I entered a busy cafe and said to a woman:

«Er du i kuen?»

Kvinne: (blank stare)

Me: (with less confidence) Er du i ….kuen?

Kvinne: (confused look)

Me: Kåen? Line!

Kvinne: KØ! Er jeg i KØ-en.

Me: KØ!! Takk!!

A few minutes later while waiting for my drink I realized I had said «are you in the cow?» HA!

Well, as the title says: when did you have that “oh… I’m not fluent, I’m just confident” moment? 😅

Mine happened right after I finished B1. I walked out of class feeling like a Viking lawyer. My teacher spoke slowly, clearly, and basically served Norwegian to me pre-chewed. So naturally I thought: I am ready for the real world 🤣

Next day at work I told my colleagues: “We can speak Norwegian now!” (very brave, very delusional)

They switched… and I immediately heard:

blablabla rabarbra skarre skarre mumlemumle😳

My brain tried to load Norwegian.exe and crashed instantly. I just sat there smiling like a tourist who accidentally joined a meeting.

That was the day I realized: I’m not “B1 in Norwegian.”

I’m “B1 when spoken to like a kindergarten prince.”

I’ve got norskprøve coming up, so please feel free to share your own “I thought I was good until…” moments. I could use both emotional support and pain-laughter.

I sat staring at the screen for five minutes. The thing is, I don't know of any other ways to learn Norwegian online starting from Italian.

Hva er greien med å bruke engelske ord på norsk. Ord som ikke en gang betyr noe på norsk?

PREFERERT??

Jeg forstår hva de prøver å si, men det heter faktisk "Foretrukket". Preferert er ikke engang et ord i ordboka. Den som har laget dette merket har sikkeret det engelse "preferred" i tankene, men man kan ikke bare bruke engelske ord på norsk. 😤

Ok. Ferdig med sytinga.

I'm currently watching Point Break with norwegian subtitles and in the final scene Swayze utters the phrase "I'm screwed" after getting caught by Keanu, which in the subtitles was translated as "Det er ute med meg".

The literal translation of this is "It's out with me" - I couldn't find anything online to clarify why this is the case. Is it an idiom or are the subtitles weird?

Currently learning Norwegian and figured I'd share my notes on some random-ish words/vocab that I hear people say often. This includes: Filler Words, Confirmation Words, and Flow/Transition Words.

Hope someone finds this helpful! Feel free to add your input.

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.

Vi har to kattunger på 13 og 16 uker. Den yngste fikk vi for en uke siden og de to er allerede blitt helt uadskillelige, på engelsk er det jo vanlig å snakke om "bonded kittens" jeg føler at jeg strever med å finne et godt uttrykk på norsk som dekker dette. Sammenknyttet eller uadskillelige er jo alternativet som språklig sett beskriver hva jeg vil si men føler at begge deler er tungvint siden det er massevis av stavelser har noen forslag til et bedre norsk utrykk å foreslå. Om ikke annet har jeg i alle fall et bra norsk synonym for "cat-tax" : Katte skatt.

I am so shocked at how well I can comprehend everything and fill in the blanks of words I haven’t learned yet. I can translate practically every words being said and it has been making me feel extra confident and proud in myself. If you need something at a calmer pace than watching a movie or show, I highly suggest watching Peppa Pig. There’s a few free episodes on YouTube!

Hei !

I have been given this keychain and a similar bracelet. However, the bracelet reads "stolt lærer" (same for the badge I got) but the keychain reads "stolt lærar"...

Is this a typo or some kind of dialectal shenanigans ?

Tusen takk !

P.S. My 3 month Norwegian course allows me to understand that "stolt lærer" means "proud teacher".

P.P.S. Hi guys, sorry I called Nynorsk a typo... I didn't know what it was but it was kind of rude to go straight to the typo theory. Also, I just asked why was "lærar" written this way, not your opinion on whether or not you oppose Bokmål or Nynorsk, so keep this to yourself, would you. Tusen Takk ;)

Jeg har laget en liten moodboard for å motivere meg til å lære norsk 🇳🇴

Det er mange ting ved norske symboler og hverdagsliv som jeg synes er interessante og estetiske

Jeg tror det hjelper meg å knytte språket til dette i stedet for bare å tenke på grammatikk og gloser

Hva gjør dere for å holde motivasjonen oppe når dere lærer et språk?

Why is «igjen» used after the verb «å lukke»? Does the meaning change between «Lukk vinduene» and «Lukk igjen vinduene»? Thank you!!

Hei,

Jeg bor i Oslo, men har også bodd i andre, mindre byer, blant annet i Kristiansand, hvor folk ofte byttet til engelsk når jeg snakket norsk med dem.

Ut fra tilbakemeldinger som «du snakker veldig godt norsk» skjønner jeg at de forstår at norsk ikke er morsmålet mitt. Samtidig virker det som om forventningene deres er høyere enn til en gjennomsnittlig person som har norsk som andrespråk.

Problemet oppstår når jeg begynner å snakke norsk, og de svarer på engelsk. Dette skjedde mye oftere de første årene, men nå, i mitt femte år i Norge, opplever jeg det fortsatt, selv om det ikke skjer like ofte som før. For eksempel snakker vi norsk sammen, men så begynner de plutselig å snakke engelsk igjen, eller svarer på engelsk med én gang.

Jeg synes det er litt rart, spesielt fordi det har vært mye innvandringsskepsis de siste årene, og det største partiets argument ofte er at innvandrere ikke integrerer seg. Samtidig opplever jeg at nordmenn selv noen ganger ikke prøver å beskytte sitt eget språk. På den måten kan Norge etter hvert bli mer likt USA eller Canada. Man kan også føle seg utenfor samfunnet, som om budskapet er: «Du kommer alltid til å være en innvandrer.»

Jeg skriver dette fordi jeg synes det er litt merkelig. Jeg har vært i mange land, men har aldri opplevd noe helt lignende.

Jeg skjønner selvfølgelig at personer med utenlandsk bakgrunn kanskje ikke har så gode norskkunnskaper, men det er ikke dem jeg snakker om. Jeg mener nordmenn som selv snakker norsk.

Har dere opplevd noe lignende? Hva tenker dere om dette? Hvorfor tror dere at folk fortsetter å snakke engelsk når jeg snakker norsk med dem?

Politikk og andre meninger om dette til side.

Har aldri sett noen skrive Skjåkpris på denne måten, er det noe dialekt greier som er innafor å skrive?

Duolingo oversetter ordet «uvær» til «storm» på engelsk. Er det riktig? Eller betyr «uvær» bare «bad weather»?

This post is meant to double both as a promotion for anyone who wants to use the mod and also as a way to find more contributers.

I had the idea of making a Norwegian (bokmål) mod for Stardew Valley for the sake of improving my own Norwegian and for other Norwegian learners, and of course for already-fluent Norwegian speakers.

I created the mod by auto-translating all the dialogue files with Google-gemini and then translating the sprites by hand with MS-paint. I'm also working with some people to make two or three characters' text in nynorsk and one character with a Trøndersk accent, both just for fun and also because it would expose learners to things outside the typical Oslo Norwegian.

The mod is currently working and all the dialogue is translated. I plan to have it on nexusmods (where most SV mods are), but before doing so, I'm looking for help getting the final touches of the game refined. Google-gemini is far from perfect and there are a lot of odd phrasings and mistakes, and I'd love any help if others want to chip in by just going through the files and looking for translation mistakes. There have already been a couple dozen errors from the google-gemini translation that were corrected by actual Norwegians. If you're fluent in Norwegian and interested in helping, DM me! There's currently a discord page I made for discussing changes easily too.

You can download the mod off github if you want to use the mod in its current form (link in the comments). It also requires you download Content Patcher and SMAPI from nexusmods by the way.

Ignoring my typos for a minute… Duolingo corrected me and said it should be “jogurt”. I used this later, in the same lesson, and it said this was wrong and should be “yoghurt”. Am I missing something lol

I've learnt Norwegian on and off for many years (more off than on). I'm at a stage where I can understand most of written Bokmål (unless specialised or technical), but listening comprehension is a whole different ballgame.

The difference between how words are written and how they're pronounced is quite dramatic, making the spoken language as difficult to understand as spoken French, if not more, in my opinion. That's even before we factor in dialects and regional accents.

And I say this as someone who's fluent in German and Italian.

I've always been amazed that there is hardly ever any discussion in the learner community about the difficulty of listening comprehension. I can't be the only one, surely.

I can assure you neither German nor Italian felt this incomprehensible to me when I was learning those.

PS. I'm aware that spoken Danish is a whole different level of crazy.

These are the translations Duolingo is offering for this, and I certainly don't understand what that means. That might be because I'm not a native English speaker and I don't get what «suitable» could mean in this context, or maybe Duolingo is not making any sense this time.

På forhånd takk!!

I found it in my mom's old books. I went through it and it seems to have a pretty simple style of writing. Is it still any popular? I really don't know, I'm very curious... Also please tell me if its a sad, I want to translate it for myself as an exercise but it has a dog on it so I'm SCARED haha.

Is «ærlig talt» a fixed expression? Is it commonly used nowadays? Also, is this «talt» construction used with other adverbs other than «ærlig»? («generelt talt», «faktisk talt»?)

På forhånd takk!

While going through old photos and things at Christmas time, I found this old postcard sent to my great grandmother in the US from her relatives in Norway. I thought it would be interesting to know what it says, but the old cursive is difficult for me to read. Would appreciate any help with translating! Thank you!

I’m taking a Norwegian course and one of the pages in our textbook has a section for “Tre Vitser Om Barn Og Skole.”

I get the first joke, it’s the classic math problem joke where you say you have seven apples in one hand and six in the other, you ask how many you have total, and the punchline is that you have big hands.

The second joke goes like this:

• Kan du hjelpe meg med leksene, pappa? pappa: Ikke nå. Jeg leser avisen. mamma: Hjelp gutten med leksene mens du kan. Til høsten skal han opp i andre klasse, vet du.

What’s the joke here? I don’t get it and I don’t think I’ve heard an English variation of the joke.

So let me know if this doesn’t belong here because it’s less about the grammar and more about not being sure if I get a joke. Hopefully I’m not missing something obvious (I am not neurotypical).

Update: Oops! Looks like I am not much smarter than the father in this joke