This post is a long time coming.\u00a0 As you have likely noticed by now if you’ve had any experience with Norwegian, there are many cognates between the Norwegian and the English languages.\u00a0 Several reasons account for this, such as the fact that Norwegian is a Germanic language and Norweigan grammar is probably the simplest grammar one can find in European languages.<\/p>\n
When I began to think about just how many cognates there are, my mind happened to focus on the natural world.\u00a0 I was on a bike ride in the country, riding alongside fields and trees, so I suppose that makes sense.\u00a0 There are typically\u00a0a\u00a0few\u00a0different\u00a0ways beginning Norwegian learners can identify cogantes: either the words look similar, sound similar, the context gives a clue, or any combination thereof.\u00a0 For many cognates, just one letter is different.\u00a0 Maybe it is the first, the last, or one in the middle.\u00a0 As Norwegian has several foreign characters that do not exist in the English language, sometimes this makes it less obvious that a word is a cognate.\u00a0 Keep in mind that \u00e6, \u00f8, and \u00e5 are all vowels.\u00a0 The letter ‘y’ in Norwegian is also considered to be a vowel, so remember that too.\u00a0 Knowing these things makes it easier to identify cognates.\u00a0 So let’s look at some…<\/p>\n
tre…..<\/strong>tree (a letter difference).\u00a0 Tre <\/strong>is pronounced “tray” more or less, with the flipped ‘r’<\/p>\n busk…<\/strong>bush (a letter difference).\u00a0 Busk <\/strong>is pronounced kind of like “boosk” but to get the ‘u’ sound, you have to make your mouth into a circle shape and say ‘u’<\/p>\n gress…<\/strong>grass (one letter difference).\u00a0 Gress <\/strong>is pronounced “gress” just like it appears, but flip that ‘r’<\/p>\n hund…<\/strong>dog (think hound) is pronounced like it looks, but keep that ‘u’ trick in mind.<\/p>\n katt…<\/strong>cat (ok, a couple letters off) is pronounced\u00a0like the English word “cot” but make sure the vowel is really short<\/p>\n mus…<\/strong>mouse (couple letters off) is pronounced as it looks, keep the ‘u’ trick in mind and it’s a long ‘u’<\/p>\n regn…<\/strong>rain (looks similar and sounds even more similar) is pronounced like the “Rhine” river<\/p>\n sn\u00f8…<\/strong>snow (couple letter different) pronounced “snuh”<\/p>\n vinter…<\/strong>winter (one letter difference) pronounced exactly as in looks, with a flipped ‘r’<\/p>\n sommer…<\/strong>summer (one letter difference) pronounced sew-m (as in to sew a button on) mer with a flipped ‘r’<\/p>\n Were any of the above words difficult to identify?<\/p>\n \ufffd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This post is a long time coming.\u00a0 As you have likely noticed by now if you’ve had any experience with Norwegian, there are many cognates between the Norwegian and the English languages.\u00a0 Several reasons account for this, such as the fact that Norwegian is a Germanic language and Norweigan grammar is probably the simplest grammar…<\/p>\n