Norwegian Lesson 123
Innledning
Velkommen til norskleksjon 123! When searching the net for language lessons it is very difficult to find lessons that you need. Since I’ve been learning Norwegian I’ve found that many teach about the structure and principles but what I want more of is exercises to practise. It is difficult to practise with the same exercises over and over because you already know the answers. Finding new exercises that match what you are currently learning can be a hair-pulling task. This is why, for me, making up my own exercises helps me so much more in my practise. So if you are craving more exercises what you can do is make up your own. After each lesson in this series you can make up exercises based on the ones in the lesson (actually, you can just copy them and change the nouns, genders, adjectives etc for ‘fersk’ content). Put the exercises away – then pull them out again a week later to do. This is an excellent way to revise but also many people learn better when they teach (like me;). And even better – if you post your exercises in the comments below then we can all benefit from each other!
Hope this helps. Hope you enjoy the lesson.
Norwegian Lesson 123
Gloser
Lydøvelse
Here is a sound practise that will really rely on your ability to use your mouth. The symbol ‘ç’ is not in the Norwegian alphabet but is a sound that involves the letter combinations: kj – ki – ky – tj
People who speak Englis-English (meaning a UK-form of English such as The Bristish Isles, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand) will find this sound a little easier to pronounce than our American-speaking friends. This is because of the way English-English speaker pronounce the H in words like ‘hue’ or ‘hugh’. This H sound is very similar to the kj – ki – ky – tj sound.
To properly say this sound in Norwegian it needs to be created in a certain part of the mouth – the soft palate. The soft palate is located in the top back part of your mouth. To find the soft palate: from your top teeth, slide your tongue back along the roof of your mouth until it gets soft. This is your soft palate. (Your hard palate is the hard gum before it.) This is where th ç sound is made.
Now make an ‘i’ sound (ee) with the soft palate. This is as close as you will get to the correct sound without living in Norway! I find the only way to really get Norwegian sounds is to constantly listen to Norwegian talking. But I’m sure if you practise this sound lesson over and over you will get a good practical sound.
Uttale – ç
Follow the audio and repeat each sound:
Listen for the long and short vowel sounds with each word. This is a pronunciation rule that covers all of the Norwegian language.
122.1
Gjennomgang
Skriv
a. Last lesson we learnt about den/det/de and denne/dette/disse. We have also learnt about den/det/de being gender/plural for ‘the’. Study the table below and then write the sentences into Norwegian using the personal pronouns.
It is 9 o’clock.
These cost 8 crowns.
The purple children walk home.
How much do those cost?
The book is blue.
Those curtains are new.
Why are you playing with the orange car?
The banana costs 5 crowns.
This sandwich is for me.
That newspaper is old.
The table is round.
How much do these pears cost?
The red drinks are for you two.
I don’t like the long winters.
The picture is on the wall.
That child goes to kindergarten.
How much do the pears cost?
How much is the bolle?
They take home green apples.
The lamp is red.
This chocolate is hot.
I like those cups.
123.2
Grammatikk – Adjektiv
Adjectives are describing words which are effected by the gender of the noun. Adjectives have a masculine/feminine, neutral and plural form. We have already looked at some colours particularly in lessons 116 and 117. We also know some other adjectives from other lessons too – here is a short list of some of them to jog your memory:
In general the masculine/feminine forms of adjectives stay the same as the original word, however the neutral form generally adds ‘t’ to the end of the adjective and the plural form adds an ‘e’ – so the above adjectives would fit into a table like this:
Even though there is the general rule of making adjectives follow the gender of the noun, there are so many exceptions. You can’t take adjectives for granted! Just in the above table you can see a lot of words that don’t follow the rules:
blå – because it already has a vowel on the end it doesn’t need an ‘e’ for plural form.
fiolett – already has a ‘t’ on the end of the word and so another ‘t’ is not needed in the neutral form.
oransje – as you can see doesn’t change at all – it makes it’s own rule!
gammel – (I personally don’t know why this one couldn’t have just added an ‘e’ to it’s plural form to make ‘gammele’…) However, for the plural form the ‘e’ and ‘l’ are swapped around so the word can have the ‘e’ on the end. If the Norwegian who made up this word left it at that it would have looked like this: gammle. But in Norwegian you can’t have a double consonant followed by a single consonant. So they just take out an ‘m’: gamle. This concept works in a lot of Norwegian words when following the rules just makes the word look silly.
ny – has a double ‘t’ in its neutral form – I have no idea why – just go with it.
stekt – is another word that doesn’t change in its neutral form because it already has a ‘t’ on the end.
All the rest – (in the table at least) do follow the rules – halleluja!
123.3
Frukt og Grønt – på supermarked
a. Answer the questions below using personlig pronomen and adjektiv (colours).
Hvilken farger er bananen?
Hvor mange jordbær er det?
Hvilke farger er disse druene?
Hvor er den små gulroten?
Hvilke farger er de potetene?
Er disse nektarinene gode?
Hvilken farger er sellerien?
Hvor mange maiskolber er det?
Hva koster brokkolien?
Hvilke farger er yoghurten og drikken?
Preposisjon
b. Fill in the blanks with prepositions:
Yoghurten er ___ det korte glasset.
Druene er ______ nektarinen og tomatene.
Jordbæret er _______ glasset.
Det høye glasset er ____________ det korte glasset.
Bananene er ______ tomatene.
Jordbæryoghurten er ___ glasset.
Adjektiv – Farger
c. Fill in the adjektiv with the proper gender/plural:
De ______ jordbærene.
Den store poteten er ______.
Druene er ______.
Disse nektarinene er ______.
Denne ______ tomaten.
Den lange sellerien er ______.
Si
d. Say the sentences out loud with the right ‘adjektiv’ using:
mange – grønne – små -friske – mye – mange – alle – god – nye – lang
De ______ bananene.
Den drua er ____.
Hvor ____ nektariner vil du ha?
Hvor ____ er sellerien?
Hvor ____ gulrøtter er i posen?
Hvilken tomat er ____ å spise?
Er disse _____ argurkene _____?
Disse er ____ de ____ fruktene.
Lag
e. Make up a ‘fortelling’ about the different size, amount and colour fruit and vegetables you buy.
Når jeg går til supermarked kjøper jeg…
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Reindeer herding is more than just an occupation, it is a way of life and an integral part of the Sami culture and identity.
There is an opposition in everything. At the darkest time of the year, we celebrate Christmas. And at the exact opposite end, when the midnight sun is at its highest, we celebrate Midsummer.
Hello,
Thanks for posting this page. I especially like the audio samples for ki, kj, ky, etc. Very helpful as this is so difficult to explain to English speakers, who often fall back on “ch” or “sh”. The Norwegian sound is somewhere between those two.
However, I see that you’re translating “den”, “det”, “de” as “the” in English. Wouldn’t you say “that” and “them/those” would be more correct? Norwegian really doesn’t have an equivalent to English’s definite article “the” per se. The “the” is appended to the end of nouns in the form of “en”, “a” (feminine “ei”) and “et” – bilen, huset, and so on.
For example, the phrase “lets take the bus” in Norwegian is “la oss ta bussen”, where “the bus” translates “bussen”. On the other hand, “la oss ta den bussen” translates to “let’s take that bus”.
This is not to be confused with the indirect article: “en”, “ei”, “et”, which all translate to “one” or “a”, i.e. “der står en buss vedsiden av et skilt.” = “(over) there is one bus beside a sign.” If translated, “there is a bus beside the sign”, it would be “Der står en buss vedsiden av skiltet”.
Thoughts on this?
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from L-Jay
As you can see from the table, ‘den, det & de’ are taught as ‘it/that/those’. ‘Den/det/de’ are used as the ‘the’ in English understanding when there is an adjective before the noun: La oss spise det grønne eplet – Lets eat the green apple. Again, here ‘det’ is ‘the’ in English understanding because it is referring only to one green apple. If there was many green apples then in English you would say: Lets eat that green apple – however, because, in this case, ‘the’ and ‘that’ are the same word in Norwegian the Norwegian sentence would still look like this: La oss spise det grønne eplet.
Den/det/de are aslo found in titles which translates to ‘the’ in English understanding such as Den Talentfulle Mr Ripley (The Talented Mr. Ripley).
In making these lessons my intention is to come from an English speakers perspective – especially one that doesn’t know another language, doesn’t know about linguistics and needs to learn through English. It would be easy to say that the ‘thes’ in Norwegian are just stuck on the end of nouns, however, this is not always the case and instead of enforcing a rule that is always broken I’d rather present the possibilities of the use. There have been so many times a Norwegian teacher has enforced a grammar rule to me only to shatter my world by breaking it over and over again. I have found that the best way is to be taught Norwegian grammar ‘relatively’ – it makes the student ‘receptive’ to change which is the best way to learn (especially Norwegian).
I’m only a beginner learner so I can be wrong but it’s good to get comments that make me second guess myself so I can make sure I am learning (and teaching) the right stuff
Cheers
Hmm, that’s interesting. You are correct that before an adjective, “det/den/de” certainly would translate as “the” in English. “Det store fjellet” = “The big mountain” or plural “De store fjellene” = “The big mountains”. I’ll keep that in mind. Wonder if there is a specific technical grammatical definition about this to better understand the uses of “det/den/de”.
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from L-Jay:
I just came across another ‘the’ meaning for den/det/de – when using dates, such as: ‘den 15. sep’
BTW, there is an inconsistency that I’ve not been able to pin down with the use of words beginning with “sk”. For instance, “ski” (ski) and “sky” (cloud) are both pronounced with the “ch-sh” sound, but “skandinavia” or “skog” are pronounced with a normal “s” and hard “k”. Do you know of a specific rule about this? Does it have to do with which vowel that follows the “k”?
____________________
from L-Jay:
It is the ‘i’, ‘j’ and ‘y’ that determines the ‘∫’ sound. (To make the symbol sound you press shift+alt+f – on a Mac at least
) So the sound only occurs with ski, sky, skj, sj in words. This sound can be placed anywhere in a word: kanskje, sjekk, skip. Through laziness, words that have ‘rs’ end up having a ‘∫’ sound too (Harstad, først etc) but don’t mention this to any Norwegian speech therapist as they’d profusely deny it…lol.
Yes, “rs”, that’s another, as in, “værsågod” (væshegod).
Also “r” just by itself is sometimes pronounced so softly that it comes very close to an “s” sound. For instance, the province name “Finnmark” (where I’m from). If you say the word slowly and pay attention to the “r” at the end… It’s not quite an “s” sound, but it’s not exactly an “r” sound either. Of course, there may be regional or dialectical differences that determine how to pronounce the “r” in this case, but some dialects pronounce it very softly.
I know that the letter “r” has been debated vociferously. The Swedish radio program “Språket” dedicated an entire episode to discussing the various uses and history of “r” and its evolution in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, http://www.sr.se/sida/poddradio.aspx?programid=2332&pid=411
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from L-Jay:
Ah, Moose (who grew up in Finnmark) said those with a very thick North Norwegian dialect would pronounce it ‘Fijnnmarsk’. Me personally, I didn’t know that the human mouth could make such sounds…lol.
Interesting about Moose. Yes, I saw that he is from Finnmark. Which area? (If I may ask.) I grew up in Bossekop, Alta. Teaching Norwegian to English speakers, I have to be careful not to fall into the very comfortable — and lovely — “Fijnnmarsks dialækt!”
____________________
from L-Jay:
Saga, Alta – the other end of the city…lol. But you guys probably went to the same high school, maybe even at the same time if you’re in your mid thirties
We left Alta in ’75, when I was 13, which makes me a bit older than mid-30s.
Attended Bossekop Skole and Alta Ungdomsskole. But, I have family roots in Alta going back several generations on both sides of the family. Wouldn’t be surprised if Moose and I are distant relatives. 