Bønder og Bønner - 6 Norwegian courses in 4 languages

[Carl]

@Deinonysus:
Sofies verden--that's a great choice! Sort of the Harry Potter of Norway. A young adult book that's interesting enough to be a bestseller; it's translated into a bunch of languages; and there's a Norwegian-language film version for watching and making subs2srs-style Anki cards out of.

I haven't tried for a while, but I've had difficulties finding ways to buy physical books in Norwegian or Swedish for shipping to the U.S. I've given up and just go with ebooks these days. Here's Sofies verden from one place I've used:
https://www.adlibris.com/no/sok?q=sofies%20verden&pn=1

[Lianne]

That's too bad the "Let it go" translation's no good. Maybe they were trying too hard to make it sound like the English line. I'll probably change the log's title to something that isn't a crime against the language. That is, unless I suddenly switch to French tomorrow so I can start looking for jobs in French Canada for unspecified reasons.

I remember reading something about the difficulties of translating the songs for animated movies. They have to make it so the lyrics 1) make sense and give the meaning they're supposed to, 2) sound good in terms of rhythm, 3) aren't too far off from the mouth movements in the animation so that the dubbing doesn't look awful, and sometimes 4) rhyme! In addition, for this song, apparently it was a challenge even finding sopranos who could handle the song in each language.

I may have watched the multilingual version of Let It Go a few hundred times. I prefer the one where you see the singers rather than the animation. I also know all the words in English and French!

[Mista]

I remember reading something about the difficulties of translating the songs for animated movies.

Also, it is worth remembering that the target group for these translations are monolingual children, who may not be as sensitive to NorwEnglish expressions as those who know both languages (and can choose the original). Its usage in a song for Norwegian kids is one discussion, however, and its use as a motto for a language log another.

In this particular case, the main problem is that "gå" doesn't have the same usage as "go", "gå" can usually be translated with "walk", while the closest Norwegian equivalent of "go" is "dra". In other words, "gå" and "go" are false friends, and overusing "gå" is very common among Norwegian learners. Listening to that song a hundred times is of course unlikely to make that mistake easier to avoid.

"Let go" will usually be translated with the verb "slippe", either "slippe løs", "slippe fri", or "gi slipp på".

[DaveAgain]

I may have watched the multilingual version of Let It Go a few hundred times. I prefer the one where you see the singers rather than the animation. I also know all the words in English and French!

https://youtu.be/BS0T8Cd4UhA

That is fun, thanks for mentioning it.

EDIT
The French singer has a YouTube channel. The German singer is Dutch!

[Deinonysus]

Phonology

I'm noticing a few instances where the IPA transcriptions seen a bit off.

• A: This is transcribed as /ɑ/ but it sounds rounded to me, more like the vowel in "dog" than "father". So I think /ɒ/ would be a better symbol to use.
• Æ: This is transcribed as /æ/ but it is more open than the English /æ/ (at least in American English). It sounds to me more like /a/, which doesn't exist in standard American English but you would hear in "pahk ya cah in Hahvad Yahd".
• Short i: This is transcribed as /ɪ/ which would be the same sound as in the English or German word "in". But doesn't sound nearly as centralized as the English is German short i so maybe /i/ would be better, but then again it is still a bit more centralized than the long version so I'm not sure.
• Y: The rounding is very slight; the difference between /y/ and /i/ seems much more subtle than in German or French. I thought I would have trouble distinguishing between u and y, but that hasn't been the case. As with i, the long and short versions sound very similar to me.
• Retroflex consonants: I am often hearing a strong retroflex approximant (the American r sound in some regional accents) before a retroflex consonant, so for instance I hear "Hvordan har du det?" as [ˌvɔɻ.ɖɒn.ˈhɒɻ.ɖʉ.dɛ]

These could could all depend heavily on dialect. This is all based on what I've heard in my learning materials which are probably all Oslo dialect.

Pronouns

Norwegian third person pronouns are really interesting; even though Norwegian has grammatical gender the pronouns have a person/nonperson distinction like in English. The only difference from English is that there are two non-person pronouns, one for neuter nouns and another for non-neuter nouns.

• he: han
• she: hun
• it: det (neuter) or den (non-neuter)

I've heard the distinction described as animate or inanimate, but I don't think that's accurate. Animals are animate but they would usually get the non-person pronoun unless it's a known animal and you decide to promote it to person pronouns.

"Where is the dog?"
"It's over there."

"Where is my poodle Fifi?"
"She's over there."

This is different from French or German where the pronoun matches the grammatical gender whether or not the noun represents a person. I think that the one exception to this would be that in German there are several words for people that are neuter gender, so I believe if you know the gender of the person you would use a masculine or feminine pronoun rather than matching the gender of the noun (someone please correct me if I have that wrong!)

"Wo ist das Kind?"
"Es ist da".

"Wo ist mein Kind?"
"Helga? Sie ist da."

"Wo ist das Mädchen?"
"Sie ist da."

Interference

Danish was the most recent Scandinavian language I'd worked on, and that is creating a bit of confusion.

In Danish "god dag" sounds very close to its English translation "good day", and I keep forgetting that in Norwegian it sounds more like "good dog".

I also keep wanting to pronounce "tilbake" like the Danish "tilbage". For whatever reason that Danish pronunciation really stuck with me.

I am also getting used to "meget" being pronounced like it's spelled. When I was doing Pimsleur Danish I didn't see it written so I thought it was spelled "made".

I'm also getting some interference from Hebrew and Arabic, since the Norwegian pronoun "hun" (meaning she) sounds similar to the Hebrew and Arabic pronouns that mean "he". I'm trying to use the mnemonic that "hun" sounds like "Huhn", the German word for "hen".

Progress

I was too tired to go though my Norwegian books last night, but I have been making good progress with the Anki decks that I'm building for their vocabulary.

I've also been making steady progress with Duolingo and Pimsleur.

[Ogrim]

[
These could could all depend heavily on dialect. This is all based on what I've heard in my learning materials which are probably all Oslo dialect.

It certainly does depend on dialect, not just the phonetics but the words as well. Just to take the word hvordan. This is used in Oslo and the area around (what you could call Østnorsk - Eastern Norwegian)m and possibly in some urban dialects elsewhere in the country. In standard Nynorsk, it is korleis - in my parents' dialect it is "kossen (pronounced approximately as kʊsən. There are supposed to be 10 or so ways to say "I" in Norwegian.

You won't find much written Norwegian in dialect though, although there are some writers who like to use dialectal expressions in their writing. The huge majority of books, newspapers and magazines are written in Standard Bokmål, and a minority in Nynorsk. Dialect however is widely used everywhere and all the time, from the Prime Minister to the news readers to the sports commentators on TV.

[Carl]

Deinonysus wrote:
I am also getting used to "meget" being pronounced like it's spelled. When I was doing Pimsleur Danish I didn't see it written so I thought it was spelled "made".

This is something I'm trying to figure out in Danish. I often hear the Danish "meget" pronounced like "mæl" or something. But sometimes like "meget." I suspect it depends on the speaker's dialect.

Deinonysus wrote:
in German there are several words for people that are neuter gender, so I believe if you know the gender of the person you would use a masculine or feminine pronoun rather than matching the gender of the noun (someone please correct me if I have that wrong!)

The noted 19th century U.S. scholar of German, Prof. Dr. Samuel Clemens, appears to have had a different take on the German of his time (https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html):

In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:

"Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?

"Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.

"Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?

Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera."

[PeterMollenburg]

The noted 19th century U.S. scholar of German, Prof. Dr. Samuel Clemens, appears to have had a different take on the German of his time (https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/twain.german.html):

In German, a young lady has no sex, while a turnip has. Think what overwrought reverence that shows for the turnip, and what callous disrespect for the girl. See how it looks in print--I translate this from a conversation in one of the best of the German Sunday-school books:

"Gretchen. Wilhelm, where is the turnip?

"Wilhelm. She has gone to the kitchen.

"Gretchen. Where is the accomplished and beautiful English maiden?

Wilhelm. It has gone to the opera."

This might be obvious, but for whatever irrelevant reason than to please my ego, it seems I am compelled to clarify...

I would hypothesize that the esteemed professor's comments were likely made in jest, otherwise his good German analysis is clouded by English language interference.

In other words, had he never learned another language and German was his only language (ie. his mother tongue), then there would be nothing to compare against. This would simply be a grammatical construct. However, with English to compare against, German suddenly appears disrespectful, even outrageous. I doubt this is the case at all, but simple grammatical concepts lost and clouded with murky waters in translation. I can only hope his comments were not serious. I highly doubt the Germans meant such expressions to be tainted or even flooded with disdain and disregard.

[Ogrim]

Just a word about "meget" in Norwegian. As far as I can tell you won't hear it much in modern colloquial Norwegian. As an adverb meaning "very", most Norwegians would use svært or veldig, so "very good" would be svært bra or veldig bra. I don't think many would say meget bra nowadays. It sounds kind of conservative even to my old ears.

[Carl]

PeterMollenburg wrote:

However, with English to compare against, German suddenly appears disrespectful, even outrageous.

Bingo! In fact, the title of Mark Twain's essay is "The Awful German Language."

He further expounds,

To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female--tomcats included, of course; a person's mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and NOT according to the sex of the individual who wears it--for in Germany all the women either male heads or sexless ones; a person's nose, lips, shoulders, breast, hands, and toes are of the female sex; and his hair, ears, eyes, chin, legs, knees, heart, and conscience haven't any sex at all. The inventor of the language probably got what he knew about a conscience from hearsay.

Now, by the above dissection, the reader will see that in Germany a man may THINK he is a man, but when he comes to look into the matter closely, he is bound to have his doubts; he finds that in sober truth he is a most ridiculous mixture; and if he ends by trying to comfort himself with the thought that he can at least depend on a third of this mess as being manly and masculine, the humiliating second thought will quickly remind him that in this respect he is no better off than any woman or cow in the land.

The whole thing is worth a read; it even comes with helpful suggestions for reforming the German language so it makes more sense to native speakers of English.