Haha, I actually read the news in Japanese a lot before getting into books, possibly too long 
Iām open to reading some easy news, so thank you for the links, although I plan to supplement other mediums much sooner this time around!
SVT still feels a bit too advanced for me, but I have it in my bookmarks for later!
Iāve heard of Bookmate, although since I also have Audible and they have lots of Swedish books I wonder if there is overlap 
Ah yeah then Audible is most definitely better. I only have to use bookmate because there is literally no other place to read ebooks for ex-yu languages 
I also looked around a bit through Swedish bookmate and it seems like they donāt have a huge overlap between books/audiobooks, which makes it even more pointless. But you can try 7 days free anyway if you want
Edit: The only thing that might be interesting are bookmate originals, although I donāt know if they exist in Swedish. The Serbian ones (that I read) were super easy basic horror stories published together with corresponding audiobooks. But that might still be too hard!
I have no clue about Swedish, but there is quite a culture for Graded Learner books in European languages, especially for lower levels. Granted, they are not the most exciting materials, but maybe worth a try? They sometimes come with audio, too.
I just checked Amazon and there is a series with short criminal stories that is geared towards learners, with graded texts and some vocab on each page and even quick tests for your understanding in between. But unfortunately it is in German 
and I could not come up with a translated version. (Otherwise this series is quite ok, I read one of their books with my son in French to help him as he struggled quite a bit with the language at first.)
So if you want to practice your German along with your Swedish, dig in 
I ordered a few of the A1 books @nikoru mentioned, although theyāre still in transit. They werenāt available in America so I had to buy them from Europe. I think the experience of sitting still and reading carefully without a translation to fall back on will be a good growth experience for me.
Resources Iāve been liking:
As far as flashcards go Iām 772 into my deck, but many cards are phrases (a large number seem to have to do with fish ) so I wouldnāt take that as pure āwords knownā.
Iām noticing more and more that simple phrases are making sense to me when doing my listening practice which is nice. My vocabulary is still quite small, but I suspect once I start reading that will improve. It helps that the videos I use to practice are largely focused on everyday things like walking around, cooking, buying items in shops, going camping, etc.
I have no chill. I just wanna read as soon as possible.
So. I found Nils Holgerssons underbara resa genom Sverige on Google Play Books which means I can get the EPUB and read it on my iPad. I also found that KyBook 3 (an iPad app) allows for sideloading dictionaries and that Wikitionary allows you to download their dictionaries for free (here). Wonderful 
I actually found the title in a small list of suggested Swedish books for beginners, but most were far too difficult, or so childish that I figured I wouldnāt actually want to read them. I am looking forward to HundraĆ„ringen som klev ut genom fƶnstret och fƶrsvann which is supposed to be about an old man who escapes his care home and somehow ends up in a drug ring?! But glancing at the first page I had no hope of pushing through it just yet, so itās a ālaterā book.
So I had my true first Swedish reading session, 63 days into the year 
Anyways, page one of this childrenās book (which so far has no truly unusual vocabulary I should note) took my 15 minutes during which I understood some sentences with dictionary lookups and others I needed to fall back on machine translation to piece together what was happening 
So far his parents are lamenting what a lazy and mean boy their son is, and theyāve headed off to church while giving him an assignment to read (which he will be quizzed on upon their return).
He just fell asleep though (I think) and so I imagine given the cover weāre going to slip into dreamworld soon.
BTW: There is an anime version of that book, of course. ćć«ć¹ć®ćµćććŖę , 52 episodes.
I normally donāt post so much but Iām so hyped for these books, which just arrived:
I think Iāll start with the comic, aiming for 6 pages a day (which should work out to just around 11 days) and then either continue with Nils Holdersson or start one of the A1 paperbacksā¦or do both 
You learning Swedish is so interesting 
If you ever wonder about the German explanations, please feel free to ask!
Thatās weird, unless they were like 60. Which hilly-billy town were you at? 
I remember trying to read MƤn Som Hatar Kvinnor like 10 years ago, but it was a bit rough. Some day Iāll also get back to Swedish novels. Have a few easier ones which I should start with.
Btw, this is a fun podcast I sometimes listen to: https://www.swedishlinguist.com/how-to-use-the-simple-swedish-podcast/
I love that image of the skull on the camping tent, haha. I donāt even need to know Swedish to understand that.
Oh itās actually a boat! Like a skull on the sail of a boat
Aaah, I see it now. The boat part of the boat blended in with all the blood red on the cover, haha.
the next biggest ātownā was called Punkaharju. Itās pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but very beautiful area. Communication outside of the place we were staying at was definitely a struggle. 
Most packaging having also Swedish saved us in the supermarkets.
Okay lol that figures. Had to check where that is, although my geographical knowledge of my own country is atrocious .
I took at look at my stats for the past month and it seems Iām spending about 10hrs/month on Swedish practice. Note that this doesnāt include doing my flashcards each morning as I donāt care to track that - but Iāll note Anki says I took 13 minutes today to do my cards which feels about right for an average day since Iāve cleaned up my deck.
Iām slowly switching into primarily Swedish with Swedish subs rather than dual subs (what Eng subs refers to) and finding it doable for learner-content. I still absolutely need dual subs for native content. No subs is exclusively very, very basic learner content when I want to test my listening in isolation.
Iām using Simple Time Tracker for Android, not sure if itās available on iOS.
Iāve been rather busy the past few days and have barely touched the comic I said I would read 6 pages a day of 
From tomorrow I should have more time, though.
Soā¦I got maybe 15 pages in and just never went back to it. Meanwhile, today I casually started Iskallt mord and I both already have a better idea of whatās going on, Iām also more engaged in the story. Guess maybe comics arenāt the way for me.
Is it terrible that I smiled as soon as I saw mƶrdad? And while it was not my flashcards, I didnāt need to look it up 
The story is definitely a bit clunky, but itās a great level for me as I still have so many words to look up and sometimes puzzling out the grammar takes a moment. Two pages took me 27 minutes, with a bit of noise in that number as my partner came to talk to me, but Iām curious to see how fast Iāll be by the time I finish. The whole story is only about 100 pages.
New goal, which I can hopefully stick to: minimum 4 pages a day, at least to finish the two A1 books I have.
Yeah sorry about that, was the same with the French stories my son readā¦ but I guess with a low number of words and grammar itās hard to do elaborate descriptions 
I guess if you stick to it, you will be reading native material (of authors with an easier writing style) around this time next year 
Oh gosh, thatās not me being upset or annoyed or anything! If an A1 story wasnāt clunky Iād frankly be amazed.
Iām enjoying my little murder mystery although the past few days Iāve been rather busy and havenāt read as much as I hoped.
I havenāt really updated this lately but figure I should toss something in here.
Iāve officially put down Swedish for the time being. I have only so many hours in the day, and Swedish just stopped making the cut.
A few things contributed to this. One is that with warmer weather comes travel - Iām traveling at least once a month every month tilā¦August? But Iām sure something will happen in September so letās just say that I wonāt be staying put until November.
The next is that I somehow got it into my head that I wanted to do more Japanese output, do language exchange, make friends, etcā¦but compared to the last few times Iāve tried this Iāve been quite successful. Too successful? Responding to messages in Japanese is mentally tiring in a way that English is not.
Finally I just seem to be in a bit of a funk. Iām having trouble focusing, Iāve barely been reading, and canāt seem to watch anything to completion either. My attention feels scattered and I suspect that is due in no small part to the aforementioned travel and sudden new social life Iām maintaining.
These phases come and go, so Iām not worried about it, but Swedish has been sacrificed. RIP. I hardly knew ya.
Maybe another time.
On an entirely unrelated note, I decided to try out the new Japanese content streaming service (for US + Canada), JME, and I have to say that at the moment itās not worth it. At $25(!)/month it simply doesnāt offer value for the price, in my opinion. Quite a few of the shows are older, the selection is pretty small, I havenāt found anything yet with Japanese subtitles, and Iāve run across at least one movie with English subs I could not turn off (despite my account being set to Japanese!).
I honestly was willing to forgive the other issues until I hit the hard English subs - but that limits my selection even more as I have no interest in watching English subbed content.
What a bummer. I would really like a way to legally/reliably watch variety shows (and other live action content). At $25 Iād be hesitant, but would bite with Japanese subs and/or a healthy drama back catalog. But hard English subs is a hard pass. 
