Online Swedish courses for university with Tisus as the goal

In Sweden many master's programmes are taught in English, while most bachelor's programmes are taught in Swedish. If you plan a bachelor's degree in Sweden, you therefore usually need Swedish, which you usually prove with Tisus, Stockholm University's Swedish test. Degrees at public universities are tuition-free for students from the EU, the EEA and Switzerland, while other international students pay fees.

In Finland, Swedish is an official language alongside Finnish. At Åbo Akademi University in Turku, lectures and course literature are in Swedish according to the university, with some English at master's level. For applications to a study place in Finland, the Finnish National Agency for Education also lists YKI, its national language exam, which is available in Swedish.

Swedish 3 is a course in the subject Swedish at Swedish upper secondary school. A bachelor's degree taught in Swedish requires knowledge at this level. Applicants with a foreign school diploma usually prove it with Tisus.

Tisus (Test i svenska för universitets- och högskolestudier) is Stockholm University's Swedish test for university study in Sweden. It is not linked to the CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference with six levels from A1 to C2. A passed Tisus does not expire.

English comes on top. According to universityadmissions.se, the application portal of Swedish universities, the general entry requirements for bachelor's studies include English at the level of the upper secondary course English 6. If you study in Swedish, you therefore need both languages.

Tisus, Stockholm University's Swedish test for university study, has three parts, namely reading comprehension, writing proficiency and speaking proficiency. Reading and writing usually take place on a Tuesday morning and last about four hours together. The time of the oral exam appears in the invitation, which arrives about three weeks before.

The result is pass or fail, and you must pass all three parts. If you fail one part, you retake only that part within a year. If you fail two or three parts, you retake the whole test. Tisus runs in spring and autumn, in Sweden in Linköping, Lund, Malmö, Stockholm, Umeå and Uppsala, and abroad at about 70 locations.

A preparation course trains three things. You read long non-fiction texts under time pressure, write argumentative texts with a clear structure and speak freely on a prepared topic. Stockholm University points out that the test is now more difficult than the published sample tests.

Academic Swedish differs from everyday Swedish in sentence structure and vocabulary. A course for university should practise three features on purpose.

1 The s-passive

Swedish academic texts often form the passive with the ending -s. Undersökningen genomfördes means the study was carried out. This form is frequent in reports and essays and rarer in conversation.

2 Compound terms

Swedish builds long compounds, such as forskningsfråga (research question). English speakers need to learn to write them as one word and to place the linking s correctly.

3 The uppsats and the seminar

An uppsats is the written thesis of a degree. At many Swedish universities students defend it in a seminar, where another student acts as opponent and asks questions. You practise expressing criticism in Swedish and answering objections.

With teaching staff, du applies as everywhere in Sweden. Students usually address professors by their first name, and emails start with Hej.

On the way to a degree taught in Swedish, three course types follow one another. They differ in goal and timing.

B2 is the fourth of the six levels of the CEFR, the Common European Framework of Reference. Tisus, Stockholm University's Swedish test, is not linked to the CEFR, but it requires a level at which you can follow university teaching in Swedish.

All three course types work online, because they rely on texts, recordings and live lessons. Practise the oral part of Tisus with a teacher who assesses your argument and your pronunciation.

Because Tisus, Stockholm University's Swedish test, runs only twice a year, preparation needs lead time. Plan backwards from the application deadline of your programme.

1. Build up Swedish to about B2 with a general course, the fourth level of the Common European Framework of Reference.
2. Then switch to a university preparation course with academic texts and Tisus tasks.
3. Take Tisus early enough to leave a second session before the application deadline.
4. After admission, take an academic writing course before your first uppsats.

The exam has a fee. According to Linköping University, Tisus cost 2,380 Swedish kronor in Sweden and 2,875 kronor abroad in 2026. One-to-one online lessons for Tisus preparation cost about 20 to 50 US dollars or euros per hour as of 2026.