What does these nations have in common?

[Ironside]

On a somewhat relevant note, Im getting more into Swedish metal, and I want to learn to at least understand Swedish. Whats the best way to do this? Ive already established that Rosetta Stone fails hard, at least for me.

While I agree with Kadagar that good lyrics takes quite a bit of experience to fully get, it helps with exposure.

In general, watching programs in Swedish with English subtitles would probably be best for general exposure. Not the easiest to get though, a few movies I guess. Swedish texts for English programs should be quite easy to find (we subtext everything), but you'll get quite a bit of accent. We have long vovels that's a bit rare.
At least some parts of the US it shouldn't be so hard to find people interested in Swedish that can help. You're at a university correct?

Grammar and word order shouldn't be to hard to catch up on, it's mostly the same.

Overkill is of course an exchange student, but you'll learn a lot if you want to. That said, you have to want to, you can live perfectly fine with only English in Sweden.

I have no problems translating the song... But can I translate Johnny Cash? **** NO!!

Song translations is really hard. Rythm and rhyme are essential and you still need to translate the meaning of the text.

Edit: We lose out on the list if you include Russia. The others have never invaded Sweden.