Depending on where you are coming from, Norwegian has a lot of vowels. Nine vowels, if we don’t distinguish short and long vowels or diphthongs (glide vowels). If Arabic is your native language, that’s going from 3 to 9. For many Romance languages, that’s 5 to 9. Two of the more unusual vowels in Norwegian are Y and Ø. These are somewhat unusual, despite there being similar sounds in many languages.
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Possessive adjective order
Min/mitt, din/ditt before or after the noun
In Norwegian, for a phrase such as "my dog", you are likely to encounter both "min hund" and "hunden min". Similarly, for "your cat", there is both "din katt" and "katten din". You may wonder if there are any rules about when to use which, but there isn’t! It’s entirely up to your personal preference (with some caveats).
💡 | If you’re looking for when to use "min" vs. "mitt" etc, look here. |
To do, to play
When learning Norwegian, one will come across verbs that can sometimes be difficult for new learners to understand how and when they are used. Often in these cases, the verbs might translate into the same English word, but cannot be used interchangeably in Norwegian. Let’s look at some examples.
To Lose and To Miss
This lesson goes over the various ways to express “to lose” and “to miss.”
Legge vs ligge; Sette vs sitte
In English, often we use “lay” and “lie” interchangeably, even if they are not meant to be used in that manner, and yet most people never even notice when we use them incorrectly. In Norwegian, however, people will notice when you use “å ligge” instead of “å legge” (or vice versa) or “å sitte” instead of “å sette.” For learners, the difference can be difficult to remember, so we will go over them today.
Noe eller noen
This lesson goes over how to use “noe” and “noen.”
Complex sentences
The previous lesson went over basic sentence structure. This lesson goes over more complex sentences in Norwegian.
Basic sentence structure
This lesson will go over basic sentence structure.
Påske
While many Norwegians are not Christian, the Easter holiday is still widely celebrated throughout the country. It is a great time to spend with family and friends and welcome the coming of spring.
Norway has one of the longest Easter celebration / holiday breaks in the world. It begins on Maundy Thursday (the Thursday before Easter) and lasts until the Monday following Easter (known as “the second Easter day”). Many people have off work during this time and schools are closed the entire week before Easter.
[Read More]To think, to know
Some verbs in Norwegian have more than one word that can be used, but when to use which word can be difficult. Three examples are “to think,” “to know,” and “to see.”