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…
Big and Small Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Feb 28, 2015
The Norwegian words for ’big’ and ’small’ are a bit more complex than your average adjective. Let’s start with stor, which covers most instances where you’d use the words big or large in English: • en stor tanke (a big thought) – den store tanken (the big thought) – tanken er stor (the thought is…
Norwegian pick-up lines Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Feb 14, 2015
It’s that time of year again! Thanks to the Norwegians’ great kjærlighet [”SHARE”-leeghet] for American traditions, many par (couples) in the country are buying hverandre [vare-ANDreh] (each other) blomster (flowers), sjokolade [SHOCK-oh-lahdeh], kinobilletter (cinema tickets) and what not to celebrate Valentinsdagen. But what about all those people who haven’t got a kjæreste (girlfriend/boyfriend), an elsker…
Snow Words Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 30, 2015
Det snør, det snør! (It’s snowing, it’s snowing!) For many Norwegians, januar has been a lot colder than desember. Many places around the country are still dekket av snø (covered by snow). Here’s a handful of snow words. Catch! • nysnø (new snow) is the fresh snow that has just fallen… If there’s already a…
Talking about the future Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 8, 2015
2015 is upon us, so I thought it would be a great idea to look a bit ahead – grammatically speaking, that is! As you may be aware, verbs in Spanish and Esperanto and many other languages have a distinct future tense (yo cantaré/mi kantos = I’ll sing). In English, we’ve got to make compound…
Word of the Year 2014 Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Dec 31, 2014
Every year a handful of Norwegian language geeks kårer årets norske ord (elect the Norwegian ”word of the year”). Språkrådet, the Norwegian Language Council, ranked the following ten candidates for 2014: 10. deleøkonomi (’share economy’) means that you share & recycle resources. Maybe you own a car together with your neighbour or borrow your best…
Sprites of Christmas Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Dec 25, 2014
If you go to Skandinavia in desember, you’ll most certainly encounter little men (and women) with pointy røde luer (red caps) everywhere: In butikker (shops), in private homes, på tv [paw teh-veh] (in television). No, you’re not mad! Say hello to the nisser… The typical nisse looks like an old man with a langt, hvitt…