Columbia University offers four semesters of basic instruction in the Swedish language: Elementary Swedish I and II and Intermediate Swedish I and II. Each of these is a four-credit course, involving almost four hours of classroom instruction per week through the duration of a 14-week semester. Courses usually require students to pass several quizzes as well as midterm and final exams.

Elementary Swedish I is designed for true beginners, and Elementary Swedish II takes up where the first course leaves off. Students who have enrolled in the Elementary Swedish I cover grammatical material through the past tense and work with basic grammar and pronunciation.
Elementary courses meet on Monday and Wednesday afternoons, from 12:10 to 2:00 p.m., and Intermediate courses on the same days from 2:10 to 4 p.m. Classes are held in Hamilton Hall, located on the southwest corner of West 116th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in New York City. If you don't need college credit, you may be interested in enrolling as an auditor through Columbia’s division of Continuing Education. To find the current tuition rates per credit, please check with the Columbia Registrar's office.
 
The fall semester at Columbia begins in early September, on the day after Labor Day, and the spring term starts in late January, the day after Martin Luther King's birthday. Elementary Swedish I is taught in the fall, and Elementary Swedish II in the spring; Intermediate Swedish I is taught in the fall, and Intermediate Swedish II in the spring. We do not have a beginner's course starting during the spring semester.
 
If Columbia’s Swedish courses do not suit your needs, you may want to try those offered by New York University through its continuing education division, meeting on weekday evenings at Scandinavia House. Further information is available from the American-Scandinavian Foundation at this phone number: 212-879-9779. Or you can check into it online at this address. Other Swedish language courses are available through the Church of Sweden at 5 East 48th Street, near Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Telephone: 212-832-8443. New York City is a great place to learn Swedish. Good luck with your studies!