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

[PeterMollenburg]

Some questions if you get a chance to answer them, Expug. Thanks for dropping by, too.

1. Why do you say it is the most challenging textbook?

(I landed upon this textbook for a couple of reasons, the main one being I liked the rather detailed explanations of Norwegian pronunciation).

2. I also own Hugo's Norwegian in Three Months. A quick overview/review/impression on your account might be nice, as I could consider using the course at the same time as Learn Norwegian or jumping over to Hugo for while then coming back to Learn Norwegian. As per usual, I have read the amazon reviews and leafed through the course itself. Did you find Hugo better to start with?

I also own the Assimil course. However, as it does not focus solely on the Oslo dialect, but rather a collection of various dialects (or really pronunciation variants), I thought it was a bad choice to begin with but a great course later on perhaps.

Sorry for the delay, Peter. I didn't want to reply in a rush.

No problem at all, Expug. I sincerely appreciate your considerate reply, thank you.

1. It's the most challenging because it is the most comprehensive one. It shows detailed IPA, it has long dialogues. If you're coming to Norwegian with no passive vocabulary background, you'll find too many words per new lesson. That is demotivating for me. it doesn't explain grammar that clearly, some issues are simplified while others are overlooked. It's the type of book I prefer to reserve for when things are getting serious. I can get an overview of the A1 (and A2) level(s) from books I wouldn't fear "wasting", books I know I'll go through which will just give me the minimal information for that level. That allows me to get to the most serious textbooks and take the most out of them, instead of expecting them to tell me about everything under that CEFR level.

2. Hugo is way better than the average TY/Colloquial in my opinion. It just looks more serious and it empowers the learner. It gives you translation, pronunciation, relevant exercises. It won't expect you to learn early vocabulary through dumb exercises that imitate crosswords. The dialogues are more relevant and realistic too. It's much lighter in information than Klouman's, another reason it works as a great intro.

Interesting and useful insights and experiences there to relate, Expug. Cheers. A few days back I got out my Hugo (I've always liked the practical natural of the Hugo in three months courses), and decided to balance things out and work with both courses. I'm not going to pressure myself to advance equally in both in terms of time or lessons or anything of that nature - I'm just going to use both for now and see how I feel. If I find Learn Norwegian is becoming too vague, the dialogues are too long and the vocabulary is overwhelming I'll just avoid it until I feel ready to come back to it. I'm getting smarter with resource choices, I feel, and certainly to begin with, for me, it's been great. I love the lengthy and detailed IPA, I must admit. That's exactly what I needed to start off and still want, but the other drawbacks you mentioned could annoy me in due course.

Having only just started the Hugo Norwegian in Three Months course, I can't say that much. I've not gone that far into Learn Norwegian either actually, in an attempt to get my head around the phonetics and my pronunciation solidly - I don't like to advance while making a mess of pronunciation, that's just not me. I'm nearing the end of lesson one and have gone over things multiple times. Anyway, with the Hugo Norwegian in Three Months course, currently it appears to complement the Learn Norwegian course well. It's explaining simple grammar I wasn't aware of already only a couple of pages in. And, to my surprise, despite my preference for IPA and wishing it was present in the Hugo course, the imitated pronunciation still does a fairly good job. I've never been a fan of such imitated pronunciation before, but if I need to, it is useful in the Norwegian Hugo course.

Assimil Norwegian is one of the Assimils I dislike the most. The various accents don't bother me, it's their vocabulary choice. It goes way too much into the humor/obscure vocabulary for my practical taste. If I take a random lesson from the second half of the book now it will probably still look harder with a higher new-word density than a page from a novel by Tom Egeland.

That's disappointing to hear read. Especially since, after using Asismil's New French with Ease then Using French, I found myself appreciating the format so much so that they became my favourite French courses. I'm itching to get into the Dutch Assimil courses at some point, but to hear your comments on the Norwegian offering is disappointing. Although the accents don't bother you, as far as I'm concerned I totally get the concept as Norwegian learners must become comfortable with such strong dialect diversity, but as many a wise experienced language learner on LL.org has mentioned to many a newbee, focusing on the standard OR the most common dialect/pronunciation is recommended to begin with and breaking out to other variants of the language as one becomes more accomplished is advisable. The concept, I think, would've been better in a follow up, but with Norwegian being a smaller language, it seems a follow up is not, will not and has not been on the cards with Assimil (disclaimer: I'm assuming Assimil's stance there - I've not communicated with the company).

[PeterMollenburg]

The Norwegian "y" is in fact so special that they can't classify it properly with the standard set of parameters normally used in phonology. The main difference between "u" and "y" is in the type of rounding. "u" has normal rounding of the lips, but to pronounce a "y", you have to round your lips outwards.

Thanks for stopping by, Mista. An opinion from a native speaker is most welcome. It's funny you should say that about /y/. In an attempt to get a grips on the very new and strange pronunciation that is Norwegian at the outset of my new language learning journey, I consulted several resources, and in reading the French-based Assimil Le Norvegien notes on pronunciation, I discovered that from their (Assimil? the French?) perspective, that the /y/ tends to merge somewhat into an /i/ sound towards the end of it.

I hadn't audibly noticed this tendency (to merge into /i/) until I started using the Hugo Norwegian in Three Months course recently, where a couple of the words I was listening to took my be surprise, where i could quite clearly hear that /y/ was not /y/ but indeed /y/ that tended towards what seems like a combination of /y/ and /i/ as the phoneme nears its end.

Your comments, Mista, on the phoneme, thus, indicate that what I was hearing and what the Assimil course explained seemed to be indeed the case (and what I didn't really notice much initially when starting out). Furthermore, your notes on mouth position are perfect. Perfect in that, that is exactly what I was discovering - the rounding of the lips outwards, as you describe.

You're more than welcome to stop by, Mista for any further clarifications.

One thing that makes this a bit easier than some other weird language sounds, however, is that the difference is clearly visible when you watch someone saying the sounds, so if you have access to a native speaker, I recommend that you ask that person to pronounce those two sounds while watching closely, and then try to imitate. If you don't, maybe you can find something useful on a video.

I do have some rare access to a native speaker, but I think he originates from Bergen, so whether he is a reliable resource on the Oslo dialect, I'm not sure (how much his Bergen accent is ingrained in him I am unsure, and whether he originally was born in Oslo, I'm also not sure). Moreover, whether the fact that he might speak like someone from Bergen is even an issue for helping a learn of Norwegian (Oslo dialect), I don't know. Still, I only see him probably once every 18 months.

The French "u" has the same lip rounding as the Norwegian one, but is, as you have already pointed out, more fronted. The "y" and "i" in Norwegian has approximately the same fronting (but with a difference between long and short vowels). The lip rounding found in the Norwegian (and Swedish) "y" is, as far as I know, a very special Scandinavian specialty, not even found in Danish or Icelandic (any more).

Thank you again, Mista
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As for /ʉ/, I seem to be getting a bettle handle on it, as I anticipated.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I do have some rare access to a native speaker, but I think he originates from Bergen, so whether he is a reliable resource on the Oslo dialect, I'm not sure (how much his Bergen accent is ingrained in him I am unsure, and whether he originally was born in Oslo, I'm also not sure). Moreover, whether the fact that he might speak like someone from Bergen is even an issue for helping a learn of Norwegian (Oslo dialect), I don't know. Still, I only see him probably once every 18 months.

In a Bergen-like accent, you'd hear a throat-R (like in French, German or Danish), and a different pitch accent (compared to Oslo).

[PeterMollenburg]

I do have some rare access to a native speaker, but I think he originates from Bergen, so whether he is a reliable resource on the Oslo dialect, I'm not sure (how much his Bergen accent is ingrained in him I am unsure, and whether he originally was born in Oslo, I'm also not sure). Moreover, whether the fact that he might speak like someone from Bergen is even an issue for helping a learn of Norwegian (Oslo dialect), I don't know. Still, I only see him probably once every 18 months.

In a Bergen-like accent, you'd hear a throat-R (like in French, German or Danish), and a different pitch accent (compared to Oslo).

Thanks Jeff. I'm just not sure how much Bergen features in his accent. I will have to ask him. I'm not sure if he went to school there, grew up as a child there and only moved away as an adult after high school, or only spent a few years there. I think I'm repeating myself...

[Cavesa]

I like your choice of Dutch. From what I've heard and read, it is a good country for nurses, with reasonable workload, good conditions for doing your job well, worthwhile salary. Another option could be German, as Germany takes nurses without causing problems too, it is just a matter of personal preference, I'd say. German just has a bit more resources for medical and nursing language learning. But I guess we'll soon notice your log turning into the best overview of all the Dutch courses on the market And your progress will be no less wonderful than the French one.

[PeterMollenburg]

I like your choice of Dutch. From what I've heard and read, it is a good country for nurses, with reasonable workload, good conditions for doing your job well, worthwhile salary. Another option could be German, as Germany takes nurses without causing problems too, it is just a matter of personal preference, I'd say. German just has a bit more resources for medical and nursing language learning. But I guess we'll soon notice your log turning into the best overview of all the Dutch courses on the market And your progress will be no less wonderful than the French one.

Thanks for stopping by, Cavesa. My wife and I unsuccessfully tried to get into nursing while we were in the Netherlands back in 2011. Despite my wife being offered a job in Rotterdam, a lack of preparation was the main downfall. In particular, our language level was not deemed high enough (nor had we prepared all the necessary documentation and had our qualifications assessed).

This time around it's more about Belgium than the Netherlands. As you know, French has been my main obsession for a good while, but taking a direct route to France is not an option having trained outside the EU (and I'm not keen on the idea of working in France as a nurse currently due to poor pay/conditions). In terms of other francophone countries within Europe, Swtzerland appears to be a very difficult path for me to take, while Luxembourg I just cannot find sufficient information. On the contrary, for Belgium, there's work and there's recruitment companies and as I was itching to get back to learning more Dutch. So, since the recruitment companies have indicated there is more work for nurses in Flanders than in Wallonia and it pays better, then it makes sense to revive my Dutch for more reasons than one and to aim for Belgium for more reasons (languages) than one.

Whether we make our way to the Netherlands at some point for work (I do like the idea), remains to be seen. If my wife ever has a chance of obtaining a Dutch passport like myself (we will have to remain overseas for several years continuously), then we will more than likely have to move to NL at some stage, but that's getting a bit too far ahead of myself/ourselves.

In terms of Dutch courses, I've nowhere near as many Dutch courses as I do for French. However, I still have quite a few, and as you indicated, I'm very keen to plough my way through a good number of them. I'm currently nearing the latter stages of Hugo Dutch in 3 Months, a course I've completed before and I quite like - it serves me well in reviving knowledge that was fading away indefinitely.

I hope your language learning is coming along well, Cavesa! (as well as your career!)

I like your choice of Dutch........
..... And your progress will be no less wonderful than the French one.

Thank you for your kind words, Cavesa

Another option could be German, as Germany takes nurses without causing problems too, it is just a matter of personal preference, I'd say. German just has a bit more resources for medical and nursing language learning.

In fact, Germany has not been a focus of mine for a many many years now. German was the first language I attempted to learn (at school, actually) and the first country I became interested in living in some day (I was barely a teenager at the time when I fell in love with German(y)). These days, were I to study German, it would be to increase my chances of gaining work in Luxembourg or Switzerland (or maybe even boost my employability for Belgium), not for Germany itself. However, I don't think I should fit German in to my schedule right now. It's a grammatically tricky language for me, thus requiring some good chunks of learning time and focus and one that could really mess with my Norwegian and in particular, Dutch learning.

edited for more clarity (some rephrasing, addition of short explanations on Switzerland, Luxembourg, Germany and German and thanking of Cavesa).

[PeterMollenburg]

Disclaimer: Duplicated message from another thread

I've been meaning to detail how I use my time throughout the day to get more language exposure and learning in. Below is the initial message in The Time management thread started by Ccaesar (thank you), which lit a spark and so I put my thoughts into words. I feel my reply also belongs here in my language log.

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Dear everyone I did use the search function first and found threads related to illness, depression and language learning and various topics considering using one language as a ladder to a third language.
However, I think we could all profit from having a thread that is SOLELY dedicated to how you go about managing your time with examples. Do you reward yourself?

I suggest the following:
When you're in a habit: How do you plan? How do you execute and adjust?
When you're out of the habit due to illness/vacations etc: How do you keep up the routine or rather how do you get back to it?

Try to add a reply with: Basing your reply on a "When, how and if" mindset.

My Time Management in Language Learning


I do plan. I plan to study at my desk every morning, early. It's the best time for me to apply myself to courses.

However I rarely get through the target of 3 hours of 'desk study' which is usually composed of working through courses, or intensive reading nowadays.

I also aim to read a little to my kids each day rotating between French and Dutch, but it doesn't happen every day, more like every second. Sometimes it might only be ten minutes, other times two hours, but the average might be 45 minutes. While I'm doing this my wife goes and studies some French (this year she's trying to make the effort to active her French passive knowledge and push her French skills beyond what she picks up with me speaking to the kids).

If I don't get through my desk (course) study time because i have to work early or there are other interruptions, I have contingency plans to squeeze languages in throughout my day.

Examples I can think of that I regularly use (this is how I manage to clock up a good amount of learning each month despite my busy routine):

Exercise:
*Riding my bike - headphones on, language audio.
*Kayaking (flat water), waterproof headphones.
*A random walk (eg dropping car off for service & walking home) - headphones on, language audio.

With the kids:
*Kids learning - French acitivity books for children learning to read, write and use numbers (and now Dutch, but not yet used)
*In the car with the kids without my wife - Sometimes disney audio books, maybe a podcast for kids, not always (I'll follow along too)
*Driving longer distances with all the family - some audio books, but often with audio faded to back of car so I can actually talk to my wife or perhaps I'll listen in too (the kids sometimes will watch movies on ipad in car also).
*Reading stories regularly - either in morning if i'm working the afternoon or evening before bed (books bought from websites online eg. fnac.com bol.com, borrowed from the Alliance Francaise or magazines on subscription arriving in the mail)
*Once reading over and time for kids to sleep (lights out), i'll sometimes read on my phone on low light or listen to something while kids are in 'go to sleep (and be quiet) mode', but generally read or look at vocab lists as preference.
*Speaking with the kids (target languages only - mostly French, now Dutch being introduced)
*Watching some TV at home (target languages only), I'll join in whenever available time allows.
*French (sometimes Dutch or Norwegian) music

You see having kids can be beneficial to your language learning journey despite one having less time to oneself!

Housework:
*Hanging washing out on my own - language audio of some kind (podcast, audio based course)
*Cooking on my own - language audio of some kind (podcast, audio based course)
*Cooking with the kids present - a podcast for the kids if they are paying attention, audio for me if they're not engaging with me or the audio.
*Putting dishes away, other such kitchen tasks - language audio of some kind (podcast, audio based course)
*Folding washing on my own - language audio of some kind (podcast, audio based course)
*Folding washing with kids around - while a TV show in French or Dutch (maybe even Norwegian) is on for the kids

Work related:
*Driving to and from work - language audio of some kind (podcast, audio based course, less frequently - music)
*At work waiting to pass security (no mobile phones allowed) - paperback magazines in my bag
*At work in stolen moments - on PC access files online on Dropbox or other downloaded content to review a course, read in my target language(s), read a website, or get the novel out or a French learning mag of which I have a couple in my bag

Evening laziness or 'course/routine rejection mode (when I've worked a morning shift and can't drag myself to study at my desk).
*TV time rules - better to do this than not study at all - usually watch my own thing, but sometimes sync same show as my wife is watching the TV and i use my mobile (while I watch the TV with her) but have the audio on my mobile set to French
*read a book

On Holiday
*a good paperback (I'll take one or two with me, or find a couple like I did once -in French- on a bench at a bus stop not in France!)
*some course work if I feel like it
*reading to the kids (usually take some reading material)
*reading on the plane on phone or paperback
*movies/children's series here and there with the kids
*series in the evenings after kids asleep

Other:
*In the shower - often utilise a bluetooth speaker and listen to audio courses
*Eating breakfast on my own (not that often nowadays) - watch the news in one of my target languages.
*Waiting around (at the doctor's, some other appointment) - access language programs, something for intensive reading or extensive reading (websites, digital books)
*multilingual instruction manuals, multilingual product labels etc
*searching information online - mostly in French (estimate 75% French, 25% English).
*random Dutch or French people in life (eg phone calls to bol.com recently, I even used my less than perfect Dutch to resolve a book order issue recently, the rare French speaking patient or even rarer French speaking nurse or doctor- speaking opportunities).
*Websites that have other language options, my phone's operating system, my computer's operating system, computer programs with other languages - switch them all
*Google maps, itunes accounts, VPNs - all these can be utilised so your'e swimming in your target language(s), as I do.
*Social media - not for me. I find it too distracting, too interfering in what I'm focusing on and I don't like to engage it in from a political standpoint.

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Languages have become such routine in my life, that were I to cut down I could never eliminate them, I don't think without serious disruption to my mental well-being and my children's routine, there's too much dependent upon it now - reading to the kids, watching TV series, it's just too hard to avoid now even if I got lazy with/ran out of time to do my courses.

[PeterMollenburg]

February 2020 summary

Hours/minutes of language learning:
Dutch 39hrs, 5min
French 40hrs, 23min
Norwegian 30hrs, 25min

Total 110 hours, 3 minutes

Last month was the first time I'd surpassed 100 hours in a number of years and reached my second best month ever. This time, with a couple less days in the month, I've beaten that again and have knocked last month down to third and taken the silver medal again.

I don't necessarily want to outdo myself each month, but hey, I worked consistently hard this month and I might as well be content with the hard work I've done. Next month I'll try to be a little more attentive to my sleep as I could've been a bit more mindful of that this month, so I'd expect my hours to possibly drop a little.

Dutch
I continue with VocabuLearn Level 1, Hugo Dutch in 3 Months (on the last week) and started using both Dutch with Ease and Le nouvel néerlandais sans peine (both Assimil editions are the same, one in English, one in French). I'm enjoying bouncing between Dutch and French in that course and verifying some things with the English version. More Dutch books have arrived for the kids. It's definitely a good way to help me, and I'm getting used to speaking to the kids in both French and Dutch lately, but of course I lack a lot of vocab in Dutch and have to find workarounds, or do frequent look ups at times.

French
Been watching Perdu dans l'espace (Lost in Space) on netflix lately, which is pretty cruisy following along. Been using Bien-dire quite a few study sessions for vocabulary improvement and of course a good amount of reading with the kids. Podcasts on commutes are a given.

Norwegian
Started on Hugo Norwegian in Three Months. Then when I'd cut back the amount of Norwegian course usage through the middle of the month, I ditched it again for a bit and went back to it today. I don't mind the course, but the long vocab lists I've come across here and there are slightly off putting, but I do like the clear grammar explanations thus far. My preference has been to work with Learn Norwegian by Sverre Klouman.

Up to lesson 23 in Pimsleur Level 1. No rush there, just use it when driving, particularly on longer trips.

Also collected some more resources, because I can't resist - Learn Norwegian by Laura Ziukaite-Hansen and the two levels of The Mystery of Nils. Yet to obtain audio for both, but definitely won't use the courses without the audio. Oh and I got the Learn Norwegian course by Sverre Klouman in hard copy (2nd hand with a little bit of writing in it), as anything I'm using frequently, I prefer to turn real pages than stare at a screen.

I don't like just having only free access to online audio that some courses offer. I prefer to pay and download for safe-keeping. Who knows when I might drop Norwegian, pick it up years later and suddenly have no more online audio to use because the website no longer exists... Or maybe I've gone to live in a hut in the middle of nowhere and no longer have internet access. A little extra spending for a bit of peace of mind.

[Neurotip]

The Norwegian "y" is in fact so special that they can't classify it properly with the standard set of parameters normally used in phonology. The main difference between "u" and "y" is in the type of rounding. "u" has normal rounding of the lips, but to pronounce a "y", you have to round your lips outwards.

Thanks for stopping by, Mista. An opinion from a native speaker is most welcome. It's funny you should say that about /y/. In an attempt to get a grips on the very new and strange pronunciation that is Norwegian at the outset of my new language learning journey, I consulted several resources, and in reading the French-based Assimil Le Norvegien notes on pronunciation, I discovered that from their (Assimil? the French?) perspective, that the /y/ tends to merge somewhat into an /i/ sound towards the end of it.

Peter, it may seem superfluous for me to butt in on this, as not only a non-native speaker of Norwegian but in fact a non-speaker, so please feel free to put my thoughts to the back of the queue. However, I did learn some Swedish many years ago, and AFAICT the distinction between the sounds spelt 'u' and 'y' in Swedish is very similar to that in Norwegian.

In Swedish, though, there is another feature which really helped me: both vowels are often a little bit fricative, especially towards the end of the sound and when pronounced long. The point is (if I'm correct) that the frication is done by the lips for 'u' but by the front of the tongue (against the hard palate) for 'y'. I therefore took the following approach: start from a generic high front rounded vowel (French 'tu' will do fine), then for 'u' really tense your lip-rounding and let your tongue relax a bit, while for 'y' really tense your tongue towards the palate and let your lips relax a bit.

I'd be interested in others' views on this.

[tungemål]

The Norwegian "y" is in fact so special that they can't classify it properly with the standard set of parameters normally used in phonology. The main difference between "u" and "y" is in the type of rounding. "u" has normal rounding of the lips, but to pronounce a "y", you have to round your lips outwards.

Thanks for stopping by, Mista. An opinion from a native speaker is most welcome. It's funny you should say that about /y/. In an attempt to get a grips on the very new and strange pronunciation that is Norwegian at the outset of my new language learning journey, I consulted several resources, and in reading the French-based Assimil Le Norvegien notes on pronunciation, I discovered that from their (Assimil? the French?) perspective, that the /y/ tends to merge somewhat into an /i/ sound towards the end of it.

Peter, it may seem superfluous for me to butt in on this, as not only a non-native speaker of Norwegian but in fact a non-speaker, so please feel free to put my thoughts to the back of the queue. However, I did learn some Swedish many years ago, and AFAICT the distinction between the sounds spelt 'u' and 'y' in Swedish is very similar to that in Norwegian.

In Swedish, though, there is another feature which really helped me: both vowels are often a little bit fricative, especially towards the end of the sound and when pronounced long. The point is (if I'm correct) that the frication is done by the lips for 'u' but by the front of the tongue (against the hard palate) for 'y'. I therefore took the following approach: start from a generic high front rounded vowel (French 'tu' will do fine), then for 'u' really tense your lip-rounding and let your tongue relax a bit, while for 'y' really tense your tongue towards the palate and let your lips relax a bit.

I'd be interested in others' views on this.

I would suggest reading Mista's excellent post again. I didn't know about this, but the explanation for u and y is absolutely correct. Mista is not only a native speaker but more importantly someone who obviously studied linguistics/phonology. Maybe the tongue position is a bit different. However, the wovels are not fricative and also don't change toward the end. In that regard the Assimil explanation seems to be wrong, maybe meant as an aid for French speakers to approximate the y sound.