To grasp what people really aspire as to 'target language' (TL) expansion and use, one has to examine their perceptions of surrounding sociolinguistic variation. This listener perception (LP) study amid Stockholm secondary school students, reveals a notable LP contrast, esp. as to speech typified here as migration-linked social dialects. Various listeners marked these samples as ‘good’ Swedish, maybe indicating that they do not pursue a TL equalling the ruling monolingual norm, but instead have a less confined opinion of the sort of Swedish they regard fit for use in more formal circumstances.