The closest to English is like you said the sh sound, or even the ch sound. The sj sound/s, and all the different spellings, is most likely quite hard for a non-native Swedish speaker because these sounds are not present in the English language, just like we don't have the th sound as in the English words "the" or "three".
Have a look at this which I found on a forum, to get an idea of how it is (or maybe I am making everyone even more confused now)...
sk skära, skäl, sköta, skina, sked, sky (mjuk vokal)
sj själ, sjö, sju, sjuk, sjå, hässja, ässja
sch schal, schema, brosch, pascha, punsch
stj stjärna, stjälk, stjäla, stjärt, stjälpa
skj skjorta, skjuta, skjul, skjutsa, skjuva
ch champinjon, chaufför, choklad, lunch
ti station, situation, auktion, koalition, pretantiös
si television, version, aversion, fusion, pension
ge garage, bagage, camouflage, generös, generad
gi giraff,
giö religiös
rs Lars, mars, fars, Kramfors, ters
ts hurts
The only thing you can do is to search for videos on YouTube or practice the sounds with a native Swedish speaker.
And now something in Swedish because this concerns Swedish speakers too:
Sen har vi alla dialektala varianter för att krångla till det ytterligare,,,
Och som en parentes kan nämnas att finlandssvenskar gör det enkelt för sig då dessa ljud oftast uttalas fel, i alla fall tycker ju vi svenskar att det är fel.