Archive for 'Language'
Betyr vs. Mene-Norwegian verbs “to mean” Posted by kari on Mar 14, 2011
Betyr vs. Mener In English, we use the word “mean” in several different ways as a verb. In Norwegian, there are 2 separate verbs-“å bety” and “å mene” (in their infinitive forms). In English, we can say “to tidy means to clean up.” In Norwegian, one would say “å rydde betyr å vaske opp,” but…
Useful Norwegian phrases Posted by kari on Mar 5, 2011
I think it´s time for a random post with phrases to learn that will help you out in conversation and also assist you in better understanding Norwegian news if you challenge yourself to read aviser. I just looked through a couple of them and picked out phrases that I think are very useful to know…
Samisk-norsk controversy over road sign Posted by kari on Feb 17, 2011
The county that Tromsø lies in is called Troms (på samisk) and Romsa (på samisk). It was not until July 1, 2006 that the Sami name for the county became officially recognized. In the event that you are interested in etymology like myself, I´ll tell you what the name is believed to have derived…
Norwegian children’s books a good way to learn the language Posted by kari on Jan 10, 2011
I have spent the last few days with some Dutch colleagues and I find myself picking up on words here and there that sound familiar because of my experience with Norwegian. It´s quite fun actually! The differences in the familiar words are not very big-a few letters off and a couple sounds off. My American…
Norwegian past perfect verbs Posted by kari on Jan 4, 2011
In the last two posts, you learned about both weak and strong past tense verbs. In this post, we are going to concentrate on Norwegian verbs in the present perfect tense. I have no idea why this tense is named ´Present perfect´. The past perfect tense is used when you want to refer to something…
Norwegian strong past tense verbs Posted by kari on Dec 31, 2010
Yes, another verb post. Boring as it may be, verbs are very important! Strong verbs are a bit trickier than weak verbs because they do not follow a pattern-strict memorization is key;) They are especially tricky because some of them involve a vowel change. Some examples: English Infinitve Past tense to see å se så…
Norwegian weak past tense verbs Posted by kari on Dec 29, 2010
Now that jul is over and the end of 201o is very near, I find myself thinking about things that have happened this past year. You can never have too much practice with the past tense when you are learning a new language. If you are like me, learning verb tenses is not your…