swedish. Pronunciation differences can be markedly noticeable. Standard Swedish pronunciation used by media and entertainment is based on the Central Standard Swedish pronunciation.
Swedish is a stress-timed language wherein words with the same spelling but different meanings are distinguished by stress. Stressed syllables demarcate whether an acute accent, or single tone, or grave accent, double tone, is required. This may be complicated by the 300 two-syllable pair words in Swedish that are only discernable by accent marks. Single tones are a drop from high to low pitch. Double tones are a double falling tone, beginning with a mid-pitch drop, followed by a high pitch drop. This results in a melodic "sing-song" rhythm.
The syllable structure of Swedish words consists of a vowel nucleus, with consonants clusters of up to three letters before and after the vowel.
Originally Swedish had a case structure and gender system, but these were phased out in the 18th century and do not exist in Standard Swedish. Today only the neuter and common genders are used.
Swedish has a subject-verb-object word order. It is differentiated from English by enclitic definite articles. In other words, the definite article is placed after the noun.
The Swedish Language Council, which has semi-official status, is the regulatory body for the Swedish Language. The Council publishes recommendations for spelling and grammar.