Category: Language
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The Norwegian Birthday Song Officially the Hardest in the World to Learn. I mean, come on.
Last night I was at my boyfriend’s Birthday party, and when the Norwegians around me started singing “Hurra for Deg som Fyller ditt år” I thought “Oh damn, I still haven’t learned that song”. Then I fell in shame (as I usually do when this happens) and looked at other people and tried to remember…
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8 Unbelievably Strange Norwegian Words With Meanings Foreigners Cannot Guess
“Why don’t you learn Chinese or Spanish, or any other language spoken by more than a few sheep and 5 million people” asked my parents while I was learning Norwegian. My answer is always that Norwegian is a fantastic and very funny language. Some of the words the Norwegian language has created requires either a…
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Why did Anders Behring Breivik officially change his name to “Idiot”?
Every now and then, the Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik comes up with new ideas to get the press talk about him. Last year he filed a complaint, claiming that he was being tortured by the Norwegian authorities in jail. Now he is changing his name to something quite unexpected. For those who need…
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10 tips for a successful student exchange in Norway
Check your budget As you’ve probably heard, living in Norway is expensive. It might be a bit easier right now with the NOK falling, but in any case between the rent, the transportation, the food, the drinks and all the things one needs just to live, things sum up pretty fast if you are…
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Is there a Typical Norwegian Humour?
When I first thought of writing about Norwegian humour, I asked my foreign friends living in Norway what they thought of the topic. They did not even understand the question: “You mean you want to find out whether Norwegians have humour at all? Whether they ever laugh?”. To be fair, it is true that Norwegians don’t…
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Quiz: How Well Do You Know The Norwegians?
You have been living in Norway for a while, or have been reading this blog. In any case, now is time to get your knowledge of this society tested on these 30 questions. Do not use the internet to find the answers, but you can use your Norwegian partner or friends. I thought at first this…
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How to differentiate the Norwegian Dialects?
When you start learning Norwegian everything looks nice and simple. 5 million inhabitants in this country you think, it can’t be that hard. You’ll learn the one language here and you will be fine. Okay, two languages actually, with nynorsk. Wait, three with the Sami language (actually there are many Sami languages but they use…
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Is Norwegian a Language of Love?
When people tell me “I loooovve French, it’s such a romantic language” it is obvious these people didn’t understand that our conversation was just about going down to the shop to buy a broccoli and oignons. I believe there is no such thing as one language being the language of love. In Norwegian, like in…
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More proof showing Norwegian is not an easy language
Yes I am surfing on some kind of language wave here (see my previous post: Confusing things Norwegians say). I promise the next blogpost will be about something else. Here is a list of words that have always confused me, and for a reason. A long vowel instead of a short one, a mistake in how…
