Norwegian! A North Germanic Language of Norway

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Published 2019-09-28
This video is all about the Norwegian language, a North Germanic language spoken in Norway! * Click for a free account at NorwegianClass101: ► bit.ly/Norwegianclass101

(Full disclosure: if you upgrade to a paid account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee that helps support this channel.)

Special thanks to Jens N. Nielsen for his Bokmål samples and help, as well as René Mikalsen for his Nynorsk samples.

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Music

The song accompanying Paul's life-changing jokes: “Sax Attack” by Dougie Wood.
Outro: “Gisele Revisited” by South London HiFi.

The following images were used under Creative Commons share-alike license:

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M%C3%A5lformer_i_N… Authors: Kåre-Olav, Røed

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Norske_M%C3%A5lgre… Author: Eivindgh

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oslo.png Author: Saintjos

Still images which incorporate the above images are available for use under the appropriate share-alike license.

00:00 Brainstorming session with Mickey
00:40 The origin and classification of Norwegian
01:55 The origins of Bokmål and Nynorsk
04:27 Bokmål pronunciation & Orthography
09:16 Bokmål grammar
13:59 Side by side comparison of Bokmål and Nynorsk
17:51 Final comments
18:22 The Question of the Day

All Comments (21)
  • @Langfocus
    Hi everyone! If you're learning Norwegian, check out NorwegianClass101 ►( bit.ly/Norwegianclass101 )◄ - one of the best ways to learn Norwegian. For 33 other languages, check out my review! ► langfocus.com/innovative-language-podcasts/ ◄ (Full disclosure: if you sign up for a premium account, Langfocus receives a small referral fee. But if I didn't like it, I wouldn't recommend it, and the free account is pretty good on its own!)
  • @amadeusmza
    Tell your boss to go to hell in 50 different languages. Definitely I need this video.
  • @chandler224
    Norwegian is the first language that I have actually enjoyed learning! As a native English speaker, I have struggled to learn a second language and gave up multiple times. Then I discovered Norwegian and something just clicked! The simple grammar, easy conjugations, and many recognizable words. If you are thinking about learning Norwegian as an English speaker, I would highly recommend it. Jeg elsker norge!
  • @MMM18092
    I'm Swedish and to me, all Norwegians sound like eternally happy kindergarden teachers. There's something about the intonation of the sentences.
  • @sasthemento
    My uncle actually avoided a speeding ticket by demanding to get the letter in Nynorsk instead of Bokmål. Anyone one in Norway have the right to get official documents in the written Norwegian language they learnt as kids, and the police office didn’t bother to translate the document for him
  • OMG, a language with only one form of a verb per tense. That is so beautiful.
  • @shipwreck9146
    My favorite Narnia book: The Woman, the Man, and the Mountain.
  • I'm a native speaker of Norwegian and must say your video is very accurate and well made. Now to answer your question, I live in the South East part of Norway and use the Bokmål standard in writing and speaking. In my experience it's easy to understand all the dialects, except maybe some strange words you learn along the way. My grandma had an accent more similar to Nynorsk so I learned it from a young age. There are lots of people who speak with a dialect locally and in media. It's generally thought to be a quality that your dialect is specific to a region and it's not something people hide or are ashamed of. I find the different dialects charming and comforting in their own special way.
  • @ZenoxCombe
    This man knows more about my own language than I do
  • @tr-h7217
    "Jeg vil spise" isn't really the correct translation of "I will eat". "Jeg vil spise" means "I want to eat". "I will eat" is "Jeg skal spise". I believe the word "skal" is a cognate of the English word "shall"
  • @joonaaskr
    You are honestly better at explaining grammar than our Norwegian teachers over here
  • I speak a version of bokmål (Oslo), everyone (virtually) understands each other, Norwegians are the best out of the Scandinavian countries (maybe because of all the different dialects) of mutual understanding between all “3” languages, (it’s been researched), followed by the Swedes and dead last: the Danes who often can’t tell the difference between Norwegian (speak slowly and meticulously, maybe even throw a word we stopped using 200 years ago, if they are willing to answer in Danish and not English, congratulations!) and Swedish... If I had a dime for every time they thought I was Swedish, me answering Norwegian and them suddenly being nicer, I’d be set...
  • @mortentefre7760
    Here are some dialect variations to the word “I”: Jeg, eg, je, jæ, e, æ, i. Spoken Norwegian can be a challenge.
  • @karolgdynia
    When you learn Norwegian, eventually you get to the point when you have meaningful talk with a Norwegian folk. Somewhere in the middle of the conversation you really start to believe in your language skills. And then... a new guy joins the chat and you face the reality. You can understand just one dialect. Another 100 are waiting for you 😂 Ok. It's not so bad, but almost 😂
  • @jackjohnson2309
    Having spent most of the last year studying Norwegian, this all still sounds so complex and complicated when laid out and explained, but it all becomes very intuitive pretty quickly. That’s been my experience so far at least, coming from American English.
  • @maren5140
    i'm a native Norwegian and i found it very interesting to learn how our sentences are built up, it's not something you pay much attention to when you're fluent. I write Bokmål and speak a dialect very close to bokmål, with a big influence from english and german. and YES it is very annoying to have two languages, i mean, it's easy to understand norwegians speaking Nynorsk, it just sucks that you have to write exams in the other language.
  • @alfhildr9678
    Fun fact: it's common courtesy that if you receive an official/formal email you should respond with the same written Norwegian as in the email you received. Always fun growing up listening to my dad curse under his breath as he tried to figure out how to respond to his work emails in Nynorsk (New Norwegian) - he has always hated Nynorsk hah.
  • @mecolour591
    I’m Norwegian and watching this.. I guess I’m just checking in to see if I can still speak it 😂
  • @rthelionheart
    I had a girlfriend from Sweden years ago, she told me once that whenever someone speaks Danish, it sounds like they have something stuck in their throat😂