Norwegian classes

I recently aquired a new domain name - Norwegian Classes.
Currently there isn't much on the site, just some old videos I made.

This site will be further developed and I will keep you posted when something else happens.

Using negative in Norwegian

Using the negative in Norwegian is usually quite straightforward, you put it after the verb in main phrases.
When you read a lot of Norwegian you will, however, see that location changes sometimes. The whole list of rules is quite extensive. I have tried to make an overview in a Two part series - Part 1 - Part 2.
Following the 5 rules in those to parts will help you getting the placement right in more than 90% of the cases.

It should be noted that getting the placement wrong will not make you misunderstood. That being said, it is an error that really is easy to spot for a native Norwegian speaker.

Statistics for Norskprøve 2 and 3

This weeks blog post on my site is about who passes and who doesn't pass Norskprøve 2 and 3.

In short, those who passes are people from English speaking countries and whos stay in Norway has been shorter than 1 year. Particularly for the group who are from English speaking countries, there is a almost the same pass rate for both Norskprøve 2 (A2 level) and Norskprøve 3 (B1 level). For other groups there is usually a significant lower pass rate for Norskprøve 3.

 The main reason for significant better performance among people speaking English is naturally the similarities between the languages. This is particularly relevant for the B1 test, where grammar requirements are more strict. More interesting is the fact that the group of people who have been 1 year or less in Norwegian perform significatly better than all other groups. Those who have been in Norway for more than 5 years tend to do very poorly on the tests, particularly Norskprøve 3.

Of course, the measurement is only on length of time in Norway and not on length of time you have been studying Norwegian. So only thing we can say with certainty is that staying for more than 5 years doesn't guarantee that you will be able to perform on a Norwegian test. On the other hand, intensive study for a shorter period of time will give you a huge legs up when learning a new language.

Considering that in the group "less than one year in Norway" we don't have only people who have been there for 11 months. We probably have people who have been there for 8 months or even less.

So, not only can you learn Norwegian up to a B1 level in a very short time. This way of studying with intense focus is the best way of studying. Try to avoid the one-two hour a week scheme for years. Instead try to study intensely for a year.

Free Norwegian course

I'm currently developing a free course in Norwegian. It is a rather slow process, but more content will gradually be released until I'm finished with all of level A1 (First of Two basic levels).
The link for the site with PDFs for extra material: Norwegian Course.


Currently there are no way for you to give feedback. However, feedback will be appreciated and I will soon create more opportunities for 2-way interaction in the above mentioned site where the course will be developed.

Another update: If you are looking for a real cool Norwegian dictionary that will show you the conjugations of both Nouns, verbs and adjectives: Norwegian Dictionary

Norwegian dialects

Norway has many regions that due to geography have had little contact throughout the centuries until at least the early 20th century. As a result there are many local dialects and regions with quite distinct patterns.

I'm probably not unique when saying that even though English is my second language, it can be far less stressful to understand than a lot of Norwegian dialects. If you are somewhat familiar with Norwegian, compare these two dialects.

This is from area of Borre - a dialect very similar to standard Norwegian you will learn in my or most other classes:
http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/nos/?nosid=nos23002

The same story with a Bjugn dialect, which is not an extreme example.
http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/nos/?nosid=nos08001

The majority of Norwegians has a dialect that has some significant degree diverge from the "Standard".

Most commonly there are 4 groups of Norwegian dialects.
1. Eastern Norwegian
2. Western Norwegian
3. Northern Norwegian
4. Trøndelag dialect

In addition you can count the dialect of Southern Norway and Mid-Norway. However, as previously mention there can be some big differences within the regions.

For Example the Bergen dialect has many destinct caracteristics in comparison to nearby dialects. In Bergen you can avoid the female nouns, they use much more bokmål than many surrounding areas. In addition you can even use the definitive form for names. E.g. if your last name is "Dal", people might refer to you as "Dalen".

For courses in Norwegian:
Curso de Noruegues - Learning Norwegian

Silent or not a silent "-t"

One problem that students always seem to encounter is related to whether the letter "-t" is silent in the end of a word or not. This is because the majority of language books don't deal with the issue.

The basic and simple rule is that nouns in the definitive form has a silent "-t".
Verbs (or adjectives for that matter) don't have a silent "-t". The verbs are the ones making the most confusion when starting to learn about past tense.

Most verbs don't look like a noun, but the verbs in group 1 have "-et" in past tense. Just what you will find in definitive form of neutral nouns. E.g. Et hus - Huset (silent -t); Et eple - eplet (silent -t). Whereas the -t in past tense of verbs is silent. å rydde - rydder - ryddet (not silent -t).

How to learn Norwegian (or any language)

I have not written any posts this year. In addition to classes I will hopefully manage to write a complete learning from A-Z in stages on my homepage Norwegian Learning. At best it will take a long time to finish. At worst it will be too demanding to finish.

What I'm writing about here is the demands and tips to learn a language in general and Norwegian in particular.
1. Learning a new language require a lot of work. If your motivation is to learn some languages and Norwegian is more or less randomly chosen you will probably quit before you reach your end goals.

2. To learn Norwegian you will need to study on a semi-regular schedule. Start with a simple grammatical element and learn it properly by studying a little every day. The law of diminishing returns does not apply to language learning. Doubling your efforts will more than double your learning.

3. Take control of the learning process but use the assistance of a tutor. The bulk of your learning process will have to be done by yourself and not in classes. If you don't study yourself but only learn in the classes your process will be very slow indeed. Instead you should study a lot between classes and the tutor should be able to correct your errors, answer your doubts and provide you enough tasks for you to do between classes. Just studying on your own has the risk creating bad habits that are very difficult to change later.

4. Use good tools and materials. Which learning materials are the best varies from person to person. Some prefer to learn language with grammar books while others prefer to use mostly texts and audio. In addition to this material there are other tools you should use. One I and many other like to use is ANKI. This is a free program using flash cards. That you have to fill in the data yourself is not to be considered a disadvantage. It will make it much easier to remember what you fill in.
Another resource that can be very useful is the tasks provided by the site of the main book used in Norwegian language schools - Pa Vei. The tasks can be found for Pa vei 2004 and Pa Vei 2012. In addition, try to get good verb list in order to remember the conjugations of basic Norwegian verbs.

Following the above rules, Norwegian is not a particularly difficult language to learn. As with all languages, however, if you are only somewhat motivated to learn the language it is very difficult to learn. If you seriously are willing to do the work - you can get very well on your way in less than 6 months.

If you are looking for a Norwegian tutor you should visit my site to Learn Norwegian.