(Picture by ELG21 from Pixabay; no copyright.)

Hei! Hvordan går det med deg? Jeg håper du har det bra… (Hi, how are you doing? I hope you’re doing fine…) Learning any language takes a lot of time and work. Sometimes it gets a little too technical with all the details you need to remember: Grammar, uttale (pronunciation) and what not. Below is a small collection of phrases that might be useful. (I’m sure some of them have been mentioned before in this blog, but not in the same post!)

Hva heter du? (What is your name?)

Jeg heter Ola. (My name is Ola.)

Vi er på ferie i Norge. (We’re on holiday in Norway.)

Bor du her? (Do you live here?)

Hva synes du om Norge? (What do you think about Norway?)

Hvor ligger hotellet? (Where is the hotel?)

Gå til høyre/til venstre/rett frem. (Walk right/left/straight forward.)

Tusen takk. (Thanks a lot.)

Ingen årsak. (No problem.)

Unnskyld. (Sorry./Excuse me.)

Beklager så mye! (I’m very sorry!)

Kari liker å stå på ski. (Kari likes skiing.)

Kan du hjelpe meg? (Can you help me?)

Jeg trenger en klem. (I need a hug.)

Jeg er sulten og tørst. (I’m hungry and thirsty.)

Hva koster vaflene? (How much do the waffles cost?)

Fryser du? (Are you cold?)

Hva er klokka? (What time is it?)

Det er sent. (It’s late.)

Det var veldig koselig, men vi må gå nå. (It was very nice, but we have to leave now.)

Sola skinner. (The sun is shining.)

Fuglene synger. (The birds are singing.)

Fint vær! (Nice weather!)

Du er vakker. (You’re beautiful.)

Du også. (You too.)

Jeg elsker deg. (I love you.)

Skål! (Cheers!)

Gratulerer med fødselsdagen! (Happy birthday!)

God reise! (Have a nice trip!)

God påske! (Happy Easter!)

Vi snakkes! (See you!)

Ha det bra! (Goodbye!)

And now a little notice for you all… As I wrote last month, my blogging for Transparent Language is coming to an end. It’s been some interesting years, and I’ve been learning a lot from communicating with my readers. Thank you for being there and for all your feedback! However, I also want to write other things than blog posts, and to explore other areas than language teaching. And as you know if you’ve been following this blog for a while, the frequency of posts has been going down as Transparent Language is increasing its focus on other ways to teach languages. (Which means there might not come a new blogger here in the foreseeable future.) So, this will be my last post for this blog. I know some of you will feel let down, but nobody can please everybody. I hope you’ll keep learning Norwegian! Takk for laget! Lykke til videre! (Thank you for the company! Good luck in the future!)

(Picture courtesy of monicore from Pixabay; no copyright.)

Since you read this blog last month, a horrible krig [kreeg] (war) has broken out in the midst of Europa. Let’s all hope and wish it will end as soon and as peacefully as humanly possible. Verden trenger fred. (The world needs peace.) And we need to be able to communicate respectfully and try to understand each other, even if we don’t always agree – isn’t that why we’re language learners, after all?

Learning, however, isn’t easy when your mind is full of frykt (fear). Focusing on nice and even nerdy things is, I think, the way forward. With that in mind, here are some things I like about Norwegian:

• Æ, Ø and Å! How can other languages cope without those beautiful letters?

• The language can be written in two different ways, bokmål (book language) and nynorsk (New Norwegian). Yes, I know this is frustrating to language learners. Yet this constant focus on two different spelling systems, with slightly different vocabularies, adds a lot of vitality to the Norwegian language scene.

• Norwegian has lots of nice words that match its wild landscape, such as seter (place of mountain pasture) and li [lee] (the slope of a ridge or valley).

• Unlike most European languages, Norwegian is a tonal language. This gives it a unique melodic quality, as if its speakers were singing rather than talking.

• Norwegians excel at inventing their own translations for international anglicisms. What is a ”net board” (nettbrett)? It’s a tablet, of course…

• The little word kos (≈ ”cosiness”) says everything about the joys of stay-at-home family life in a cold climate.

What do you like about norsk? Feel free to share with the other readers in the comments section.

BTW, you might get a new blogger soon. As much as I’ve enjoyed writing for this blog, I also feel I’ve reached a point where I have to rehash a lot of ideas. So let’s see, and take care! Thanks for reading.

(Illustrative photo courtesy of Michael Hiemstra at Flickr, CC License, no copyright.)

Komma er rare. (Commas are strange.) Du skriver dem, men du hører dem ikke. (You write them, but you can’t hear them.) Well, sometimes you do hear them, as little pause/r (breaks) when people talk. In written Norwegian, a comma might be a matter of life and death, so let’s take a crash course!¹

As in English, you use commas in order to avoid having multiple ”ands” in lists. Instead of ”saft og vafler og smør og sukker og syltetøy” (juice and waffles and butter and sugar and jam) you replace every og, except for the last one, with a comma:

saft, vafler, smør, sukker og syltetøy

Please note that it’s one separator or the other – ”Oslo, Bergen, og Trondheim” is wrong in Norwegian.² It should be: Oslo, Bergen og Trondheim.

A less whispery alternative to brackets, commas are also used to insert extra explanations or comments in phrases:

Beate kommer også. (Beate will also come.) > Beate, naboen min, kommer også. (Beate, my neighbour, will also come.)

Familien liker å reise. (The family likes to travel.) > Familien liker å reise, spesielt til Syden. (The family likes to travel, especially to Southern Europe.)

You can also use a comma, combined with one of the four words og, eller, men, for (and, or, but, for)³, to join two sentences that would otherwise be separated by a full stop:

Kari leser. Ola ser på TV. > Kari leser, og Ola ser på TV. (Kari reads, and Ola watches TV).

Vi må vaske klær. Vi liker det ikke. > Vi må vaske klær, men vi liker det ikke. (We have to wash our clothes, but we don’t like it.)

Some sentences can’t stand on their own – they’re dependent on another sentence in order to make sense. If you stay is a full sentence (with a subject and a noun), but it calls for the help of another sentence (such as we’ll be very happy). Another example of a leddsetning (subordinate clause): …that it’s bad for your health.

Once you get what a leddsetning is, the comma rules are easy in Norwegian:

• If the leddsetning comes before the main clause, it’s followed by a comma: Når det snør, synker temperaturen. (When it snows, the temperature falls.)

• If the main clause comes firsts, there’s no comma: Temperaturen synker når det snør.

The life-and-death matter to which I war referring above:

Heng ham ikke vent til jeg kommer.

Depending on where you put the comma, the phrase either becomes:

Heng ham ikke, vent til jeg kommer. (Don’t hang him, wait until I come.)

Or:

Heng ham, ikke vent til jeg kommer. (Hang him, don’t wait until I come.)

(Photo by Jona02 from Pixabay; no copyright.)

Hurra, det er jul! (Hooray, it’s Christmas!) For billions of people, that means glede (joy) and spending time with familien (the family). But what is special about the høytid (feast, literally ’high time’) in Norway?

Jul [yool] is a very old tradition in Norge – in fact, even the Vikings had a party this time of year! They called it jól [yohl], and it was a celebration of vintersolverv (winter solstice): From now on, the days would get longer. After the Viking Age, the ancient jul was replaced by a kristen fest (Christian festival) celebrating the birth of Jesus.¹ But the name stuck!

Nisser also survive from ancient times. The little ”hobgoblins” with røde luer (red caps) are a part of Christmas decorations everywhere in Norway! In fact, some people in rural areas put our grøt (porridge) for the local nisse to eat… Julenissen, the Norwegian version of Santa Claus, is like a big version of a nisse. When bringing his sekk (sack) of gaver (presents), he’ll say in Norwegian: ”Ho, ho, er det noen snille barn her?” (Ho, ho, are there any kind children here?)

Most of the presents, however, are placed under juletreet (below the Xmas tree) on julaften – Dec. 24th. This is the big day of jula (the Xmas), where people eat julemiddag (Xmas dinner) and unwrap their gifts to hverandre (each other) in the evening. In the long ventetid (waiting time) earlier in the day, many families watch tradisjonsrike (”tradition-rich”) shows such as Reisen til julestjernen (The Journey to the Christmas Star) and Tre nøtter til Askepott (Three Nuts for Cinderella). And you won’t believe how many Norwegians associate jul with Disney cartoons!

Most families have a traditional main dish for the evening – either ribbe (pork ribs), pinnekjøtt (mutton) or lutefisk (cod). Recently, some Norwegians also started eating kalkun [kalKOON] (turkey) for Christmas. After the dinner, a few families går rundt juletreet (walk around the Xmas tree) and sing julesanger (Xmas carols) before opening the gifts. A speciality in Western Norway is celebrating jul around a furu (pine), but most families have a nicely decorated gran (spruce) as their juletre.

Måtte alle ønskene dine gå i oppfyllelse! (May all your wishes come true!)

God jul og godt nyttår!

(Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!)

(Photo courtesy of Noel Bauza from Pixabay; no copyright.)

North of the Arctic Circle, there’s no sunrise in the winter sky. But do Northern Norwegians really live in total darkness? I asked Bjørn Farbu – a doctor until recently residing in Harstad¹ – about life in mørketida (the dark season).

What brought you to Nord-Norge (Northern Norway)?

My girlfriend is from Tromsø. We met in Trondheim and lived there for several years before moving to Harstad, a small town south of Tromsø. I already had an appreciation for fjellene og naturen i Nord-Norge (the mountains and the nature). Furthermore, the inhabitants are veldig åpne, imøtekommende og fine folk (very open, kind and fine people). We had to go somewhere for our medical internship², and Northern Norway was an easy choice.

When does mørketida start and end?

Mørketida starts December 2nd and ends on January 10th.

How was your first encounter with mørketida?

The first surprise was that it wasn’t entirely dark. Mørketida only means that sola er under horisonten (the sun is below the horizon). This means that here may be some dagslys (daylight) at noon. If you’re på jobb (at work) around then, forskjellen mellom Sør-Norge og Nord-Norge (the difference between Southern and Northern Norway) isn’t that large. Det er mørkt (it’s dark) both when you go to work and when you leave. But during the darkest period in Tromsø, it never gets brighter than skumring (dusk or twilight) at noon. One is struck by alt det fantastiske lyset (all the fantastic light)! På morgenen er det rødtoner og oransje som dominerer, mens midt på dagen kan det være et krystallklart blått lys. (Mornings are dominated by hues of red and orange, while the light may be a crystal clear blue at noon.)

How do people cope without sunlight for so long – don’t they get depressed?

Nordlendinger (”Northerners”) are very good at accepting that you’re trøtt og vil ligge på sofaen (tired and want to lie on the couch) in December. Og energien kommer tilbake mange ganger med sola, ikke minst når det er midnattssol. (And the energy will return many times with the sun, especially during Midnight Sun.) … I don’t think nordlendinger are moodier at all during winter than folk fra sør (people from the south [of Norway]).

How does it feel when the sun finally returns?

It’s a very good feeling, et godt pust med klar frisk luft (a good breath of clear fresh air), and an expectation of alt det fine som kommer (all the nice things to come).

Any special experience with mørketida you’d like to share?

Last jul (Christmas) I celebrated with my svigerfamilie (in-laws) in Tromsø. A friend convinced me to join in for a joggetur (jog) of 2 mil [meel] (20 km) – in the middle of the night! It was calm, minus 10 degrees³, and clear weather. We did bring a hodelykt (headlight), but månen og nordlyset (the moon and the northern lights) eliminated any need for kunstig lys (artificial light). En fantastisk tur!

What is your recommendation for tourists to Northern Norway – summer and midnight sun or winter and northern lights?

I’d recommend turister to go both in summer and winter! Sommernatta med sol og yrende fugleliv (the summer night with its sun and bustling bird life), and you don’t go to bed, is uforglemmelig (unforgettable). The contrast you’ll get in January.

Hale-n til hval-en. (The tail of the whale.) In Norwegian, adding endings to nouns is even more important than in English. (Illustrative photo by Simon Infanger on Unsplash; no copyright.)

One of the funny things about Norwegian is that you can’t avoid adding endings to words. Well, of course English learners also sometimes struggle with that – how do you add a plural -s to box? But generally, as long as you know how to add an -s¹ to words, you don’t have to care a lot about endings in English. Norwegian is more complex, mainly for one reason, which I’m sure is the first thing you learnt: The is an ending! So, let’s repeat – instead of saying ”the city (by)”, Norwegians say ”city-the” (by-en).

The main challenge is knowing which word takes which ending.

• Plurals of most Norwegian nouns (hund, katt, jente, skog, menneske, system = dog, cat, girl, forest, human, system) are made with -er, but many short neuter nouns are identical in the singular and plural (fjell, år, hus, vann = mountain[s], year[s], house[s], lake[s]).

• Singular the varies according to the noun’s gender – you have to know whether the word you’re about to use is masculine (the = -en), feminine (-a) or neuter (-et).

Once you know a noun’s possible endings (-er or nothing; -en, -a or -et), you simply add one:

hunder, skoger, katten, systemet (dogs, forests, the cat, the system). But what about words that end in an -e²?

You of course don’t say ”jentea” or ”menneskeer”. You remove the -e, then add the ending: jenta, mennesker.

Although I’m focusing on nouns here, the rule about -e removal is used also when you’re adding endings to verbs: å danse, ”to dance”, becomes danset, ”danced” (dansa in some varieties of Norwegian).

Easy, right?

The plural the is -ene.³ This ending replaces the -er ending: hunder > hundene (the dogs), fjell > fjellene (the mountains), bøker⁴ > bøkene (the books).

For a few, irregular plurals, the ending is just -ne: trær > trærne (the trees), klær > klærne (the clothes), knær > knærne (the knees).

And oh! Nouns that already end in -er in the singular behave slightly differently… These are words that very often denote professions or nationalities (= persons): baker, ridder, tysker (baker, knight, German). Instead of doubling and saying things like ”bakerer”, the final -r is dropped in the plural: bakere, riddere, tyskere. And for the plural the, just add -ne to the basic word: bakerne, ridderne, tyskerne. That’s it!

Today Norwegians elect their reps for Stortinget – the yellow parliament building to the left – in Oslo. (Photo by Gunnar Ridderström on Unsplash; no copyright.)

It’s election time in Norway! Today, all Norwegian citizens get the chance to vote for their favourite parti [parTEE] and help decide who’ll be the country’s next PM (in Norwegian: statsminister, ”minister of the state”): Will Erna Solberg stay in power or will folk (people) pick somebody else?

My predecessor Kari already described how makt (power) is shared in Norway, so I’ll stick to the basics here:

• den norske kongen (the Norwegian king) Harald doesn’t really have anything to say politically – he’s more like a symbolic ”father-of-the-nation” figure¹

• the Norwegian parliament is called The Great Thing, Stortinget, consisting of 169 representanter (delegates) from all over the country

• hvert fjerde år (every fourth year) there is a general election – stortingsvalg. If a party – or an alliance of parties – gets more than 50% of the 169 seats, they can then create a flertallsregjering (majority government). Otherwise, a mindretallsregjering (minority gov’t) will have to do the trick

In many countries, there is a struggle between two major political ”blocks” (think Trump vs Biden in the US), and Norway also has this tendency. For years after WW2, the country was totally dominated by the ”left wing”² Arbeiderpartiet (Workers’ Party = Social Democrats). Maybe you’ve heard about the famous female PM from that party, Gro Harlem Brundtland? At some point, ”right wing” governments, dominated by the party Høyre (Right), entered the chat. And although Stortinget nowadays has reps from 9 different partier, people still talk about

• Venstresiden (”The Left Side”, ”red” parties more inspired by socialism): Arbeiderpartiet, Sosialistisk Venstreparti, Rødt

• Høyresiden (”The Right Side”, ”blue” parties more inspired by liberalism or conservatism): Høyre, Fremskrittspartiet

So, that’s 5 parties. The remaining 4 are considered sentrum (centre) parties, who may join a government on either ”side”³: Senterpartiet, Venstre, Miljøpartiet De Grønne, Kristelig Folkeparti.

When I spent time in Norway last month, nyhetene (the news) were totally dominated by valget. PM Erna Solberg from Høyre was touring the country trying to convince Norwegians not to vote for her competitor, Jonas Gahr Støre from Arbeiderpartiet. I dette valget er det også en tredje statsministerkandidat (in these elections there even is a third PM candidate): Trygve Slagsvold Vedum from the pro-farmer party Senterpartiet.

How much should the districts decide? How many immigrants should Norway welcome? What should the relationship between Norway and the EU be like? Those are some of the traditional viktige saker (important topics) for many velgere (voters). This year, klima (climate) seems to be a very hot topic in the debates. Norge is one of the world’s richest countries, but a lot of the wealth comes from the sale of olje [olyeh] (oil), which isn’t exactly grønn (green), so what to do…

Valglokalene stenger klokka 21 i dag. (The polling stations close at 9 PM today.) Tomorrow we’ll maybe know who’ll be in charge of the beautiful country of Norway for the next 4 years!

Godt valg! (Happy Elections!)