Norwegian/Introduction

Norwegian | Table of Contents - Introduction - Lesson 1 - Lesson 2 - Lesson 3

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Welcome to the course

Welcome to a course in Norwegian. When you have completed this course, you should have enough knowledge to speak, read and write the language rather well. In order to learn a language properly, you must take action; you must do something. So I suggest, after you've learnt the basics, that you look up some easy literature in Norwegian and start reading. Knowing what is easy, though, is not easy if you don't know any Norwegian yet. If you know somebody who is Norwegian, they might be able to help steer you toward some nice reading. Later I will also try to add some links here to easy articles for the beginners in Norwegian.

General remarks about Norwegian

Unlike English, the spelling of written Norwegian is fairly close to its pronunciation. This means that, like Spanish, it is usually possible to guess how a word is pronounced in Norwegian. Although Norwegian can only be written in two ways, Bokmål and Nynorsk, how a Norwegian person speaks it usually reflects the regional dialect of the person’s origin. There are nine vowels in Norwegian:

a

e

i

o

u

y

æ

ø

å

and 15 consonants:

b

d

f

g

h

j

k

l

m

n

p

r

s

t

v

The consonants c, q, w, x and z appear only in words of foreign origin.

Finally, there are 7 diphthongs:

ai

au

ei

oy

oi

ui

øy

Syllable division

Syllable division marks the natural break in a word. When you know where the syllables divide, you can divide a word into its natural sections. This makes it easier to speak correctly and to start to develop a correct speech rhythm. The general rule for syllable division is that each syllable contains one vowel each.

Before one consonant

en ta-le		a speech
å so-ve		to sleep
en sa-me		a Sami

Between two consonants

ei jen-te		a girl
å san-ke		to gather
et styk-ke		a piece

Between two vowels that do not form a diphthong

en bo-a		a boa
en ra-di-o		a radio
en ge-o-graf		a geographer
et pi-a-no		a piano
en ko-a-la		a koala

Information about the language

First of all, if you're a native English, Dutch or German speaker, or a native speaker of any other Germanic language, learning Norwegian shouldn't be too difficult, as it will have some common traits with your first language. I am not saying, however, that it will necessarily be easy.

Alphabet

The Norwegian alphabet is Latin-derived and similar to the English one, except for three additional letters, æ/Æ, ø/Ø and å/Å. These have no special function in sentences/words; they are normal letters, and you will see them used frequently.

Here's how to say the alphabet letter by letter (note that these are the names of the letters, not how they are pronounced when they appear in words):

Uppercase Lowercase IPA A a ɑː B b beː C c seː D d deː E e eː F f ef G g geː H h hɔː I i iː J j jeː/jɔd K k kɔː L l el M m em N n en O o uː

Uppercase Lowercase IPA P p peː Q q kʉː R r ær S s es T t teː U u ʉː V v veː W w dɔbl veː X x eks Y y yː Z z set Æ æ æː Ø ø øː Å å ɔ:

Wikipedia has more information about the use of the letters Æ, Ø, and Å.

Bokmål and Nynorsk

There are two official written forms of the Norwegian language. This specific course will teach Bokmål, which is the most widely used (85%). However, the two forms are very similar and you should not have great difficulties in understanding written Nynorsk when you encounter it. For more information about this, check out the Wikipedia article on the Norwegian language.

Getting Started

Okay, if you're ready, all you've got to do is proceed to Lesson 1!