How to teach yourself Norwegian

A reader commented on this blog post asking for advice on learning Norwegian. I’m reposting my response as a separate post, in the hope that some of you (I’m looking at you linguists, language geeks, Norwegian-Americans and people who have taught themselves foreign languages) can give better advice than I can:

I have a limited experience with learning foreign languages on purpose. I learned both English and Norwegian the way native speakers learn these languages as children, without seeking out tutors or language courses. Like you, my "foreign" language is French, which I started studying with after-school classes taught by French teachers in Norway. Intensive classes with native speakers allowed me to pick up the basics of French fairly quickly (the equivalent of three years of high school classes in just eight weeks or so), and I really recommend learning from native speakers in small groups. If that is impossible, I know there are a variety of language computer programmes and internet-based courses, but I have no experience with them myself.

If you have the basics of the Norwegian language down, I suggest you improve your vocabulary the way Norwegians learning English do: read newspaper articles and watch television. The following are two major Norwegian online news sources you could start with:
www.vg.no
www.aftenposten.no

The Norwegian public television network NRK puts its programming online, but it is only available from Norwegian IP addresses. You could experiment with proxies to trick the system, but you might be better off getting yourself som dvds online. That way, you can add Norwegian subtitles to the Norwegian audio. I find that hearing and seeing the same words at the same time in a foreign language makes it easier to understand them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much luck finding Norwegian television shows available via Amazon, but there are movies. Have you seen Max Manus, Elling or Buddy? Those are three fairly recent Norwegian titles that had enough international success to make it to Amazon.com. And don’t forget The Troll Hunter, possibly the most Norwegian movie ever, full of cultural references and in-jokes for Norwegians, but hopefully still entertaining for Americans.

Keep in mind when learning Norwegian that while it is a fairly easy language to master the basics of, it is very difficult to pronounce everything like a native. Part of this difficulty comes from the difference between soft American consonants and harsh Norwegians rrr-sounds – not to mention the notorious "kj". And part of the problem is the numerous dialects and the fact that we have two official (very similar) written languages, which means that there are seemingly endless variations of pronunciations and possible spellings. Don’t worry, it confuses me too. But if you can live with that, the good news is that Norwegian grammar and standard spelling is far more logical and predictable than English. You can actually sound words out when reading, without encountering trick words like the English "enough".  In fact, one of my American family friends used to read to me in Norwegian, sounding out the words. She had learned the basic pronunciation rules, but she didn’t understand a word she was reading. But I did!

Ultimately though, nothing beats learning through conversations with real Norwegians. If you can seek them out and convince them not to speak English to you, you will learn to communicate in Norwegian.

Related posts:

• Bilingual infatuation
• I want to live in English
• Love in any language
• In defense of Norway
• Koselig = the meaning of life

In defense of Norway

Today, on Norway’s constitution day, after living in England for nearly eight months, I wanted to publish a post on why, despite London’s opportunities for excitement, I will be leaving this city soon, in favor of a darker, colder, more expensive place called Oslo. I realized I wouldn’t have time for a proper post, as I had an exam yesterday and another one today, and I am here in London to study, not to write about Norway.

Luckily another blogger pretty much wrote my post for me. Go read it while I do my statistics exam.

(The photo is by my friend Margrethe Skeie Svae, and shows me wearing a bunad, with my fingernails painted to match the Norwegian flag. The gesture was meant to show off my nails, and was only rude unintentionally.)

…

Bonus article: “Paradise is meant to be boring”

And for the Norwegian-speakers (or Google-translate-users):

“Ting vi liker ved dette samfunnet” av Are Kalvø, og en god kommentar til bonus-artikkelen av Sofie Gran Aspunvik i Studvest: “Passivt paradis”

The perfect city

The great tragedy of having lived in more than one place is that I will never, ever live close to all of my friends at once (more on that topic here). The great annoyance is that I am constantly being reminded that no society can be good at everything. For everything London excels at, it fails at something else. And while I can spend the rest of my life travelling in search of a city that has it all, I know that will only make me miss whatever I liked about my other cities more.

Just in case any of you know where I can find my ideal city, this is how the perfect synthesis between Oslo, Paris and London would work (I haven’t included Boston, because I haven’t lived there as an adult):

The city would essentially look like central Paris: a mix of wide boulevards and charming cobble-stoned pedestrian streets, with sidewalk cafés and well-dressed people. Some of the parks would be designed by Englishmen in the late 1800s. There would be at least one dramatic modern building in the style of the Oslo opera house. The city would be surrounded by Norwegian nature.

Buildings would all be built by Norwegians, as they are the only culture out of the three who prepare for winter rather than deny its existence. Single-glazed windows, insufficient ventilation and inadequate heating would be illegal. All apartments would have nice kitchens.

The British would be in charge of public transportation, as well as providing information about this service. All other forms of communication and information technology (including online banking) would be run by Norwegians. There would be telephone service everywhere, from the tops of the surrounding ski slopes to the deepest tunnels of the underground system – and free WiFi in parks, thanks to a suggestion from the French.

The French would have the overall responsibility for food, but they would be forced to import international wine. Norwegian salmon and Norwegian bread would be available even in the smallest corner shops. Most restaurants would work like in Paris: with affordable three-course standard menus served by waiters who took their jobs seriously and didn’t expect tips. Influences from the Brits would ensure some international flavor varieties like Indian, Mexican and Chinese food, but the English would be discouraged from trying to sell their own pies and mashed things to people. The cafés would be French, but with coffee from Norway.

The pubs would of course be English, but with a wide selection of draught beer from around the world. Everyone would cooperate on other forms of nightlife, but the Norwegians would be completely barred from any attempts to control alcohol policy, including prices and closing time for pubs and bars. This would instead generally be governed by the French.

People would buy their French clothes, French lingerie and French shoes from British sales assistants. These sales people would take lessons in customer service from Americans, but tone it down to a less insistent European level. Thanks to the Norwegians, winter boots and other shoes with good sensible soles would always be available. Norwegians would teach people how to dress in winter; the French in every other season.

In public places, the people would somehow combine the passion of the French with the manners of the English. They would queue and make reserved small talk, but still kiss each other in public. The English would be in charge of television and humor and entertainment in general, so there would be a lot of trilingual wordplay.

If anyone should ever wish to leave, the airport runway would be de-iced by the Norwegians.

Related posts:

• Hunting for coffee in the land of tea – Why coffee wouldn’t be English
• Coffee in Paris – Why coffee wouldn’t be French
• First impressions of living in London

Image sources: Paris Guinness Nature

LES DENNE BLOGGPOSTEN!!! – Hvordan klikkhoreri fungerer

Mål: Middelmådighet

"Halvparten av studentene satser på å være like gode eller litt bedre enn gjennomsnittet," skriver Aftenposten. Resultatene av Stud.mag-undersøkelsen viser at 48 prosent av Norges studenter studerer i håp om å være som gjennomsnittet eller bedre. 31 prosent satser på å bli blant de beste. (Vil det si at resten satser på å være under gjennomsnittet?)

Det er mye å si om dette. For det første er det et godt eksempel på at journalister som skriver om resultater av en undersøkelse, også må skrive om metoden bak undersøkelsen. Til hvem (hvilket utvalg av studentene) ble spørsmålet stilt? Vil studentene være gjennomsnittlige i forhold til de andre studentene på sitt program i sitt år, eller i forhold til alle studenter verden over, eller en mellomting?

Jeg tror forøvrig det er vanskelig for ganske mange flinke norske studenter å innrømme, selv anonymt, at de har realistiske forventninger om å være blant de beste i klassen.

Ifølge seniorforsker Vibeke Opheim ved Nifustep er det ikke forsket noe særlig på norske studenters ambisjonsnivå sammenlignet med studenter i andre land. Det kan godt være vi er ganske like resten av verden. Det vi vet om Norge er at de mest ambisiøse og de minst ambisiøse studerer ved de samme fakultetene. I USA, for å nevne ett eksempel, er det i stedet forskjell på gode og dårlige skoler.

Rent statistisk kan ikke alle være best i klassen. Innenfor hver klasse må ganske mange av studentene ha forventninger om å være blant gjennomsnittet, ellers vil de aller fleste bli skuffet. Og har man krevende vurderingsformer, gode medstudenter og høye inntakskrav til studiet, kan et mål om å være litt over gjennomsnittet være et amisiøst mål i seg selv. Nå har vi imidlertid ikke elitestudier i Norge. Vi har et system der de aller fleste kan ta høyere utdanning hvis de vil. Og å ha som mål å være gjennomsnittlig i befolkningen som helhet er ikke så imponerende.

- Du hopper ikke høyere enn listen som er lagt. (…) vi regner med å få jobb om vi ligger på gjennomsnittet eller litt bedre, sier Mikal Erga (23), fjerdeårsstudent på allmennlærerutdanningen i Oslo.

- Det at Norge er et rikt land med relativt små lønnsforskjeller og lav arbeidsledighet gjør kanskje at kampen om de beste jobbene ikke er like hard i Norge som i en del andre land, sier seniorforsker Vibeke Opheim ved Nifustep.

Ja, ok, du får jobb i Norge hvis du er gjennomsnittlig i Norge. Og begge studiene artikkelen skriver spesifikt om, lærerutdanningen og jusutdanningen, er rettet mot studenter som skal jobbe i Norge. Men å satse på middelmådighet på norsk forbereder deg overhodet ikke på et internasjonalt arbeidsmarked eller for videre studier utenfor Norge. Og det er det som virkelig bekymrer meg med norske studenters ambisjoner: Alle kan studere, alle kan bestå og de fleste har ikke ambisjoner om å klare mer enn det alle andre også klarer. Jeg håper bare vi klarer å holde disse latmannsholdningene hemmelig for utenlandske arbeidsgivere og resten av verdens universiteter.

I want to live in English

For every language you learn, you live another life. Apparently people who live in Czech say that. I think I want to live in English now.

Most Norwegians understand English, but worldwide practically no one understands Norwegian. This makes Norwegian an inside joke I share with a selection of the people I know.

Growing up, Norwegian was the language I used with the three people who knew me best, the people with whom I barely needed spoken words to communicate with at all. Even though I talked non-stop (still do) in both languages, my parents and my sister could usually understand my face and tone of voice well enough regardless of vocabulary. My mom could tell how happy I was by the way I opened the front door when I came home in the afternoon. So Norwegian was our somewhat unneccessary secret code. American friends thought Norwegian was an angry language, because they only heard it when my parents yelled at me. I preferred English, but my parents insisted I speak Norwegian, because I would need it someday.

These days, communicating in Norwegian is my job. Since moving back to Norway two years ago, I have studied and worked in Norwegian full time. I consider both Norwegian and English first languages, meaning I’m completely bilingual.

Despite all that, after giving Norwegian a serious try, I have realized something:

English is just better. I’m better in English. I like other people better in English.

I’m more open and heartfelt and honest in English. Norwegians are so direct it borders on insensitivity, both in culture and in language. We won’t tell you to have a nice day unless we ourselves would really feel happier if you did. We won’t say "I love you" to people we just like. We won’t thank you if we don’t feel genuinely grateful. Any expression of sentiment in Norwegian feels like I’m exposing some secret part of my mind, usually only accessible to Norwegians when we’re drunk.

In English I’m more polite, although I might come off as relatively rude due to Norwegian bad habits. It feels easier to be sincere and emotional in English without feeling like I’m crossing the line into inappropriate. I’m more outgoing and animated, especially when I meet Americans. If I’m in a room full of Norwegians and one American, I might look like I’m giving the American much more attention, smiling and gesticulating more.

If I swear, it’s in Norwegian. If I ever swear in English, I’m just pretending. The one exception is if I say skitt (the Norwegian word for dirt, the sk is pronounced sh) when I really want to swear in secret and I’m in Norway. (Swearing in French doesn’t work at all.) This might be because I used to be American, and as a child I had no reason to swear. 

Privately, I think that all the words I know, in English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, French, German, Dutch, Khmer, Thai, Italian, Spanish, are all one big vocabulary. Sometimes I can use all my words, sometimes only a few, depending on who I’m talking to. Most of my close friends here in Norway are people who are also fluent in English. I don’t specifically search for bilingual people to befriend, but it’s obvious why it works for us: We have a shared vocabulary, and we often mix up our two languages in conversations.

But despite the fact that most Norwegians speak English, they don’t speak the whole English language. English has more words than Norwegian. So I think in English with an occasional Norwegian expression, not vice versa. And when I speak English, the connection between what I think and what I say is less complicated. So in English I’m more honest, more polite and I swear less.

And you know that scene in Love Actually about American girls who love British men because they speak British? I know American girls like that, but it wouldn’t be too much of an exaggeration to say that English in general – British, American, Australian, Canadian, any version of perfectly pronounced, flawless, this-is-clearly-your-first-language English – works for me. Hearing someone speak English really well just makes me relax. Compared to hearing Norwegians speak English as a second language, it’s like hearing a singer with perfect pitch and realizing I’ve been listening to off-key music for years.

When I go through old notebooks and crumpled-up napkins at the bottom of my purse, I find quotes from novels I’ve read in English. Paragraphs I had to write down, because they made me shiver a little bit, because they were so well-written. Sometimes they become blog posts. I never feel that way about Norwegian.

Just listen to Stephen Fry talk about anything. Even when he’s making fun of the very topic of language, I just love it.

Sure, there are plenty of wonderful things you can say in Norwegian as well. You can say koselig, nydelig, jeg er glad i deg. And as a journalist, I love the intricacies and possibilities of the Norwegian language. But I love the English language more. Half the time when I’m writing in Norwegian, I am quietly wishing that I could write the same text in English.

So what do I do with this? Move? Try to find writing work in English? I don’t know.

Image: icanread

Love in any language

We have different words because we have differents concepts, but sometimes I wonder if we have different concepts because we have different words. This is especially true when it comes to ideas that are hard to define. Take love for example.

Americans say I love you for all sorts of reasons to many different people in their lives. It’s the same verb for loving ice cream and loving the person you’re married to. Norwegians have two completely different ways of expressing love.

We say Jeg er glad i deg to close friends and family. This sentence means more to me than the English I love you normally does, but it’s still not that one specific you’re-the-one kind of I love you that people make a big deal about saying or not saying. Because for Norwegians that’s a sentence we expect to only say to a very few people during our lives, maybe just one. The Norwegian words for that are almost taboo; even writing them out without a specific person in mind feels wrong. When I was ten, an American wanted to learn how to say I love you in as many languages as possible, but I refused to teach the Norwegian version.

The difference between the two isn’t as simple as one being romantic and the other platonic. Jeg er glad i deg can be romantic, only less so. And because Norwegians are more direct in their way of using language than English-speaking people usually are, we don’t say Jeg er glad i deg to just anyone. Except for teenagers who (used to? I’m older now) finish texts with the abbreviation GID. But this Norwegian, less scary version of I love you is closer to I am fond of you, which I would barely take as a compliment in English. Glad means happy, just like in English, so I suppose there is an element of Your existence makes me happy. We can also be glad i things, but I seldom use the term for anyone or anything I’m not at least a little bit emotional about. I like (liker) my furniture, but I love (glad i) my apartment.

Even after years and years of living among Americans who use I love you as a general greeting with people they just like, it still feels weird to me. I have to stop myself from flinching when I hear an American finish an angry-sounding phone call to a family member with an angry I love you and I automatically translate it in my head. But speaking two languages fluently gives me twice as many ways to think about everything. There are some feelings I can only express in English and some I can only express in Norwegian, but in my own thoughts, I can sort out my emotions using my whole vocabulary. And I’m glad I can.

…

Inspired by Even in English, A Language Gap, in which Jennifer Percy writes for the New York Times:

"He speaks Serbo-Croatian, German and English. Two languages separate us.

I don’t speak German but I’ve said “ich liebe dich” plenty of times and it never does feel like a contract the way saying “I love you” feels like a contract. He, too, has said ich liebe dich to me. When we first started dating, this should have been a comfort to me, but it wasn’t. German sounded strange and ich liebe dich sounded ugly to my ear compared to “I love you.” It bounced off of me, it didn’t stay, didn’t embed itself like “I love you.”

I once tried saying “volim te” — “I love you” in Serbo-Croatian — and he didn’t respond. I asked if I’d said it right and he said I had. Then he repeated it quietly.

That’s the one, I thought: volim te. That’s the “I love you” that works for me, the one that is honest."

Image: xkcd

Norwegian media – Free, but dependent

I’m spending the first part of this week writing up to ten pages on how the Norwegian government is supposed to afford journalists in the future. Norway subsidizes its media, or should I say part of its media, mainly the media that provides daily news on paper. The media that I think is dying. News sites get no government funding or tax breaks, and the current system of funding provides very little incentive for experimenting with more efficient, modern ways of delivering news.

Writing about this for school means I will probably have to use my own earlier writings as academic references. That makes me feel old and silly, but I have been writing about Norwegian press subsidies for as long as I have been writing journalism at all – which I admit is not that long. My first feature article, back in early 2008, was about the Norwegian system of government-supported journalism. My American journalism professor at The American University of Paris sent me back to Oslo so I could explain to him how Norwegian newspapers could be government-funded and still be an independent fourth estate.

I wrote about how Norwegian journalists considered themselves loyal mouthpieces for politicians up until the 1970s, about the controversy (or should I say controversial lack of controversy in many cases) surrounding the current press subsidy system and about the general Norwegian mentality of trusting the government to provide solutions to everything. After a week of interviewing editors and media experts, I had learned most of the things that would later be on the syllabus of the course for which I’m currently writing an exam.

But I never got around to publishing the article, until now. So here it is, complete with the footnotes I added to further explain Norwegian weirdness to Americans:

Norwegian Media – Free, but dependent (pdf)

Image: Madewell

Sjokktall fra Norsk Kaffeinformasjon

Mennesker som meg "svikter" kaffen.

Bildebevis for at svart kaffe gjør denne unge kvinnen glad. Foto: Julie Balise

Hørt på E24 på morgenvakt:

Julie: Jeg er fortsatt i sjokk over tallene fra Norsk Kaffeinformasjon. De påstår at stadig flere unge nordmenn ikke drikker kaffe, men jeg kjenner nesten ingen som ikke drikker kaffe. Det kan være fordi jeg ikke helt vet hva jeg skal finne på med disse menneskene. Man kan jo ikke gå på café med dem. Da bestiller de te, og te fra café er en så dårlig økonomisk investering at jeg ikke klarer å ta tekjøperne seriøst.

Ikke-kaffedrikkende journalist*: Hva? Hæ? Påstår du at kaffe er en bedre investering? Er det ikke mer økonomisk fornuftig å ikke drikke kaffe i det hele tatt?

Julie: Kanskje, men det er et annet spørsmål. Jeg sier bare at det er dumt å betale 25 kroner for at noen skal legge teblader i kokt vann for deg. Kjøper du kaffe på café, betaler du i hvert fall for bruk av baristaferdigheter og kaffemaskin som du ikke selv har fra før.

Kaffedrikkende nyhetssjef: Men ikke begynn å tenke på hva du betaler for at noen skal sjenke øl i glass for deg. I hvert fall ikke mens du er student.

Julie: Poeng. Og apropos, kanskje jeg skal jobbe litt. Men jeg må nok blogge om kaffe når jeg kommer hjem.

"Bare rundt´én av tre unge drakk kaffe siste syv dager, og unge jenter leder an i utviklingen. Det er en halvering på 20 år, viser tall fra en ny undersøkelse," skrev E24 i går morges. Andelen unge mellom 20 og 24 år som drikker kaffe er halvert de siste 20 årene. Kaffe er for gubber, sies det.

Det er papirutgaven av Dagens Næringsliv som i utgangspunktet skriver om dette, og her er en chai latte-drikkende 20-åring intervjuet. Hun mener unge dropper kaffe fordi kaffe er dyrt. Jeg skjønner ikke det. Har te på café blitt relativt billigere? Jeg tror heller flere har begynt å drikke god kaffe, og god kaffe er dyrere enn dårlig kaffe, og dermed har vi fått det for oss at kaffe generelt er blitt dyrere. Men dette er bare noe jeg tror.

Det neste hun sier er interessant (klippet fra DN):

Hun merker også en tendens til at unge får sitt kick gjennom en espresso om morgenen, men drikker annet gjennom dagen.

- Det er ikke en kultur for å drikke masse kaffe, sier hun.

Selv drikker jeg en dobbel espresso om morgenen og kanskje (stort sett ikke) en dobbel til senere. Vi kan si at mitt gjennomsnittlige daglige kaffekonsum er 2,5 espressoshots. Det er ganske lite sammenlignet med de fleste jeg vet om i generasjonen over meg, både i mengde og i koffein. Hadde undersøkelsen sagt "Vi drikker mindre kaffe enn før, og det er nok fordi unge har sluttet å drikke kaffe", kunne jeg sagt: "Tull! Vi bare velger kvalitet fremfor kvantitet."

Men jeg må ha kaffe hver dag. Det er tydeligvis færre som meg enn jeg var klar over.

Kaffen har uansett en spesiell stilling hos nordmenn. Det merkes når disse tallene omtales. De unge "svikter" kaffen, som om vi skylder den norske kaffebransjen å følge opp det høye nasjonale konsumet som Norge tradisjonelt har hatt siden midten av 1800-tallet.

Jeg liker å fortelle turister, spesielt tedrikkende briter, om kaffens historie i Norge. Nordmenn har drukket kaffe siden 1700-tallet, men da var det en cafédrikke for de rike og urbane (og det var ikke så mange av dem i Norge). I 1842 ble kaffen en folkedrikk. Da ble det nemlig forbudt å lage hjemmebrent.

Den sammenhengen bør vi imidlertid ikke snakke så mye om. For jeg vil ikke at ungdommens sjokkerende kaffesvik skal brukes som argument for strengere alkohollovgivning.

* Jeg vet! Utrolig, men sant. Jeg møtte min første ikke-kaffe-drikkende journalist forrige vår. Men han passet godt på redaksjonens kaffemaskiner, lagde ofte kaffe til meg og ga meg et fantastisk koselig kompliment i januar. Så han er godkjent likevel.

Jakten på en død manns liv

Men hvem var du, egentlig? Hadde du noen? Det skal ta Magasinet 550 telefoner, en flere uker lang, tung reise ned i Oslos glemte verden, før vi nærmer oss noen svar.

22. oktober 2009 ble Jan Erik Fosshaug begravet uten en eneste venn eller pårørende til stede. Bernt Jakob Oksnes har skrevet om letingen etter den ensomme mannens livshistorie i Dagbladet Magasinet.

Jeg er glad for at norsk journalistikk kan være så stillferdig, grundig og rørende som dette.