Archive for 'Language'
Norwegians Speak Dialects Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Mar 15, 2015
”I don’t understand people who speak Nynorsk Norwegian, why can’t they just switch to Bokmål Norwegian?” Now and then, readers ask such things. I’ve written about the nynorsk/bokmål split before. Of course, it may still be confusing for new learners of Norwegian. So, I’d like to set the record straight as simply as I can…
Norwegian Noun Phrases Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Apr 30, 2014
Fuglen synger. Toget går. (The bird is singing. The train is leaving.) An awful lot of phrases consist of a noun phrase + a verbal phrase. Norwegian verbal phrases are a piece of cake: Er, for example, means both am, is and are; prater can be translated as chat, chats, and am/is/are chatting. Noun phrases…
What’s Norwegian for Twerking? Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 11, 2013
It’s no secret that people in Norway and other western countries are fascinated by USA [oo es AH] (they might be complaining about American politics but still watch the soaps). Miley Cyrus makes some daring bevegelser (moves), and the next moment people from Oslo to Australia are talking about twerking. Or are they? It depends…
Norwegian Oops! moments Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jul 31, 2013
When I was a kid, I once went with my mother into a public library in Norway to look for cartoons and children’s books. The old lady at the counter seemed really friendly, so I said out aloud, so everyone in the library could hear it: “She looks rar!” In my native language, Danish, that’s…
The I, the Y and the J Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Apr 21, 2013
Norsk er lett å stave. Norwegian is easy to spell. For learners being used to the quirks of English spelling (why on earth is ”weemen” spelt with an o?), the Norwegian system may seem like a godsend: You write things more or less like they sound: sjåfør (chauffeur), miljø (milieu; environment). Fortunately, there are still…
How To Say What You Like Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Mar 24, 2013
In terms of language, jumping into the FaceBook era has been easy for Norwegian-speakers: ’to like’ is å like [aw LEEkeh]! Liker du brunost? (Do you like Norwegian brown cheese?) Jeg liker ikke ost i det hele tatt. (I don’t like cheese at all.) Men jeg liker deg. (But I like you.) This can…
A Taste Of Nynorsk Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 27, 2013
Last week you learnt that there are two ways to write Norwegian: bokmål (”book language”) and nynorsk (”new Norwegian”). Bokmål ultimately hails from (upper-class) urban dialects and Danish, while nynorsk is based on rural dialects. Most Norwegians use bokmål, and that is also the Norwegian we teach here at Transparent. Nevertheless, since quite a few Norwegians do write in…