Hej, I'm Denise.

I grew up in Halmstad — a small city on the west coast of Sweden, right by the sea. The kind of place where summer lasts exactly long enough to make you fall in love with it, and winter lasts exactly long enough to make you appreciate that.

I left Sweden and moved abroad, and somewhere in the middle of a life that looked nothing like the one I grew up with, I started to really miss it. The culture, the humour, the way Swedes communicate — or don't communicate. The things I used to take for granted suddenly felt like the most interesting things in the world. So I started talking about them.

That became this — a corner of the internet about Sweden, Swedish, and what it actually means to be Swedish. The videos, the book, the app, the proverbs. All of it started with missing home.

I live in Spain now, which means most mornings I'm either lifting weights, running along the coast, or sitting somewhere near the ocean with a coffee thinking about what to make next. The ocean is where I feel most like myself.

I'm a big believer that you can completely change your life — that what you put out into the world comes back to you, that positive thinking isn't just a cliché, and that most limits are ones we invented ourselves. That belief shows up in everything I do, including the affirmations project.

Health, movement, mindset, and the sea. Sweden. That's most of what I am.

If you want to see more of the day-to-day, I'm most active on Instagram and TikTok. And if you just want to say hej — hej@studyswedish.com

Tack för att du är här.