Norwegian Language Blog

There are more words than you may think that are exactly the same in Norwegian as they are in English.  They are of course pronounced differently, but are indeed written the same way and have the same meaning.  Even better than cognates, right?  

And some of these include:

problem (pro-bleh-em)

finger (fing-err) flip the “r”

glass (gloss) with a quick “o”

ski (shee)

atom-(ah-toom)

over (oh-verr) “ver” pronounced with a soft, flipped “r”

under (unn-err)-the “d” is essentially silent

data (dah-tah)

test-same:) the word “eksamen” is also used, like “exam” in English

person (pehr-shoon) “per” pronounced with a soft, flipped “r”

burger (bur-gehr)-same as above for the “r”

pasta (past-ah)

arrangement (arr-angh-sheh-mahnt)

festival (fest-ee-vahl)

for (fohr)with a quick, flipped “r”

bank (bahnk)

Finally an easy language lesson, right?!

Since I posted a question about Norwegian tongue twisters on facebook last week, I think I should do the topic justice and write a post.  Some of you had some great ones to share with all of us!  I love tongue twisters even if they are in languages I can´t understand.  It´s just funny to literally not be able to move your mouth in a natural way to look and sound normal when you say something.

One very popular tongue twister is this:

Du ska ikkje kalle Kalle for Kalle, selv om moren til Kalle kallar Kalle for Kalle, ska’kje du kalle Kalle for Kalle, for Kalle hetar egentlig Karl.

Translation:  You’re not supposed to call Kalle for Kalle, even though Kalle’s mother calls Kalle for Kalle, aren’t you supposed to call Kalle for Kalle, because Kalle’s real name is Karl.

Åtte kopper upoppet popkorn.

Translation:  8 cups of unpopped popcorn.

Byens beste baker Bjørn Brun, baker bare brune brendte berlinerboller.

Translation:  They city´s best baker Bjørn Brun only bakes brown burnt berlin rolls.

Fisker’n Finn fiska fersk fisk forige fredag.

Translation: The fisherman Finn fished fresh fish last Friday.

Det var en gang en sebra som ikke kunne se bra.
Så gikk han til en sebra som kunne se bra.
Så lærte den sebraen som kunne se bra,
den sebraen som ikke kunne se bra å se bra!

Translation: There once was a zebra that couldn´t see well.  So he went to a zebra that could see well.  Then the zebra that could see well taught the zebra that couldn´t see well to see well!

Kristine kjøper kjøttkaker hos kjøpmannen i Kjellstad.

Translation: Kristine buys meat cakes at the storekeeper in Kjellstad.

Lille snille Pernille griller piller på Nilles grill, mens lille Ville triller Pernilles snille krokodille som spiller trekkspill.

Translation: Little nice Pernille grills pills on Nille´s grill while little Ville rolls Pernille´s nice crocodile that plays the accordion.

Nye børster børster bedre enn gamle børster børster.

Translation: New brushes brush better than old brushes brush.

Fem flate flyndrer på et flatt fat.

Translation: Five fat fishes on a fat plate.

Leika dåkkå dåkkå mæ dåkkå dåkkå då?

Translation: Are you playing with dolls, are you?

Æ e i A.  Æ e i A æ å!

Translation: The school inspector asks, “which class are you in?” the answer is “I am in A” (Æ e i A) then he asks another boy “what class are you in then” he answers “I am in A I too” (Æ e i A æ å).

Do you think you can pronounce any of these??  Give it a shot!  It´s even more funny if you look in the mirror or videotape it.

It has been requested that I write a post on hvordan bokstaven l uttales (how the letter l is pronounced).  By the way, I like suggestions for writing material, so keep them coming!  Thanks, Jens.  Not only is it good to write more posts about pronunciation, but I was actually just thinking about l sounding like r sometimes too!  So this forces me to think about it.

For the most part, the uttalelse (pronunciation) of the letter l is fairly straight-forward, but as Jens pointed out in his comment on an earlier post about the letter r, sometimes, depending on where you are in Norway, l can sound like r as strange as that may sound.  When I hear words with ls in them that sound like rs, I am reminded of dansk (Danish).  I´m reminded of dansk because so much of spoken Danish is formed in the back of the throat.  There are many different descriptions of what dansk sounds like, my personal favorite: like they´ve got a potato lodged in the back of their throat and they have to pronounce, sort of, around it.  Well, norsk can sound like this too from time to time.  Not surprising since the 2 languages are very similar in construction, vocabulary, and in written form.  But, l sounding like r is one of the only instances that I have observed that cause me to think the 2 languages sound similar to the ear.

Most of the time, when l is at the beginning of a word, such as:

land (country)

laks (salmon)

luft (air)

lov (law)

it sounds just like any l in English.  Just a plain old l.

The same is also true for most ls that end a word, such as:

stjal (stole)

smil (smile)

hel (whole)

bål (fire)

And, Jens´example of the word Hallingdal (place in central Norway), he heard people there pronouncing the l as if it were kind of an r-I say kind of because it´s not a full-blown r, but just slightly resembles one.  The word, or name in this case, that made me start to think about this peculiar pronunciation mystery is the last name Mikalsen.  I recently met someone with this last name and when I asked him what his etternavn (last name) was so that I could put his nummer in my kontakter, he said Mikalsen.  I started to type it how I thought it would be spelled, Mikarlsen.  I showed it to him, he kind of laughed, and told me to take the r out.  The way to form this sound is to really loosen your jaw and when you are ready to pronounce the l, drop your tongue farther into the back of your mouth and let it lay on the back of the roof of your mouth instead of where it normally lays against the back of your bottom front teeth.  This is quite frankly, quite hard to explain, but give it a whirl.  I´ll keep my eyes peeled for a youtube example….until then, you can laugh at yourself for how funny you think you sound (guaranteed, I just did when I was sitting here thinking about how to explain it).