Norwegian on the go Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Mar 31, 2022
Hei! Hvordan går det med deg? Jeg håper du har det bra… (Hi, how are you doing? I hope you’re doing fine…) Learning any language takes a lot of time and work. Sometimes it gets a little too technical with all the details you need to remember: Grammar, uttale (pronunciation) and what not. Below is…
Norwegian Joys Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Feb 28, 2022
Since you read this blog last month, a horrible krig [kreeg] (war) has broken out in the midst of Europa. Let’s all hope and wish it will end as soon and as peacefully as humanly possible. Verden trenger fred. (The world needs peace.) And we need to be able to communicate respectfully and try to…
Commas-in-chief Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 31, 2022
Komma er rare. (Commas are strange.) Du skriver dem, men du hører dem ikke. (You write them, but you can’t hear them.) Well, sometimes you do hear them, as little pause/r (breaks) when people talk. In written Norwegian, a comma might be a matter of life and death, so let’s take a crash course! 🙂…
Christmas in Norway Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Dec 24, 2021
Hurra, det er jul! (Hooray, it’s Christmas!) For billions of people, that means glede (joy) and spending time with familien (the family). But what is special about the høytid (feast, literally ’high time’) in Norway? Jul [yool] is a very old tradition in Norge – in fact, even the Vikings had a party this time…
Surviving the Sunless Season Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Nov 30, 2021
North of the Arctic Circle, there’s no sunrise in the winter sky. But do Northern Norwegians really live in total darkness? I asked Bjørn Farbu – a doctor until recently residing in Harstad – about life in mørketida (the dark season). What brought you to Nord-Norge (Northern Norway)? My girlfriend is from Tromsø. We met…
Adding Endings Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 19, 2021
One of the funny things about Norwegian is that you can’t avoid adding endings to words. Well, of course English learners also sometimes struggle with that – how do you add a plural -s to box? But generally, as long as you know how to add an -s to words, you don’t have to care…
Election Time! Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Sep 13, 2021
It’s election time in Norway! Today, all Norwegian citizens get the chance to vote for their favourite parti [parTEE] and help decide who’ll be the country’s next PM (in Norwegian: statsminister, ”minister of the state”): Will Erna Solberg stay in power or will folk (people) pick somebody else? My predecessor Kari already described how makt…