Archive for 'Uncategorized'
Y U always mix up Norwegian vowels Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jun 20, 2016
Unless you’re a Norwegian (or a Swede), you’ll probably find the language a bit difficult to pronouce. I think Norwegian (and Swedish) dialects are a sonical challenge mainly because – they’ve got 2 different word melodies – think Chinese – the vowels are not what you’d expect – many dialects have tricky consonant combos (often involving the…
Colour your tongue! Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on May 28, 2016
Can you imagine a day without farger (colours)? It’s no wonder that many language courses are quick to introduce a few colours. Here are the basic ones in Norwegian – can you guess the meaning of the words? 1 rød 2 blå 3 gul 4 grønn 5 brun 6 oransj [oRANSH] 7 lilla 8 svart…
Your Norwegian Possessives Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Apr 25, 2016
When you want to say ”your” or ”my” something, there are really three things to consider in Norwegian: 1. Before or after? In Norwegian, a possessive pronoun (”our”, ”their”…) may be placed either before or after a noun: Det er min dag i dag! (”It’s my day today” = It’s my lucky day) vs. Har…
Norwegian Pronouns – it’s personal Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Apr 15, 2016
Nothing speeds up communication like a good pronoun! 🙂 Instead of having to repeat a personal name umpteen times, it’s really great that once everybody agrees on a topic, ”you” can manage with a short ”I” or ”she”. At first glance, Norwegian pronomen look a lot like the English ones: Jeg venter på trikken. (I’m…
A visit to Bergen Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Mar 31, 2016
When it doesn’t rain, Bergen is probably Norway’s most vakker (beautiful) city. I recently had a chance to revisit Bergen. Having studied there, I have to smile when the city’s hjemmeside [yem-] (homepage) writes: Byen hadde 235 regndager i 2014 – og innbyggerne er stolte av det. (The city had 235 days of rain in…
More and Most Norwegian Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Feb 28, 2016
I just can’t believe the gradbøying (”comparison inflection”) of adjectives has not been a post yet… As you can probably remember, Norwegian adjectives take various endings: -e when it’s describing a definite noun (these often come with ”the” in English): den glade jenta (the happy girl), den fine tegningen (the nice drawing), Guttorms lange arbeidsdag…
Linking Phrases Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 31, 2016
Ja… Nei… Kanskje… It’s very easy to be a new learner – you just have to say a few words and all the native speakers will cheer on you and say bra (good)! 🙂 Sooner or later, however, you’ll have to stitch all your grunts and monosyllables together to something a bit more eloquent… That’s where…