PM's Target Europe - FR, NL and on again off again NO

[Gustav Aschenbach]

Well, if you feel like doing it, do it. I didn't want to criticize your decision. It actually re-sparked my interest in Norwegian/Scandinavian. I still have my Assimil, my grammar book and my work book and maybe I will start studying it again, just for the heck of it. It is actually very easy.

Yes you actually studied a lot of Dutch as well. Almost 40 hours of Dutch in one month suffice, I guess! Well done.

[PeterMollenburg]

Well, if you feel like doing it, do it. I didn't want to criticize your decision. It actually re-sparked my interest in Norwegian/Scandinavian. I still have my Assimil, my grammar book and my work book and maybe I will start studying it again, just for the heck of it. It is actually very easy.

Yes you actually studied a lot of Dutch as well. Almost 40 hours of Dutch in one month suffice, I guess! Well done.

Yeah, no probs, I didn't take it as criticism I hope your studies are going well. I have Assimil NO as well, but it's part of my 'second tier learning' group of courses, should I get there. I'll be keen to see your progress in NO should you have another crack! Tnx for stopping by

[guyome]

Good luck with Norwegian, PeterMollenburg!

Based on your review of various courses, have you tried working with the freely available NTNU course, Norwegian on the Web?

It seems to be rather complete, with many exercises; the audio for the main texts is offered in two speeds; the vocab list at the end of each lesson has IPA, indication of tone, and each word can be clicked on to get an audio file played (although not obviously displayed, this last feature is also present in the vocab list offered in the right side sidebar for each section of the lesson); the material can be easily downloaded.

They also have developed a level 2 course: https://www.ntnu.edu/web/now2/info.

There are also two other versions of the first course (LearnNoW, NoWiN). The framework is the same but the content is different so that should be great way to get more practice.

[PeterMollenburg]

Good luck with Norwegian, PeterMollenburg!

Based on your review of various courses, have you tried working with the freely available NTNU course, Norwegian on the Web?

It seems to be rather complete, with many exercises; the audio for the main texts is offered in two speeds; the vocab list at the end of each lesson has IPA, indication of tone, and each word can be clicked on to get an audio file played (although not obviously displayed, this last feature is also present in the vocab list offered in the right side sidebar for each section of the lesson); the material can be easily downloaded.

They also have developed a level 2 course: https://www.ntnu.edu/web/now2/info.

There are also two other versions of the first course (LearnNoW, NoWiN). The framework is the same but the content is different so that should be great way to get more practice.

I've bookmarked all the above links. If it's as good as it sounds, I'll definitely give it a go. Thank you very much, guyome! I'm going to put Hugo Norwegian in Three Months aside since it's currently my least favourite course and I'll slot in NoW and see how that goes for a while. I expect Hugo will be useful again at a later date, but for now, it can go jump (in the lake)!

Thanks for the good luck wishes with Norwegian, guyome! I hope your language learning is going well, if you are doing any?

[tractor]

I find the presentation of the vocabularly in Hugo Norwegian in Three Months irritating to say the least. To those who don't know how Norwegian articles work 'en hake' is 'a chin', while 'haken' is 'the chin'. You can add either -en or just -n if the word already contained an -e at the end and you add these to the the end of common gender words to mark the singular definite form. In this case if you just see 'haken' = 'the chin' and it's the first time you've come across the word, therefore you don't know whether 'en hake' or 'en hak' is the indefinite form (you don't know if it ended with or without -e in the singular indefinite form. They don't tell you! Irritating and poorly thought out!

I understand your frustration. That's an incredibly stupid way to teach Norwegian nouns.

[PeterMollenburg]

I find the presentation of the vocabularly in Hugo Norwegian in Three Months irritating to say the least. To those who don't know how Norwegian articles work 'en hake' is 'a chin', while 'haken' is 'the chin'. You can add either -en or just -n if the word already contained an -e at the end and you add these to the the end of common gender words to mark the singular definite form. In this case if you just see 'haken' = 'the chin' and it's the first time you've come across the word, therefore you don't know whether 'en hake' or 'en hak' is the indefinite form (you don't know if it ended with or without -e in the singular indefinite form. They don't tell you! Irritating and poorly thought out!

I understand your frustration. That's an incredibly stupid way to teach Norwegian nouns.

As a Norwegian native speaker, can I ask your opinion on intonation and how important it is (or isn't) for learners, please tractor? Okay, I know you don't need to use it, but how much better is it if a foreigner can apply correct use of tone?

[tractor]

There are also two other versions of the first course (LearnNoW, NoWiN). The framework is the same but the content is different so that should be great way to get more practice.

NoWiN is teaching Bokmål with Northern Norwegian pronunciation. It's standard Bokmål, but the pronunciation, especially the prosody, is different from that of Central Eastern Norwegian.

[tractor]

As a Norwegian native speaker, can I ask your opinion on intonation and how important it is (or isn't) for learners, please tractor? Okay, I know you don't need to use it, but how much better is it if a foreigner can apply correct use of tone?

If you want to sound like a native, you'll have to get them right, but apart from that, I don't think they are very important.

In practice, getting them wrong will probably never lead to confusion. There are some minimal pairs, like tanken (en tank) meaning 'the tank' and tanken (en tanke) meaning 'the thought', but context will almost always make it clear what is meant.

[PeterMollenburg]

There are also two other versions of the first course (LearnNoW, NoWiN). The framework is the same but the content is different so that should be great way to get more practice.

NoWiN is teaching Bokmål with Northern Norwegian pronunciation. It's standard Bokmål, but the pronunciation, especially the prosody, is different from that of Central Eastern Norwegian.

This is useful, thanks

As a Norwegian native speaker, can I ask your opinion on intonation and how important it is (or isn't) for learners, please tractor? Okay, I know you don't need to use it, but how much better is it if a foreigner can apply correct use of tone?

If you want to sound like a native, you'll have to get them right, but apart from that, I don't think they are very important.

In practice, getting them wrong will probably never lead to confusion. There are some minimal pairs, like tanken (en tank) meaning 'the tank' and tanken (en tanke) meaning 'the thought', but context will almost always make it clear what is meant.

Okay, thanks tractor. Yeah, this is what I suspected. Thank you for your prompt reply.

[guyome]

Thanks for the good luck wishes with Norwegian, guyome! I hope your language learning is going well, if you are doing any?

You're welcome! Yes, my Ladino studies are going well, thanks

NoWiN is teaching Bokmål with Northern Norwegian pronunciation. It's standard Bokmål, but the pronunciation, especially the prosody, is different from that of Central Eastern Norwegian.

Thanks, tractor! I thought NoWiN might be geared towards the Narvik variety but I wasn't sure.