Quote Originally Posted by VendingMachine
Skinka" (Ham) is pronounced "shinka". and my favourite" Stjärna" still pronounced "Shärna"
In the "lj" beginnings the "L" is not pronounced like, "Ljus" (Light) just "Jus" (long swedish "u" sound of course)
(Swedish is famous for it's many "sh, ch" sounds, and odd spellings of them. )
I was once told by a Swede from Göteborg that if you said "shairna" for stjärna you'd be considered gay in his city, real men should say "hhhhairna". When I went to Sweden, I noticed some people indeed used "hhhhh" in place of "sh". So which one is better?
Yes, this sound is very complicated in Swedish. Swedish would really benefit from using the Cyrillic letters for this sound. The latin spelling is completely random. It has to be individually memorised, including the pronounciation.

It's true that MEN should probably not say use "Ш" sound for these sounds. It sounds a bit too feminine. It's better for men to use "X" sound in most cases.

So for "Star" from the example:
In cyrillic letters, "хэрна" or "шэрна"
In Swedish: Stjärna....

There are a hundred or so words like that.

Since I am a woman I vary my pronounciation depending on what I feel like on that particular day....