{"id":1590,"date":"2013-04-21T20:08:28","date_gmt":"2013-04-21T20:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=1590"},"modified":"2015-07-01T00:05:01","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T00:05:01","slug":"the-i-the-y-and-the-j","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/the-i-the-y-and-the-j\/","title":{"rendered":"The I, the Y and the J"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Norsk er lett \u00e5 stave.<\/strong> Norwegian is easy to spell. For learners being used to the quirks of English spelling (why on earth is \u201dweemen\u201d spelt with an o?), the Norwegian system may seem like a godsend: You write things more or less like they sound: <strong>sj\u00e5f\u00f8r<\/strong> (chauffeur), <strong>milj\u00f8<\/strong> (milieu; environment). Fortunately, there are still some <strong>utfordringer<\/strong> (challenges) for that geeky part of your <strong>hjerne<\/strong> (brain). Among them are<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"thesjsoundandthekjsound\">The <em>sj<\/em> sound and the <em>kj<\/em> sound<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Sj<\/em> sounds like the English <em>sh<\/em> of <em>shoe<\/em>: <strong>sju<\/strong> (\u201dshoo\u201d, seven).<\/li>\n<li><em>Kj<\/em> sounds like the <em>h-<\/em> of <em>huge<\/em> (as pronounced in England, that is, \u201dhyuge\u201d): <strong>kj\u00e6re<\/strong> (\u201dhyare\u201d, dear). The exact sound doesn\u2019t really exist in English, but it\u2019s typical of German: <em>I<span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">ch<\/span> liebe di<span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">ch<\/span><\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The two sounds are sometimes confused, so that the names <strong>Kjell<\/strong> and Shell (the oil company) are both pronounced \u201dSjell\u201d. Unless you really want to upset educated Norwegians, I wouldn\u2019t recommend that you copy this \u201dtrend\u201d. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>The bad things is that these two sounds are written in several different ways, so you really have to memorize the spelling of each word where one of them occurs:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <em>sj\u00a0<\/em>sound can be written as:\n<ul>\n<li><em>sj<\/em>: <strong>sjokolade<\/strong> (chocolate)<\/li>\n<li><em>skj<\/em>: <strong>skjold<\/strong> (shield)<\/li>\n<li><em>sk<\/em>: <strong>ski<\/strong> (\u201dshee\u201d, skis)<\/li>\n<li><em>g<\/em> in a couple of words of French origin: <strong>geni<\/strong> (\u201dshehNEE\u201d, genious)<\/li>\n<li><em>j<\/em> in a couple of words of French origin: <strong>journalist<\/strong> (\u201dshoornaLIST\u201d)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The <em>kj\u00a0<\/em>sound can be written as:\n<ul>\n<li><em>kj<\/em>: <strong>kjeks<\/strong> (biscuit)<\/li>\n<li><em>k<\/em>: <strong>kylling<\/strong> (chicken)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is a bit of logic here: The letter <em>j<\/em> does not normally appear in front of <em>i<\/em> or <em>y<\/em> (save in a few words such as <strong>jypling<\/strong>, greenhorn, and <strong>sjiraff<\/strong>, giraffe). And the letter <em>k<\/em> and the combo <em>sk<\/em> usually have their normal, \u201dhard\u201d pronunciation in front of vowels other than <em>i<\/em> or <em>y<\/em>, such as <strong>skole<\/strong> (\u201dSKOHleh\u201d, school) and <strong>Kari<\/strong> [KAHree]. So, to indicate a \u201dsoft\u201d pronunciation in such words, a <em>j<\/em> is inserted: <strong>skjold<\/strong> [sholl], <strong>Kjartan<\/strong> [HYARtan]. In front of <em>i<\/em> and <em>y<\/em> these sounds are naturally \u201dsoft\u201d, so the <em>j<\/em> would be superfluos: <strong>kino<\/strong> [\u201dHYEE-noh\u201d, cinema), <strong>skyte<\/strong> (\u201dSHEE-teh\u201d, to shoot).<\/p>\n<p>A similar system is used for the letter <em>g<\/em>. It is pronounced \u201dy-\u201d (as in <em>yet<\/em>) in front of <em>i<\/em> and <em>y<\/em>, but \u201dg-\u201d everywhere else \u2013 unless it is followed by a <em>j<\/em>. So, <strong>gi<\/strong> (give), <strong>gyte<\/strong> (spawn) and <strong>gj\u00f8re<\/strong> (do) all start with the same sound as English <em>yellow<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>If this seems confusing, maybe this little verse, which I learnt at school, will help:<\/p>\n<p><strong>I-en og y-en<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>gikk p\u00e5 byen<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>s\u00e5 m\u00f8tte de j-en<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>men ville ikke se\u2019en.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The I and the Y<\/em><br \/>\n<em>went to town<\/em><br \/>\n<em>then they met the J<\/em><br \/>\n<em>but didn\u2019t want to see \u2019im.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a soundfile of it:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2013\/04\/iyj.m4a\">iyj<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"202\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2013\/04\/iyj-350x202.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2013\/04\/iyj-350x202.png 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/14\/2013\/04\/iyj.png 470w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Norsk er lett \u00e5 stave. Norwegian is easy to spell. For learners being used to the quirks of English spelling (why on earth is \u201dweemen\u201d spelt with an o?), the Norwegian system may seem like a godsend: You write things more or less like they sound: sj\u00e5f\u00f8r (chauffeur), milj\u00f8 (milieu; environment). Fortunately, there are still&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/the-i-the-y-and-the-j\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9180,274095,274097,191824,146,238021],"class_list":["post-1590","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-i","tag-j","tag-kj","tag-sj","tag-spelling","tag-y"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2089,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/2089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}