Xenops wrote:But PM, you must understand: I want a French in Action course, but for Norwegian.
Or at least a Genki equivalent, with its tons of exercises and (good) audio content.
No idea what Genki is, but an FIA style Norwegian course would be nice. Still, have you looked at the
Norsk, nordmenn og Norge:
https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/1847.htm which can be purchased from University of Wisconsin Press? It arrived for me a few weeks back (parts 1 and 2). The books (2 for each level) are quite hefty and chock full of Norwegian. The audio companion I believe doesn't exist for the second level, but for the first level it totals 9.5 hours of audio, which is a good deal compared to other courses (examples: Assimil = 4 hrs, Hippocrene Beginner's Norwegian = 1hr 51 min, Learn Norwegian by Sverre Klouman = 4 hrs 4 min, Pimsleur level 1 = almost 15 hrs!). Only Pimsleur is more on that short list, but the style of Pimsleur is a slow pace and it's audio only. Anyway, this review from an Amazon reviewer is worth a read:
I recommend the textbook NORSK, NORDMENN OG NORGE 1 by Kathleen Stokker and Odd Haddal as well as the accompanying workbook by Louis Janus (both published in 1981, second edition). The two books are available on Amazon. As I will explain below, unfortunately this textbook was NOT made with beginners in mind who would like to start studying Norwegian on their own. For this reason, those who want to have just one textbook for absolute beginners, should look elsewhere. Although these two books have so much to offer, they are not “Teach Yourself” type of books. Most people will probably find them too frustrating and too inaccessible in their first steps into Norwegian. However, I highly recommend this textbook and its workbook as a WONDERFUL SUPPLEMENT AND COMPANION to another, more accessible, introductory course of Norwegian.
Be sure to get the second edition of the workbook because it provides answers to the written exercises and transcripts to the oral exercises. [The oral exercises are recorded and available in MP3 audio from University of Wisconsin Press.]
Do not be misled by the fact that these books are almost 40 years old. While visually the two books may not seem very attractive for modern standards (there are no color photos and other visually attractive fireworks common in modern textbooks for languages), they are unique in that they offer A LOT OF PRACTICE AND EXERCISES, with solutions. To the best of my knowledge, you will not find anything like this published in US. Moreover, a tremendous value of these books lies in the availability of many hours of audio recordings made for the textbook and the workbook.
While the books may seem rather expensive to some people, consider that the textbook is a nice hardback edition with 635 pages. The workbook is a large paperback with 325 pages. And THE BEST THING: you can buy the accompanying audio recordings in MP3 from University of Wisconsin Press for just ten bucks! [Look for: AUDIO COMPANION TO NORSK, NORDMENN OG NORGE 1]. The audio recordings are of good quality (but not excellent) and you get almost 9 hours of audio: 456 minutes of recorded exercises and dialogues and 83 minutes of pronunciation drills. The tracks of the recordings are rather long. On the same track you have audio for both the textbook and the workbook for the same lesson. You will need the two books to fully profit from the audio.
The textbook and the workbook are not very user-friendly for modern standards. However, they have so much to offer to someone who has enough patience to dig into their rich contents. In the textbook, there are dialogues, texts, drills, exercises and almost nothing is rendered into English, that is, every lesson is almost completely in Norwegian. There are only very few short explanations in English in the footnotes every now and then. In the table of contents, at the beginning of the book, the authors indicate what kind of grammatical topics are covers in a specific lesson. Unfortunately, the same info is not repeated at the beginning of each lesson. There is Grammar Summary (40 pages) in English at the end of the book followed by Glossary (80 pages). Regrettably, the authors do not make references to that grammar summary in the lessons. Therefore, the student has to figure it out on his/her own where to find a relevant grammatical information for each lesson. The Grammar Summary has a lot of illustrations in Norwegian and these are all accompanied by their English translations. There are lists of words to learn for each lesson, but there are no English equivalents. You must find the meanings on your own using the Glossary at the end of the book. It must be stressed that the Glossary is excellent. Nouns, adjectives and verbs are given all the important forms that a student of Norwegian must know and this is very convenient. I even use this glossary when I look for meanings of words and phrases for other books.
The fact remains that this classroom-oriented organization of the material in the textbook may seem very discouraging at first. Many reviewers were very unhappy about it. And I perfectly understand their frustration. However, it must stressed that this book was conceived as a CLASSROOM TEXTBOOK WITH A TEACHER four decades ago. Ideally, the authors should have mentioned it in the title of the textbook, something like: ''NORSK, NORDMENN OG NORGE 1. Norwegian for Beginners with a Teacher''. It is a pity there is no preview of the textbook on Amazon. It would be helpful for people to have a glimpse into the nature of this textbook before deciding if they want to buy it or not.
SUMMING UP: NORSK, NORDMENN OG NORGE 1 is not a textbook designed for people who would like to study Norwegian on their own, outside the classroom without a teacher. However, this textbook and its workbook, especially with their audio recordings and numerous drills, can be a great supplement and companion to a more accessible introductory textbook like MYSTERY OF NILS, also available on Amazon. NORSK, NORDMENN OG NORGE 1 is not the best choice for absolute beginners who would like to study Norwegian on their own. However, MYSTERY OF NILS - a much more attractive and accessible textbook - does not offer as many audio recordings, exercises, practice and pronunciation drills as does NORSK, NORDMENN OG NORGE 1. In my experience, MYSTERY OF NILS and NORSK, NORDMENN OG NORGE 1 can complement each other very well.
To those who can read German I recommend NORWEGISCH MIT SYSTEM (2016), an excellent textbook with 4CDs included in the whole set, with great audio recordings for texts, vocabulary and some practice. The dialogues in the first 10 lessons are recorded twice, with fast and slow speech, which is great for beginners. Moreover, the glossary at the end of NORWEGISCH MIT SYSTEM is fantastic because it has phonetic transcription for all the words and phrases, which I found extremely helpful. Keep in mind that the relation between the Norwegian script and speech is highly complex, with many exceptions and and many words with silent consonants (= consonants that are written but not pronounced). Without the phonetic transcription I often had doubt about the correct pronunciation and I made many mistakes. The whole set was 43 euro on Amazon Germany. In my view, it is even better for absolute beginners than MYSTERY OF NILS.
Xenops wrote:I suppose I'm disappointed because of the high praise for the Nils course, and and the publisher calling it a "complete course". Mmm...No. I'm not sure if I'll get the second volume: the "mystery" hasn't enthralled me yet.
It seems to be a very spoon-fed slowish paced course, but it still looks inviting enough. The thing is, I think if you can't find one decent big course or even two, perhaps in the same vein as FIA or Destinos, then the next best thing is a collection of several different courses, since as iguanamon mentioned and you know yourself, The Mystery of Nils alone, isn't enough, so I think if you're able to overlook the course boredom aspect, then most of the courses I have mentioned are worth it if you manage to learn the content of them (vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and so on) as that is ultimately what we're trying to achieve (learning the language) dry course or not. However, I guess I can be somewhat entertained by a mediocre dry course while others find it much harder to stay enthused by such content. Mind you I think my tolerance for some courses has worn thin since my French course missions. I think it'd still definitely be worth going on with Mysteriet om Nils (the second part), as it's another feather in your Norwegian hat, but that's me.
Could you mix this with The Mystery of Nils and Norsk, nordmenn og Norge? Maybe then you'd have something approaching FIA... uhh, sort of?