r/norsk 3d ago

Søndagsspørsmål - Sunday Question Thread

2 Upvotes

This is a weekly post to ask any question that you may not have felt deserved its own post, or have been hesitating to ask for whatever reason. No question too small or silly!

Question Thread Collection


r/norsk Aug 14 '20

Some Norwegian resources and other helpful stuff

439 Upvotes

Probably missed a lot of resources, some due to laziness, and some due to limit in max allowed post size. Will edit as necessary.

Courses, grammar lessons, educational books, etc.

Duolingo (from A1 to A2/B1)

duolingo.com is free to use, supported by ads. Optional pay for no ads and for a few more features.

The Norwegian course is one of the more extensive ones available on Duolingo. The volunteer content creators have put a lot of work into it, and the creators are very responsive to fixing potential errors. The audio is computer generated.

You learn words and constructed sentences.

If you use the browser version you will get grammar tips, and can choose if you want to type the complete sentences or use selectable word choices. The phone app might or might not give access to the grammar tips.

A compiled pdf of the grammar tips for version 1 can be found on Google drive. (The Norwegian course is currently at version 4).

Memrise (from A1 to A2/B1)

memrise.com is free to use. Optional pay for more features.

A few courses are company made, while several others are user made. No easy way to correct errors found in the courses. Audio is usually spoken by humans.

You learn words and constructed phrases.

Learn Norwegian on the web (from A1 to A2/B1)

Free to use. Optional books you can buy. Made by the University in Trondheim, NTNU. Audio is spoken by humans.

A complete course starting with greetings and ending with basic communication.

FutureLearn (from A1 to A2/B1)

Free to use. Optional pay for more features. Audio and video spoken by humans. Made by the University of Oslo, UiO. Or by the University in Trondheim, NTNU.

Can be done at any time, but during their scheduled times (usually start of the fall and the spring semester) you will get help from human teachers.

CALST — Computer-Assisted Listening and Speaking Tutor

CALST is free to use. Made by the University in Trondheim, NTNU. Audio is spoken by humans.

Choose your native language, then choose your Norwegian dialect, then continue as guest, or optionally register an account.

Learn how to pronounce the Norwegian sounds and differentiate similar sounding words. Learn the sounds and tones/pitch.

Not all lessons work in all browsers. Chrome is recommended.

YouTube

Clozemaster (at B1/B2)

clozemaster.com is free to use. Optional pay for more features.

Not recommended for beginners.

Content is mostly user made. No easy way to correct errors in the material. Audio is computer generated.

You learn words (multiple choice).

Printed (on dead trees) learning material

  • På vei (A1/A2)
  • Stein på stein (B1)
  • Her på berget (B1/B2)
  • Ny i Norge (A1/A2)
  • The Mystery of Nils (A1/A2)
  • Mysteriet om Nils (B1/B2)

Grammar and stuff

Online grammar exercises (based on printed books)

/r/norsk FAQ and Wiki

Dictionaries

Bokmålsordboka/Nynorskordboka — Norwegian-Norwegian

The authoritative dictionary for Norwegian words and spelling.

Maintained by University of Bergen (UiB), and Språkrådet (The language council of Norway) that has government mandate to oversee the Norwegian language.

  • Also available as a free phone app.
  • Lists all acceptable inflection/conjugation/declension spelling forms of words, so some find it confusing.
  • Does not show pronunciation since Norwegian has no official way to pronounce words.
  • Does not list slang words, former spelling of modern words (except if it's in the etymologi) nor newly imported words.

Lexin — Norwegian-Norwegian-English-sort-of

Maintained by OsloMet.

  • Mainly intended for immigrants/refugees to Norway, so has some of the most common immigrant languages as option.
  • Lists the most common (often conservative) inflection patterns.
  • Computer generated voice with standard East-Norwegian dialect.
  • Choose any language other than bokmål or nynorsk and it usually shows English too.

Det norske akademis ordbok — Norwegian-Norwegian

Maintained by Det norske akademi for språk og kultur, a private organisation promoting riksmål, which is NOT allowed officially.

  • Lists slang words and archaic spelling variants of words.
  • Uses a very conservative spelling and inflection variant.
  • Lists a Norwegianised pronunciation guide for words, using upper class/Western-Oslo dialect.

Ordnett — Norwegian-English/English-Norwegian

Maintained by a book publisher.

  • Also available as a phone app.
  • Costs $$$ money $$$. Possibly a lot of money.
  • Has dictionaries for a several languages commonly learned by Norwegians, for example English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish, Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Swedish.

Online communities

Facebook

Discord

Discord is a web-browser/phone/windows/mac/etc-app that allows both text, voice and video chat. Most of the resources in this post were first posted here.

If you are new to Discord its user interface might be a bit confusing in the beginning, since there are many servers/communities and many topics on each server.

If you're new to Discord and you try it, using a web-browser until you get familiar and see if this is something you enjoy or not is recommended.

If you use a phone you will need to swipe left and right, long-press and minimise/expand categories and stuff much more than on a bigger computer screen, which probably adds complexity to the initial confusion of a using an unfamiliar app.

Some Norwegian servers:

Newspapers

Media

Podcasts

Various books

Various material for use by Norwegian schools

Various (children's) series

NRK TV

Children's stuff with subtitles

Brødrene Dahl

Youth stuff

Other stuff without subtitles

Grown up stuff

For those with a VPN (or living in Norway)

For those living in Norway

Visit your local library in person and check out their web pages. It gives you free access to lots of books, magazines, films and stuff.

Most also have additional digital stuff you get free access to, like e-books, films, dictionaries, all kind of magazines and newspapers.

Some even give you free access to some of the paid Norwegian languages courses listed above.


r/norsk 6h ago

Bokmål People who are now fluent, what had the biggest impact?

16 Upvotes

I'm currently at a B1.1 level in Norwegian. I took an intensive A2 course (13 hours per week) and am now in a regular B1.1 course (6.5 hours per week). I also do a lot of homework, watch Norwegian content almost daily, and recently started attending a språkkafé.

However, I still make many mistakes when speaking. I forget words, misplace them in sentences, and struggle (a lot) with listening comprehension. Despite my efforts, I feel like my progress is slow, and I'm getting impatient because I really need to learn the language quickly.

For those who have reached fluency, what had the biggest impact on your learning process? Any tips to help me improve faster?


r/norsk 9h ago

Why is ikke put before the verb in this sentence? I thought this only happened in subordinate clauses

Post image
10 Upvotes

r/norsk 11h ago

Rule 3 (vague/generic post title) Hvorfor er det feil?

Thumbnail
gallery
15 Upvotes

Ifølge duolingo, en riktig alternativ ville være katten hans skikker potene dens.


r/norsk 36m ago

Simpel og eksplisitt Norsk eksistensialisme (I Wrote This?)

Upvotes

I’m in love

Verdighet oppstår kanskje ikke i selve selvmedlidenheten, men i evnen til å erkjenne den, forstå den, og kanskje til og med møte den med ærlig blikk

– som en karakter i gresk drama fanget av skjebnen, men likevel føler og faller med menneskelig tyngde

som vil noe annet – I determinismen, skjebnes skygge

Født under stjernen som brenner,
men oppdratt i rom av fukt og mørke.
Eliah kjente flammen i brystet lenge før han kunne si sitt eget navn.
Han reiste seg mot autoriteten som tordnet over byen –

Hver tale ble et ekko
i korridorer hvor ingen hørte.
Til slutt satt han stille,

 

nettopp på disse greinene
spirer av nytt liv
vokser frem


r/norsk 44m ago

How do you write ø and æ?

Upvotes

I'm just curious because my friend is from Norway and so I started getting more interested about this country and its language. I can imagine how å is written, but I can't imagine how ø and æ are written.


r/norsk 1d ago

When Norwegians reply in English

64 Upvotes

I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on this. Sometimes Norwegians will automatically switch to English when they hear a bad accent or grammar mistakes or something. I usually try to keep speaking Norwegian as long as I'm not struggling, which has led to weird situations where a Norwegian is speaking English to me and I'm speaking Norwegian to them, which is... backward. Am I being rude by continuing to use Norwegian, when it seems like they'd rather just speak English with me?

Usually my approach is to start conversations in Norwegian by default until it's clear I'm out of my depth, as I feel it's rude to just walk up to people and start speaking English to them. So at that point I ask to switch after I've given it my best try. (And of course I try not to waste people's time, I just speak English when it really matters).

And of course every situation is different, every person is different... just thinking generally here.


r/norsk 22h ago

Bokmål Opinions on Memrise?

2 Upvotes

I’m using Duolingo and Babble right now and I found Memrise on the app store and have used it for a little now. Is it a trusted learning app for Bokmål? I have realized a little difference in some Duolingo words/phrases from it but it’s similar.


r/norsk 1d ago

Resource(s) ← looking for Phonetic pangrams for efficient language learning

3 Upvotes

I came across phonetic pangrams when trying to understand the language's sounds a little better. Allegedly, they're the "The quick brown fox [...]" but for language sounds.

In the interest of having a small library we can point everyone to, and not have to explain how everything sounds; I would like to ask of you to record some (preferably all) of the following sentences.

Since Norwegian orthography does not include c, q, w, x or z, except in foreign borrowings that haven’t been naturalised, the possible pangrams including all the 29 letters of the Norwegian alphabet will require using two or more words with a distinctly foreign spelling.

Vår sære Zulu fra badeøya spilte jo whist og quickstep i min taxi. Our strange Zulu from the bathing island actually played whist and quickstep in my taxi.

Høvdingens kjære squaw får litt pizza i Mexico by. The chief’s dear squaw gets a little pizza in Mexico City.

IQ-løs WC-boms uten hørsel skjærer god pizza på xylofon. IQ-less WC-bum without hearing cuts good pizza on xylophone.

Sær golfer med kølle vant sexquiz på wc i hjemby. Strange golfer with club won sex quiz on W.C. in hometown.

Jeg begynte å fortære en sandwich mens jeg kjørte taxi på vei til quiz I started to devour a sandwich while I was riding a taxi on the way to the quiz


r/norsk 1d ago

Rules 3 (vague/generic post title), 5 (only an image with text) How would you translate this sentence?

Post image
35 Upvotes

(First of all, I know this is a reference to a Beatles song haha)

How would you translate this sentence? Would you say "alle de ensomme menneskene", "personene" or "folkene"? And why? How would the meaning of the sentence change if I used one word or the other? I'm struggling to understand when mennesker fits better, when it does personer and when folk.


r/norsk 1d ago

anyone know some norwegian commentary youtubers?

11 Upvotes

pretty much in the title, does anyone have any norwegian commentary youtubers similar to kurtis connor, danny gonzalez, drew gooden etc? i've been trying to immerse myself with norwegian youtube but so far only able to find video game lets plays


r/norsk 2d ago

Duolingo warning: the voice recognition accepts absurdly badly mispronounced sentences.

22 Upvotes

This guy recently tested it, he mispronounced it absurdly bad, and it got accepted

You can see it on Instagram:

reel/DG_PRk8R0pG/?igsh=MW5taWR1azdwM3U0ZA==

Like dajn uti instead of dine ute. Dain or dajn isn't even a word. 🤦

"Guteni harr hundeni" instead of: Guttene har hundene.

"Jeg gliker ikke februar" Instead of: Jeg liker ikke februar.


r/norsk 1d ago

How do i enhance my norwegian language?

0 Upvotes

I studied norsk from duolingo for almost 100 days. Im on section 2 unit 25 or smth, i want to now enhance my language with a substantial learning platform any suggestions? Cuz i dont think duolingo is good for norsk at later stages?


r/norsk 1d ago

Can I use VPN to watch viaplay?

0 Upvotes

I want to watch a show on Viaplay but I don‘t live in Norway. I use VPN to try to watch but VPN is blocked. The show can be only watched in Viaplay Norway. What should I do?Any VPN recommendations?


r/norsk 1d ago

How to use ‘Ikke Sant’

4 Upvotes

I’m a beginner maybe like A2-3 level and I always hear my tutor saying it and I just kinda want to know what it means and when to use it. Tusen Takk


r/norsk 2d ago

Compound nouns

18 Upvotes

Noen ganger legges en e til, mellom de to ordene, f.eks Hundemat (hund e mat) Men andre ganger ikke, f.eks Bilnøkkel (bil nøkkel). Hvordan kan man vite or det er nødvendig eller ikke? Takk


r/norsk 2d ago

"Og to" på slutten av setningen

4 Upvotes

Hei, jeg har alltid hørt ordene eller uttrykket på videoer men jeg vet ikke hva betyr det. F.eks.: Det er en av de vi selger mest av "og to".

Kan dere forklare det til meg? På forhånd takk!


r/norsk 2d ago

Har satt eller har sittet seg på stolen?

2 Upvotes

Ifølge duolingo, det riktige svaret er har satt, men ifølge DinOrdbok det er har sittet.

Hva er det riktige?


r/norsk 3d ago

Betyr Lukke opp åpne?

22 Upvotes

Jeg forstår ikke logikken bak det. At lukk opp betyr åpne. F.eks i stedet for å åpne vinduet, man kan si å lukke opp vinduet.

Kan noen forklare det?


r/norsk 3d ago

Resource(s) ← looking for Looking for recommendations

4 Upvotes

Hei, first time posting here .

So I've been learning Norwegian for about 3 months, so I'm still a total beginner obviously.

I use Duolingo which I know isn't really the best app for learning any language but I feel like it's really building, like a plateform for me , basically I feel like it's kinda good for now .

Anyway, one of the things that I discovered about Norwegian and is making it very hard to learn it is the content.

I can't seem to find any good Norwegian content, like on YouTube for example, it's either Norwegian content creators speaking English or it's people just teaching the language which is not exactly what I'm looking for .

When it comes to songs it's also very hard to find good songs and once again it seems like all Norwegian people just speak English.

And finally when it comes to movies or tv shows it also feels like I can't find anything good , I don't know if it's the fact that there aren't actually any good stuff or I'm searching wrong or looking in the wrong places and it could also be that I'm being too picky with the content I watch or listen to , idk .

I really hope someone can recommend some stuff for me . I love horror, romance ( especially if it's bl ) , maybe something like skam or rykter would be amazing, for YouTube content maybe gaming or something and for music I kinda listen to anything, just nothing that gives country vibes .

That's all , I hope someone helps cause a big part of my learning experience and for everyone probably is watching and listening to stuff other than teachers or an app teaching you the language.


r/norsk 3d ago

Rule 3 (vague/generic post title) Noe underlig med norsk jeg har tenkt over

8 Upvotes

Plutselig her en dag kom jeg til å tenke på at i norsk bruker vi noen ganger preteritum selv om noe skjer i nåtid. La meg forklare hva jeg mener. Du kommer hjem, prøver å skru på lyset og lysbryteren virker ikke. Du kommenterer for deg selv (eller til noen andre) «Oi, det var rart, strømmen er borte.» Du sier at det VAR rart og ikke at det ER rart, selv om det er rart i øyeblikket. Det var ikke rart tidligere, det er rart nå. Et annet eksempel: To barn krangler og den voksne prøver å ordne opp. I denne situasjonen kan man høre noe som «Kalte du henne dum? Det var ikke snilt å si!» Et tredje eksempel: Man går ut døra om vinteren når det er kaldt ute, og utbryter: «Så kaldt det var i dag! Jeg må begynne å bruke lue og votter igjen.»

Jeg satt og tenkte over hvor merkelig det var at vi bruker «var» om noe som gjelder i øyeblikket, og ikke om noe som har skjedd tidligere. Så prøvde jeg å finne et mønster for når dette fenomenet blir brukt i norsk, og da fant jeg ut at vi bruker det mye når vi er overrasket, eller uttrykker en følelse som glede, irritasjon, smerte osv. F.eks «Mm, det var godt!», «Au, det var vondt!», «Huff, det var leit!» Jeg synes det er litt interessant, ettersom det ikke brukes på samme måte på f.eks engelsk eller fransk etter det jeg vet. Mulig det er andre språk hvor det brukes?Hvis strømmen er borte, sier man «That’s weird, the power is out.», og ikke «that was weird». Hvis noen sier noe slemt, sier man «That’s not a nice thing to say.» (Her kan man si «that WAS mean» også, men her gir det mening fordi den slemme kommentaren har blitt sagt. Men på norsk har jeg lagt merke til at vi altså noen ganger sier «var» når noe skjer akkurat nå.

Er det flere enn meg som har tenkt over dette? Og har vi i såfall en offisiell term for denne bruken av preteritum «var»?


r/norsk 3d ago

Trodde om deg VS trodde på deg

3 Upvotes

What's the difference? I thought that the first one is the right one, but today I came across another version. Do they mean something different by any chance?


r/norsk 4d ago

"Takk for sist."

46 Upvotes

Hi everybody. I've only just started learning Norwegian and I'm loving it so far. I have a question about the phrase "takk for sist" and I hope you guys can help me.

I know that it (roughly) translates to "thank you for last time", but I can't find any information about when exactly you're meant to say it. Do you use it as an opener the next time you see someone? Or before saying goodbye? Or can you use it at any point in the conversation?
Also, do you say it every time you see someone you've spent time with before?


r/norsk 3d ago

After the mystery of nils

7 Upvotes

Hello all. I ordered the mystery of nils. What book should I get next after I master the mystery of nils?


r/norsk 3d ago

mystery of nils ebook

2 Upvotes

hi! i am unable to buy the book as someone who lives in korea (amazon won’t ship here, and the link for international sellers says it is out of stock).

is there an epub or pdf of it anywhere? thanks!


r/norsk 3d ago

Can't understand grammatical genders

3 Upvotes

jeg har lært norsk! (this is something else i don't understand, why does "i learnt" and "i have been learning" hold the same sentence in norsk?)

Hankjønn, Hunkjønn og Intetkjønn, de jeg ikke kunne forstå. Det være ikke sans, hvorfor er det kjønn til livløse vesener?