Norwegian Language Blog

In Norwegian, sentence structure is fairly painless.  Normally, the parts of speech follow the same pattern as they do in English.  Subject, verb, object. Han går til butikken (he goes to the store.  Jeg spiser frokost når jeg våkner (I eat breakfast when I wake up).  Notice that the til (to) and når (when) fall after the verb in the sentence.  The placement of prepositions and adverbs, as well as prepositional phrases decides where the verb in the sentence will be. 

For example, If I say, Det er en kopp i skapet (There is a cup in the cupboard), the verb is in the second place between the subject and object, like normal.  But if I place the preposition first and say I skapet er det en kopp, you will notice that the verb is still in second place, but it preceeds the subject.   This rule is called inversion.  Here is another example of inversion with a preposition:  Under treet sover en katt (Under the tree a cat is sleeping).  Since under (under-a great cognate) is a preposition, sover (present tense of ‘to sleep’) comes in second place (under treet is ‘under the tree’) and the subject last (en katt – a cat).

Let’s look a few examples with adverbs. I morgen kommer det en storm (Tomorrow a storm is coming).  Since I morgen, (tomorrow) is an adverb, we use inversion and place the verb second in the sentence before the subject (det-in this case stands for ‘there’ as in ‘there is a storm coming’).  I dag regner det (It is raining today). Again, since i dag (today) is an adverb, the rule of inversion says to place regner (present tense of ‘to rain’) second and det (in this case ‘it’). 

 There are a couple more examples of times when you would want to use inversion, but I will go over those in a later post.  This is a fairly simple rule that just requires flopping some sentence parts around.

To pronounce Norwegian vowels.  If all that people know about det norske språket (the Norwegian language) is the way that it sounds, they usually assume that it is a really difficult language to learn.  I must tell you that I strongly disagree.  Norwegian pronunciation usually proves to be the most difficult part of the language for beginners to learn, but if you know a few general rules, it’s not so bad.  Hvordan uttaler man norsk?  Voor-don ootaller mon norshhhhk? How does one pronouce Norwegian?

Norwegian vowels are the trickiest part of learning pronunciation.  For one, there are 3 vowels in the Norwegian language that English doesn’t even have: æ, ø, å- pronounced:  æ as in ‘cat’, ø said as if you were being punched in the stomach, and å, like ‘oh’ said as Minnesotan as possible.

In addition to æ, ø, and å, there are 5 more vowels: e, i, o, u, and you are probably wondering what the last is.  In Norwegian, the letter y is often considered a vowel.  Y på norsk (in Norwegian) is pronounced by rounding your lips into a small circle and trying to say ‘e’ as in weeee.  E på norsk is pronounced like a long ‘a’ or ‘eh’ like they say in Canada.  The exception to this rule is if the ‘e’ comes at the end of a word, it is pronounced like ‘a’ as in ‘a dog or a door’.  I på norsk is pronounced ‘e’ as in weeee, unless it is followed by double consonants like the verb å ligge (to lie) and then the i is pronounced like it is in the English word ‘pig.’  O is usually pronounced like oo as in ‘shoe’ except in rare circumstances like the word folk pronounced exactly how it looks (just like English, but the ‘l’ is pronounced, not silent).  Lastly, u på norsk is usually pronounced like the French pronounce the letter, which is extremely hard to describe.  The closest I can describe the pronunciation of the letter ‘u’ is like the word ‘ewww’ as in gross, but say it faster and sharper.

Another important thing to remember about vowels is that their pronunciation may change depending on what follows them in a word.  For example, in the verb å drømme (infinitive form of to dream), the vowel ø is short, but in the past tense (drømte), the vowel is long.  As a general rule, a vowel is long if it is only followed by one consonant and short if it is followed by double consonants.

How would you guess that the following sentence is pronounced?  På trappene ligger sko i en kø (On the stairs lie shoes in a line).

If you said ‘poe trahpp-inn-a liggehr skoo ee ehhn kuh’ or something to that effect you would be correct.

Work on those vowels and you will be just fine.

Tradisjonell norsk mat.  Bland and fairly simple, but delicious.  Until the last half of the 20th century, Norway was a very poor country.  Its people had to make do with what they had-namely meat, fish, and potatoes.  Potatoes would actually be the main dish of a meal, with meat or fish and sauce added as  condiments.  Of course, as the Norwegian population has become more diverse with inhabitants from different ethnic backgrounds over the last few decades, the food selection has become much more varied.  Pizza, sushi, and kabobs are some of the  hot items that street vendors and restaurants in Norway’s bigger cities offer.  However, even with the enormous influx of new culinary items, Norwegians still continue to eat quite a lot of traditional meals.

In some ways, traditional Norwegian dishes resemble the bland dishes of the midwest (where I live…).  On second thought, since we got them from northern Europe, so I should say that our traditional dishes resemble traditional dishes of Scandinavias.  There are certainly differences in the two cuisines, the main difference being the quantity of fish consumed in both regions.  While much of the midwest (especially Wisconsin and Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes) is home to a great deal of water, it is freshwater and thus freezes in the winter.  And although icefishing is a popular winter sport, midwesterners eat far less fish than Norwegians do.  All year round fresh fish is abundant in Norway and the people take advantage of it.  The large amount of fish consumed is definitely one reason why Norwegians are typically healthier than people who don’t eat quite as much fish (Americans in general eat very little fish compared to the rest of the world).

Another distinguishing characteristic of traditional Norwegian dishes is the nature of the sauces and relishes that typically accompany fish and meat.  Because of the abundance of fresh berries of many kinds with extrememly robust flavor (due to slow maturing process in the cold climate), as well as the delicious cheeses (such as geitost or brunost), many meat and fish dishes are complimented by a nice berry relish or some sore of cheese-type gravy/sauce, or a combination of both!

Norway is one of the only places outside of Asia that truly utilizes the great mixture of sweet and sour.   This method of flavoring or marinating is especially common with fish.  Sild (herring) and laks (salmon) are two kinds of fish in particular that are commonly soaked in a sweet and sour marinade.  As you probably already know, sild is most often served pickled.  Many of you have perhaps only had grilled or baked salmon, maybe even smoked.  Gravlaks (sweet and sour cured salmon) is very popular in Norway.  Ørret (trout) is another popular fish, in addition to torsk (cod).  Fish has always been a staple of Norwegian cuisine, but shellfish has only recently been incorporated into the diet.

In a later post, I will go into more detail about particular dishes, as well as dessert! For now though, join me in making gravlaks. I’m going to go to the store today and buy salmon filets, white wine, and dill so that I’ll have what I need to bury my salmon in sweet and salty flavor for 3 days.  Mmmmm….