Learning Norwegian

Songs and videos on Youtube

2007-12-14T14:05:00.000-04:30

I found yesterday that there are a lot of cartoon videos in youtube translated to norwegian. There are also cartoon videos in norwegian with english subtitles. Mostly the parts of movies where they sing songs

That`s great! Because is an useful resource for someone like me that knows the basics now but don`t have anyone to talk with... I can hear and see how the words are written at the same time

Here is an example:

I`m really not a fan of cartoon`s movies but well.. It`s a way to learn :)

Listening a lot, letting my mind do the hard work

2007-11-30T01:14:00.000-04:00

I`m trying to hear norwegian all the time. It`s very difficult in a country where they speak only spanish. But i`m trying to take advantage of all the free time I have alone. When i`m going in the car, driving my bicycle, walking on the street or simply doing a homework or searching on internet.

I try to hear the most I can, that way my mind will start to recognize for itself the words i`m listening.

I`m using this page too, where you can hear online the audios for a lot of norwegian phrases. I`m using it to practice speaking the phrases and then listening to the correct way to say the words.

http://www.transparent.com/languagepages/Norwegian/FSNorwegian.htm

Trasparent.com has a lot of different resources, but until now i`m only using this link where i can hear the norwegian phrases.

Big fish

2007-10-24T23:33:00.000-04:00

I found another way to practice my norwegian. I can see a DVD movie in english and use the norwegian subtitles, this way i can hear and understand what they are saying and see how you write that idea on norwegian.

I saw Big Fish a few days ago... A real good movie! and understood some subtitles!

I will keep trying this method

Oh sweet music

2007-10-15T22:47:00.000-04:00

I have a few days looking for some norwegian music. I like to hear music because I can learn the lyrics and repeat them, so i learn the language that way.

I found some amazing music, looking for songs that had titles with words like: Jeg, er, mitt, elsker, ikke, deg, natt.

I´m listening mostly to:

Nik Og Jay (Hip hop music, very good)
Unit Five (Soft rock)
Postgirobygget (Traditional rhythms mostly)

I will keep looking for more, may be I will try to contact someone from Norway so he/she can tell me what they listen there.

Start asking

2007-09-27T12:13:00.000-04:00

Start asking questions to people everywhere, but please do it in norsk :D

You can use:

Hva = What
Hvem = Who
Hvor = Where
Hvordan = How
Hvorfor = Why

Hva heter du? (What´s your name?)
Hva gjøre du? (What do you do?)
Hvem er han? (Who is him?)
Hvor er glasset? (Where are the glasses?)
Hvordan kan jeg kjøre en bil? (How can I drive a car?)
Hvorfor leser du boket? (Why do you read the book?)

Those are my first selfmade questions in norsk. I hope I made them well, if you know norsk and see a mistake please tell me!!

Oppgaver

2007-09-24T16:26:00.000-04:00

I found a resource surfing on internet (don´t ask me how, i started in google and reach it somehow) called "Interactive Homework" or something like that. In norsk: Interaktive Oppgaver.

If you are progressively learning Norwegian with the resources on this blog, you´re in capacity of doing this Oppgaver, it´s very easy at first, then it include a lot of new words so you can practice, i´m doing chapter 2 right now, but i recommend you to start with chapter one.

You will find a test divided in 17 chapters with a lot of visual and audio resources. It´s absolutely free. You will need macromedia flash to play it because all the chapters are in flash.

Blogs

2007-09-16T21:34:00.000-04:00

Blogs from people from norway are a great tool to familiarize with norwegian. At first I was afraid of not understanding anything, but when you read and read you start to recongnize some phrases and words. And people puts a lot of pics in their blogs, that helps a lot because you can know about what they are talking.

There are a few blogs that i´m following. Those are from people traveling around the world, studying or simply writing from their country.

marianneinsandiego.blogspot.com
(She is studying in san diego, good to read)

andreayork.blogspot.com
(Andrea in England, she recently got there)

kreativkristin.blogspot.com
(She write about things she do. Cards, gifts and some more things. She write in norwegian and english at the same time)

It is curious that most of the blogs are written by ladies. I do not understand everything, I barely can have a notion of what they are writing in their blogs... Right now I´m like a child with attention problems or like a husband watching a game meanwhile the wife is saying something to him... barely understand some words or phrases!!

There are a lot more and you can find the right one for yourself looking the word "norway", for example, in technorati.com

klokke? Det er ti over ti

2007-09-12T21:27:00.000-04:00

Right know it´s 10:10 at night, or "ti over ti", as you prefer...

I have a few days memorizing the way to say the time in norwegian. I repeat the time in norsk every time I put my eyes in my watch. Right now I´m very proud that I can tell the hour in norsk when speaking to someone (the pronunciation is very very easy and kind of catchy, but right now I don´t have any audio to show you)

The only really bad thing is to see the face of every person that hear me saying, for example: "kvart over halv fire", but well, i have to learn to live with that meanwhile i´m here in this side of the world :)

It really becomes very easy to do when you remember to do it constantly. Basically, you have to follow this process to whatever hour you like to say:

01:00 - klokken et
01:05 - fem over et
01:10 - ti over et
01:15 - kvart over et
01:20 - ti på halv to
01:25 - fem på halv to
01:30 - halv to
01:35 - fem over halv to
01:40 - ti over halv to
01:45 - kvart på to
01:50 - ti på to
01:55 - fem på to
02:00 - klokken to

A last thing: Yes... "halv to" refers to 1:30, it´s weird to tell the time this way but that´s the way it is... In fact, "halv anything" refers to the earlier half hour always.

20 first numbers, very easy

2007-09-07T16:09:00.000-04:00

The first 20 numbers in norwegian are not very difficult to learn. After I learned them I had the capacity of telling the time. I will explain that in a later post.

They are in order:

null	0
en	1
to	2
tre	3
fire	4
fem	5
seks	6
syv	7
åtte	8
ni	9
ti	10
elleve	11
tolv	12
tretten	13
fjorten	14
femten	15
seksten	16
sytten	17
atten	18
nitten	19
tyve	20

Again, the best way to learn this numbers is by repetition. Nothing like listening repeatedly to them. I don´t have an audio file for this, if someone have one, please tell me!

Norwegian Alfabetet

2007-08-30T17:47:00.000-04:00

In a recent post i talked about languageonthe.net, a very useful resource on the net to people triying to learn norwegian. I talked about making a big audio file with all the words that were used on the alphabet posted on that page.

Well, here it is:

Alphabetic ordered words in norwegian (mp3, 531 kb)

The alphabetic ordered words in this audio file are:

A	Ananas	Pineapple
B	Batteri	Battery
C	Cd	Cd
D	Dollar	Dollar
E	Egg	Egg
F	Film	Film
G	Gaffel	Fork
H	Hand	Hand
I	Ild	Fire
J	Jorda	Earth
K	Krone	crown
L	Løve	Lion
M	Mobil	Cellphone
N	Nøkkel	Key
O	Okse	Ox, Bull
P	Potet	Potato
Q	Qatar	Qatar
R	Ratt	Wheel
S	Sykkel	Bycicle
T	Telefon	Phone
U	Ulv	Wolf
V	Vann	Water
W	Wc	W.C.
X	Xylocain	Xylocaine
Y	Lys	Light
Z	Zendium	Zendium
Æ	Bær	Berry
Ø	Øks	Axe
Å	åme	worm

NOTE: The norwegian alphabet is very similar to the english one.

Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters)
a	b	c	d	e	f	g	h	i	j	k	l	m	n	o	p	q	r	s	t	u	v	w	x	y	z	æ	ø	å

but it has 3 new letters: æ, ø, å. There are a lot of pages on internet about the use of those three new letters, so i´m not going to explain it here (I really know little about it at this time) If you want to know the history of this letters you can go to this good page.

Norwegian audio

2007-08-30T12:13:00.000-04:00

It´s amazing how much you can learn when you hear.

I didn´t find anyone from Norway in the skypecast, only people that have been there and know a little about the language. But I found a lot of resources on internet searching on Google the words "norwegian audio"

So that´s how I reached languageonthe.net, a web page with a lot of useful resources to learn norsk. A few days ago I closed this page without looking at it, because the navigation menu was in Norsk, but right now, thanks to what I learned I´m not afraid to visit a page in norsk anymore.

When you enter you can click in the right menu the link called alfabetet and start listening to words in norsk (yep, it has audio) . You can listen to words like "telefon" (telephone) or "gaffel" (fork) right there clicking on the little speaker.

The first part of the menú it´s an introduction to Norsk words, the second part is about grammatics, the third one it´s for start using phrases in norsk. I will try to download all the audio and make one big audio file with all the words. That way I can go out with my iPod and listen to new words in norsk.

Skypecast

2007-08-27T16:00:00.000-04:00

Skypecasts are a great way to learn different languages. The are live conversations with people of all around the world. Anyone with Skype can join a convesation and start talking about anything they want.

I didn´t think it twice and started to look for a skypecast in norwegian. Unfortunately, norwegian is not a language very popular, so there´s no skypecast open for norwegian people.

But I found that you can create your own skypecast. So I started my own skypecast called "Learning Norwegian". I met only one person that is from England, lives in Spain and was married to a Norwegian girl.

All our conversation was in english, of course. But I learned that is not difficult to learn Norwegian when you are in Norway. He learned in the streets talking with people and says that if you know english, you can learn that language without problems...

In my case, I have to try to learn it without being in the country, so may be Skypecast will help me in the future when I can say a phrase or two in norwegian.

Oh yeah... Norwegian for Beginners

2007-08-25T12:25:00.000-04:00

Velkomme oh mighty link!

While looking for some info and tired of listening to a woman saying repeatedly "Ja, Nai, Velkommen, Hyggelig a treffe deg..." I found this page that have REALLY good information for begginers:

Norwegian for Begginers

I have to confess that I think I arrived at this link putting on Google "Norwegian for dummies" :D So ashame of myself, but I think I found the GREATEST place for norwegian dummies like me :D

Like a scholl teacher, the page showed me that the verb "to be" it´s so easy that you can be ROFL for a while after beeing in front of a monitor trying to learn how to say a simple phrase like: "I am Adrian"

Jeg er Adrian

er... er... That´s the verb. So I can learn Jeg (I), Du (You), Han(He), Hun(She), Det(It), Vi(We), Dere(You), De(They) and start to use them on simple phrases:

Jeg er Adrian, Dere er leser bloget. (That´s a Tarzan way of saying: I am Adrian, you all are reading this blog. :D)

How do you pronounce it? I have no idea... But is good to know that the verb "To be" as all the verbs in norwegian has only one single form for all persons.

Jeg er Morten. I am Morten.

Du er Morten. You are Morten.

Han er Morten. He is Morten.

Hun er Anne. She is Anne.

Det er Morten. It is/This is Morten.

Vi er Morten og Anne. We are Morten and Anne.

Dere er Morten og Anne. You are Morten and Anne.

De er Morten og Anne. They are Morten and Anne.

Those are the examples of this great page. It will be spending some thime on it, because it have 5 lessons to do and excercises to practice.

How In the hell...

2007-08-23T16:08:00.000-04:00

I´m trusting in a method i learned while I was trying to learn how to play Guitar. I didn´t know anything about notes, chords or music at all, but I toke the guitar and started to repeat the intro of Nirvana´s Smells like teen spirits.

I repeated it all afternon that day, 1995 was the year and I had only 15 years counting. I found that if I repeatedly played a song with the cd playing it, it didn´t matter if I knew the chord´s names or anything, because later I can play the song perfectly all by myself.

So, in this case, how I am suposed to learn phrases that I don´t understand? For sure I can know that "Ja" is "Yes", but I have no idea where is the "don´t speak" in the phrase: "Beklager, jeg snakker ikke norsk".

So i´m using the method. I repeatedly play the mp3 file in my iPod and let my ear accustom to the sounds. I can say without problems "Kan du hjelpe meg?" and I know I´m saying "Can you help me?" because it sounds similar to english.

I have problems with the "beklager..." phrase yet...

Hallo

2007-08-21T13:48:00.000-04:00

When you want to know something, you can always ask to "uncle google". He has all answers to your prayers.

Google refeered me to this page where I found a lot of resourses... All of then USELESS! The first resource is a page with Audio files for learning norwegian that have useful mp3 files with the text to read in a link but they are for advanced listeners. I don´t know how to say "Hello" yet so it´s hopeless to try to understand something there.

I visited this page too where I found a lot os phrases without meaning to me, because I see them and I don´t know how to pronounce them!

So, I had to make a better research, looking in Google for words like "norwegian", "learn", "audio", "mp3", etc, until i found this page:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/other/quickfix/norwegian.shtml

And found this useful list:

Ja = Yes
Nei = No
Velkommen = Welcome
Hyggelig å treffe deg = Pleased to meet you
Hallo = Hello (finally!!!)
Ha det = Goodbye
Takk = Thank you
Mitt navn er = My name is
Snakker du engelsk? = Do you speak English?
Beklager, jeg snakker ikke norsk = I´m sorry, I don´t speak Norwegian
Kan du hjelpe meg = Can you help me?
Hvor er toalettet? = Where is the toilet?

Whooo whooo! I downloaded the mp3 file and put it directly into my Ipod. So now I can listen to while i´m walking, driving or talking with someone.

Norwegian?

2007-08-20T11:36:00.000-04:00

Well, it´s a basic idea.

It was Sunday, I was watching movies in my house with some friends and we started to watch "The Boy With The Incredible Brain" where they show a boy called Daniel Tammet who has a extremly impressive capacity of doing complex math operations and can learn a completly new language in only 7 days. They finish the movie showing how he learned Islandic in only 7 days.

"Well" - I tought - "I would like to put a test to myself". I´m willing to learn a new language from zero and test my learning time in days.

I have a finish line in March 2008, when I want to go to Europe for first time in my life. There I will visit Norway and test myself in real life.

Well, let´s start, time is gold... Let´s find how to say "hello" in norwegian!