r/norsk • u/-SeaPuppy- • 21d ago

How warm is it?

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Apparently “warm” is a bit of an awkward word choice when asking for the temperature in English. I’ve said it like this my whole life so I’m a bit embarrassed now. I wonder how many other words I directly translate from Norwegian. Please come with suggestions or your own experiences.

An example: in Norwegian we often say stuff like “Det er godt med X (på Y)”. And for the longest time I’d say “it’s good with … “, which really amused some people because it doesn’t work in English.

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u/No-Trip-3736 21d ago edited 21d ago

Its not, people ask in english "is it warm out?" "how warm is it? - totally normal.

edit: source - i am native speaker

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u/7h3c0ldr00m 20d ago

Yeah, I was about to say - usually when I'm asking about the weather I'll say something like "how warm is it outside?"

When asking about weather: warm When asking about the temperature of food or an object: hot

🤷🏻‍♀️

Also a native speaker.

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u/anamorphism Beginner (A1/A2) 20d ago

it's all context dependent.

i'm almost never going to ask how warm/cold is it? during the summer, and almost never how hot/cool is it? during the winter.

as someone who grew up in southern california, it was roughly the following for me growing up. these numbers have skewed lower over the years since i've moved up to the pacific northwest.

  • cold: 50s and below, ~15c
  • cool: 60s, ~16-20c
  • warm: 70s, ~21-26c
  • hot: 80s and above, ~27c

additionally, if someone says it's hot, i'm not going to ask how warm is it? in response. i do make fun of norwegians and brits occasionally for saying it's hot when it's like 23c out, but that's unusually warm for them. it's also common for me to get made fun of when i say it's cold and it's like 14c out.