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.

Learning Norwegian - the basics

In my experience there are several issues that causes problems for someone who are learning Norwegian with English as their primarily language, or someone who uses English as reference because their native language is too different.

Firstly, whenever you start to learn Norwegian you will have to learn the basic elements. Some prefer to learn Norwegian through a lot of not basic texts. This can seem great in the beginning. Instead of learning through the lame dialog found in basic book, you will learn through more interesting texts. In the beginning you might not care that you don't understand completely everything. Problem is that you will probably develop bad habits that can be difficult to shake later. Regular Norwegian classes follows the layout of the Norwegian Course outlined. Often I see these errors among those who have not learned Norwegian step by step:

1) Remember that Norwegian do NOT have -ing form in verbs. The present is, for regular verbs, simply made by adding -r. This is not among the more common errors, but it is a very serious mistake. Norwegian does have -ing words but they are describing the act of and are not verbs.

2) More common errors, but not as serious as the one mentioned in 1), are pronunciation errors. There are many special rules and sounds in Norwegian. E.g. "gj" usually turns into "j" when spoken. Commonly some letters are also silent in the end of words. Native Norwegians will generally be able to understand you if this is the only kind of mistake you are making. The problem, however, is that it will be very difficult to understand when Norwegians speak when the words don't sound exactly the way they look.

Bryggen in Bergen, Norway

3) The Third problem that is very common is the word order. It is not too difficult to learn the position of the verbs in Norwegian. That being said, it often become more difficult if you have developed a bad habit. In addition, this kind of error will make your Norwegian sound really amateurish.

I will hopefully include some further instruction about these elements later.

The Norwegian Classes

The Norwegian Classes I offer on my site - Learn Norwegian Online - follow a set pattern. Naturally the pattern is adjustable, but it follows this pattern for a reason. The aim is to train all language aspects.

1. The first element in each language part or chapter is the grammatical part. Every class has a brief overview of the rules that will be gone through in the next topics in the class. Purpose is to be aware of them when we have training with the text and communication.

2. Text and reading. This part gets modified based on the level of the course. At the beginner's level focus is on repetition where in order to In the beginning the focus is on repetition where teacher reads the text first and it is to be repeated. Purpose is to both have training in common phrases and pronunciation. When you are at an intermediate level the added focus is also on vocabulary (in addition to more advanced grammar). Purpose is for you being able to have skills for a more and more advanced Norwegian including its vocabulary. This element is of the utmost importance for those who whom want to take the test "Bergenstesten".

Regardless of level there are discussions in connection with the reading tasks. Best way to learn is by production of the language one is learning. 

3. Listening tasks are an integral part of the classes. This is particularly important in the beginning to be used to hear Norwegian in various different dialects. It also encourage a stronger focus, because listening to newly learned words is more demanding than solely rely on the text.

4. Homework. When learning new topics and when classes are just a few times a week it is a huge advantage to do some training in between classes. This includes a written task that gets corrected for free.

A picture of the city of Bergen in Norway

Contact info for more information about the Norwegian classes:
email@norwegianlearning.com

Current Price for individual classes (60 minutes) in 2015: US$ 20

Use of infinitive in phrases

When making phrases in Norwegian using two verbs in sequence, the principles are the same as when writing or speaking in English. Even so, it is sometimes difficult to transfer the rules to another language. Not too strange considering that so much of English is not directly transferable to Norwegian.

Same as with English it is very common when combining to verbs in sequence that the second is in infinitive with the article. This is regardless whether the first verb was in present or past tense, but here I will use present tense to make it easy.

English: He loves to eat chocolate
Norwegian: Han elsker å spise sjokolade

Some exceptions are for certain verbs, however, where the second verb will be in the infinitive format but without the article. These verbs are primarily in its present tense form : Kan, Skal, Vil, Må, Bør (Can, Shall, Will, Must, Should).

English: He can eat chocolate
Norwegian: Han kan spise sjokolade

Norwegian adjectives

Norwegian adjectives are not very dissimilar to English adjectives.
The conjugation for most of them are: Mer (more) and Mest (most).
For plural the adjectives generally ends in -e. For the words in the example below the plural version becomes: "praktiske" and "normale"

Examples of conjugation.
Praktisk (Practical) - mer praktisk - mest praktisk
Normal (normal) - mer normal - mest normal

There are huge number of exceptions. However, the exceptions are generally based on the ending of the word and therefore something one will get used to after practice with the Norwegian language.
For example with -ig ending the word follow a particular pattern.

Alvorlig (serious) - alvorligere (more serious) - alvorligst (most serious)