Friday, June 7, 2013

Learning Norwegian language/ Lærer du Norsk?

There are many language training schools in Norway and as with everything else in Norway, these courses are significantly expensive. If it is possible to learn Norwegian in your home country online/via Group lessons, please do so.

In Norway, the usual rate would be about 100-150 NOK/hour (20 EUR/25 USD) of group teaching. This implies that usual package of 300 hours of Norsk for preparation towards Bergentesten (which means, the test-taker has fluency equivalent to that of a native Norwegian) will set you poorer by 30000-45000 NOK!

Tip: 300 hours of Norsk seems like easy job, but it is not. The grammar and esp. pronounciation is quite complicated. On top of that, there is no precise standard for spoken Norwegian and there are multiple dialects. To complicate the matter further, sometimes the dialects/grammar may change signicantly in spoken Norsk. For example Norwegian spoken in Bergen vis a vis one spoken in Stavanger, Oslo or Tromsø could sound like 4 different languages to a foreigner! Read more about troubles with spoken Norwegian on NTNU website here.

If that wasn't difficult enough, there is some more nitty-gritty to worry about. There are two main languages and one minor language in use in Norway:
  1. Bokmål (Understood by almost all Norwegians). If you are foriegner and wish to learn Norwegian, learn this one.
  2. Nynorsk - Quite different from Bokmål. Though tought in schools, in theory it is not widely spoken and used. Only 10-15% of the population actively uses Nynorsk. And in any case, the person knowing Nynorsk will almost certainly also know Bokmål. So you are in safe zone, if you know Bokmål
  3. Sami - An altogether different language used by minority population, mainly in Northern Norway. Unless, you have some special reasons, which you are aware of, that why you should learn Sami, this language may be conviniently skipped as a practical language to be used in Norway.
Here I am listing some of the free resources on learning Norwegian. These will provide a very good initial start but by no means complete. This means you must augment your learning with other medium or courses.
  1. Lexin - A comprehensive multilingual Norwegian dictionary with pronounciation. Supported by Norwegian Government , Department of Education
  2. NTNU web resources - This is perhaps the most authentic  free option of learning Norsk, by NTNU - Norwegian University of Science and Technology
  3. 123Norsk - A government website providing preparatory material for Nørskprove 2 & Nørskprove 3 tests.
  4. Norwegian Grammar - Pdf resource.
  5. Skapago - Some videos on pronounciation
  6. Norwegian Class 101
Lykke til.

3 comments:

  1. Hello there :)
    I live in Norway and created a site to enable everyone who wants to learn norwegian fluently to do so completely for free.

    The blog is new however I am continually updating the site. There will be audio, video, visual resources, all to make learning simpler.

    If you want to know more just visit my blog:

    www.senkelt.blogspot.no

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, thanks for the post. I didn't know some of the site, and it will be a good help. Ha det!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello Go Simple : Nice work, keep it up.

    Ju: All the best

    Cheers
    Nitin

    ReplyDelete

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