I am a Mexican living in Norway for less than three years. Though I have not yet taken any *real* course in the language, I find myself getting closer and closer to speaking fluently something so different from my mother tongue now. So this is how it goes: before coming to live here for (initially) [...]
Discovering Norwegian Music – Oslo Ess
The first thing I noticed about the live music scene in Oslo was the dominance of the English language. I’m not talking about cover versions either. Virtually every one of the small local bands sang their own songs in perfect English, with a babble of Norwegian banter in between. When I queried this with my [...]
My New Strategy for Learning Norwegian – Year 2
When I began blogging about my move to Oslo, I had intended on giving regular progress updates on my quest to learn Norwegian, just like the lovely Will over at My Spanish Adventure. Over a year later and I realise I’ve barely mentioned it! My last proper progress report was after just eight weeks when [...]
Converting Nynorsk to Bokmål – Part Two
This is the next post in a series on the great Norwegian language struggle between Bokmål and Nynorsk. Click here to read the background post and here to read the first part of Bryce’s conversion guide… here is part two. Enjoy, share and comment Consonant Alterations You didn’t think it would be as easy as [...]
When is Norwegian not Norwegian?
When is Norwegian not Norwegian? When it’s Bokmål. or when it’s Nynorsk. or when it’s Danish. or when it’s Old Norse. What? The Norwegian language struggle Okay, first things first, there is one official language of Norway – Norwegian. But there are two official forms of written Norwegian (together with several Sami variants officially recognised [...]
A Thousand Thank Yous
In my last contribution, we looked at how to not say “please” in Norwegian. You may have gotten the impression (probably because I gave it to you) that Norwegians are rude queue-jumpers who constantly ask you to buy them beer without ever saying please. Now that may or may not be always true, but there [...]
How To Say Please, Without Saying Please
Please make welcome Bryce Miller, our new regular blogger here on Life in Norway. Bryce, originally from Bonnie Scotland, has lived in Bergen for four years and will hopefully even out the Oslo-bias on the blog His area of interest is language so expect a lot of posts about the challenges of learning Norwegian, not [...]
My Norwegian Progress Report – 8 Weeks
So, eight weeks into my Scandinavian odyssey, how am I getting on with my ambition to learn Norwegian? The answer, as you might expect, is slowly Firstly some background. English is almost an official language here in Oslo. By that I mean you can launch into an English conversation in a shop, cafe or restaurant [...]
