Which tones are hardest, why, and where to start.
Swedish has lexical pitch accent. Beginners distinguish T1 (level) from the contour tones (T2–T4) best; T3 is identified second-best but is hard to produce — a perception-production asymmetry.
Source: Nagano-Madsen & Wan (2017), EUSIPCO | Gao, Man (2024), Cross-Language Perception of Lexical Tones by Nordic Learners of Mandarin Chinese, Languages 9(2), 65. DOI: 10.3390/languages9020065
Group averages tell you where to look, not what you actually do. Two speakers of the same first language can differ a lot. The only way to know is to record yourself and compare.
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