(It’s a holiday in the States today and tomorrow, so I’m not going to talk about geek stuff. That’ll resume on Monday.) If you pay a visit to Deutsche Welle, the German international broadcasting service, you will find a wide array of online German learning materials, such as the daily news in slowly- and clearly-enunciated German (including transcripts) and dozens of half-hour mini-documentaries designed for students of German (including transcripts and exercise worksheets). These are great for improving my woefully deficient listening comprehension skills. On the other hand, all I could find for students of Swedish is the weekly news in simple Swedish. No transcripts, no lessons. Sure, I can listen to all of the Swedish national radio stations anytime I want, but they sort of assume you’re fluent in Swedish.

And if you go to google and search for “Swedish movies”, trust me, the top hits are definitely not the works of Ingmar Bergman. (Yes, I know about IMDB PowerSearch. Now.)