Little research has been carried out on the perception of tones by Swedish listeners previously. This study examined the perception of Mandarin tones by Swedish learners, with the focus on Tone 1-Tone 2 contrast. In addition to the four-alternative identification task, a two-way identification task with Tone 1-Tone 2 continua of stimuli with incrementally varied pitch contour was also carried out. The results show that Tone 1 and Tone 2 are more challenging for Swedish learners to identify correctly than the other two tones. Among Swedes who can identify Tone 1 and Tone 2 with a high accuracy score, native speakers of Swedish perceived the fine tonal variations differently from native Chinese speakers. The syllable duration is found to affect the perception of tone contrast, especially for Swedish learners. Possible auditory enhancement accounts for the effect of the duration are offered to explain the Swedish learners’ performance.