Bønder og Bønner - 6 Norwegian courses in 4 languages

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
PeterMollenburg
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3229
Joined: Wed Jul 22, 2015 11:54 am
Location: Australia
Languages: English (N), French (B2-certified), Dutch (High A2?), Spanish (~A1), German (long-forgotten 99%), Norwegian (false starts in 2020 & 2021)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18080
x 8029

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Nov 08, 2020 3:21 am

Unfortunately I cannot use the German-based Norwegisch mit system, but I'm very keen to hear what you make of it, Deinonysus! Hopefully I don't get too enticed by your feedback or I might find I'll be doing German for the next 6WC :lol:
2 x

User avatar
Montmorency
Brown Belt
Posts: 1035
Joined: Tue Oct 06, 2015 3:01 pm
Location: Oxfordshire, UK
Languages: English (Native)
Maintaining: German (active skills lapsed somewhat).
Studying: Welsh (advanced beginner/intermediate);
Dabbling/Beginner: Czech

Back-burner: Spanish (intermediate) Norwegian (bit more than beginner) Danish (beginner).

Have studied: Latin, French, Italian, Dutch; OT Hebrew (briefly) NT Greek (briefly).
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1429
x 1184

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby Montmorency » Sun Nov 08, 2020 6:50 pm

Regarding Twain and German genders: Jerome K Jerome made similar points in his "Three Men on the Bummel" (a sequel to "Three Men in a boat", about the same three men (no dog this time), on a cycling holiday in Germany & Bohemia, around the turn of the 19th century). He was quite a Germanophile, and spoke the language (I don't know exactly to what extent), so if he appeared to be slightly mocking the German language and people, it was done so affectionately. Apparently it sold well in translation in Germany.
4 x

User avatar
Deinonysus
Brown Belt
Posts: 1216
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:06 pm
Location: MA, USA
Languages:  
• Native: English
• Advanced: French
• Intermediate: German,
   Spanish, Hebrew
• Beginner: Italian,
   Arabic
x 4620

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby Deinonysus » Mon Nov 09, 2020 6:48 pm

PeterMollenburg wrote:I've just completed Lesson 8 of Assimil - Le norvegién. Although it has the tones marked throughout the conversations (but not in the exercises, which do not introduce new words, so it shouldn't be an issue), the feminine gender is not used :cry: Anyway, I wanted to bring this to your attention. Line 5 in Lesson 8 in Norwegian goes like this:

Du må skynde deg ellers kommer du for sent igjen.

The French translation in the latest book (I have the same one as you) is as follows:

Non, c'est mon frère.

It didn't take me long (probably a few hours ;) ) to realise the translation with just a little bit off. The older version of the book, ironically has the correction translation, which is:

Il faut que tu te dépêches (tu dois te dépêcher), sinon tu arriveras (arrives/viens) encore en retard (trop tard).

So, keep that in mind for when you reach Lesson 8 (in a few years time ;) - hey I've got to knock out the 6WC competition anyway I can, right? 8-) )

That's quite a howler! I've never seen something that serious slip past their quality control before.

The Langenscheidt course is more of a traditional teaching grammar than Assimil. They have a text and a dialog, then they give you all the vocabulary, then some grammar notes, and then some exercises. For a difficult language I think I would like that approach better but for Norwegian I'm preferring Assimil so far.

The biggest thing I'm looking forward to is seeing how Norwegian would be explained in a course designed for German speakers, vs one designed for Francophones, vs one designed for Anglophones. I still haven't finished chapter 1 of Langenscheidt yet so it remains to be seen how useful it will be.
2 x
/daɪ.nə.ˈnaɪ.səs/

User avatar
Deinonysus
Brown Belt
Posts: 1216
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:06 pm
Location: MA, USA
Languages:  
• Native: English
• Advanced: French
• Intermediate: German,
   Spanish, Hebrew
• Beginner: Italian,
   Arabic
x 4620

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby Deinonysus » Mon Nov 09, 2020 7:22 pm

Norsk

My wife's test result came back negative as expected. Now I'm off the hook for watching the kid, doing all the chores, and making all the food, so I should be able to start making more progress again.

I finally finished the introduction to the Assimil course, and I did the first two lessons. I might keep going with two lessons a day for a while. It will still take me less time than doing one Arabic lesson. I love their system of not only showing the tone in words that have it, but also showing which words within a sentence are stressed (and thus have the tone actually pronounced). I feel like it's already improving my ear for hearing Norwegian tones within a sentence.

I have never used Anki before with Assimil because there is some built-in spaced repetition that I supplement with a review schedule, but I'm making an exception because this is my only resource that marks tones in inflected words. I did find an online Norwegian dictionary that shows tones, but it only shows the tone for the infinitive for a verb or the non-definite singular form of a noun, so that doesn't help me the way Assimil does. I have created a one-way deck where I have to guess the tone of every word or phrase that Assimil has marked with a tone in a lesson I've seen.

I've fallen behind in my other Anki decks, but hopefully I'll catch up soon.

I didn't think I was doing much Duolingo but I still managed to finish the pearl league in 4th place, so now I'm in the obsidian league (second highest). I've never made it to diamond before so we'll see how it goes.

עברית

I like my plan for learning Arabic, then Biblical Hebrew, and then finally Modern Hebrew, and I think that would be the right path for me if time were not a factor, but I don't want to waste any more time in getting to a conversational level in Modern Hebrew. My parents aren't going to be around forever, and I want to be able to have lots of conversations with them in Hebrew, and also be able to expose my daughter to a lot of Hebrew while she's still very young. So I've decided that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and I should just try to get to a conversational level in Modern Hebrew as quickly as I can. I think that my time with Arabic and Biblical Hebrew has given me some strong associations with the letters ע,‎ ח,‎ ו,‎ ט,‎ ק, and שׂ, which can all be mistaken for א,‎ כ,‎ ב,‎ ת‎, כּ‎, and ס (respectively) in Modern Hebrew but have their own unique sounds in Biblical Hebrew that correspond closely to sounds in Arabic. So I think I will be able to remember Hebrew spelling much better than before I started those projects, even though I didn't finish them.

With that in mind, I will plan to simply go through Assimil, Duolingo, Pimsleur, and FSI Basic Hebrew, and leave it at that. It shouldn't take much more than 6 months to get through those courses and by the end I should have enough of a background to start chatting in Hebrew.

Although I started learning Norwegian on a whim, I'm enjoying it and I think it's very good for my language learning overall and it can potentially be a strong foothold into Germanic vocabulary. So my current plan is to finish all of my Norwegian sources, then start my Modern Hebrew resources as I'm starting to consume Norwegian native media. And after that, I'll try to finally get fluent in French and German.

English

My Hawthorne book came in. I don't remember whether it was this thread or another one where I mentioned that I'm embarrassed that as a Salem resident I'm embarrassed that I've never finished a Hawthorne novel. I'll try to read at least a couple pages a day until I have finished The House of Seven Gables and The Scarlett Letter.

Progress-o-Meter™

: 6 / 60 Pimsleur Norwegian
: 43 / 860 Duolingo Norwegian
: 2 / 26 The Mystery of Nils (Part 1)
: 0 / 15 Langenscheidt Norwegisch mit System
: 2 / 100 Assimil Le norvégien
7 x
/daɪ.nə.ˈnaɪ.səs/

User avatar
Deinonysus
Brown Belt
Posts: 1216
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:06 pm
Location: MA, USA
Languages:  
• Native: English
• Advanced: French
• Intermediate: German,
   Spanish, Hebrew
• Beginner: Italian,
   Arabic
x 4620

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby Deinonysus » Fri Nov 13, 2020 2:23 pm

My new year's resolution for this year was to play piano every day. That only lasted a few months, but I think my resolution for next year will be to try to do three things every day:
  1. Play piano
  2. Read literature in any language (including English)
  3. Read or watch the news in a language other than English

I have been skimming the front page of le Monde every day, and I was to tired to do much yesterday but in general I've been practicing my Ab major scales and reading a few pages of The House of Seven Gables every day.

I found a wonderful new Norwegian resource that Random Review posted in the Norwegian Resources thread.

Random Review wrote:Apologies if already mentioned above and I missed it; but I've been playing a little with Norwegian during the lockdown and came across what has to be the best free pronunciatuon resource I've ever seen (apart from access to a very patient native speaker lol). Only thing I've ever seen that even comes close is FSI German.

https://calst.hf.ntnu.no/Home/lessons

Particularly useful as (spoiler alert) pronunciation seems to be the only difficult thing about this language so far. Certainly the grammar and vocabulary seem so far to be probably the easiest of any language I've seen so far (although the possessives are cool); but the pronunciation is fiendish.


This is exactly what I needed because I want to make pronunciation, especially the tones, my top priority, but until now I haven't been able to find any drills. But these drills cover not just the consonants and an long/short vowels but also the tones and intonation, and there are drills for eight different dialects!

I will plan on making these drills my top priority. I'm starting with the tone drills (which are actually at the end of the course) for the Oslo dialect, and then do the rest of the Oslo drills. Then I will at least also do the Bergen dialect drills. Bergen is the second largest metropolitan area in Norway and it is also in the West, surrounded by nynorsk-using areas, although from what I can tell Bergen itself doesn't use nynorsk. But it does use the uvular r and might also share some phonological features with the neighboring rural dialects.

I am becoming more confident in identifying the tone of new words that I hear, especially if they are spoken in isolation, so I have decided to start Pimsleur over and carefully note the tone of each new word that I learn (if it has a tone).

I have fallen behind on my Anki decks and in particular I haven't made any progress on my Langenscheidt deck. But maybe I will start catching up next week when my daughter is back in daycare and I have more time to myself.

Progress-o-Meter™

: 2 / 60 Pimsleur Norwegian
: 48 / 860 Duolingo Norwegian
: 4 / 26 The Mystery of Nils (Part 1)
: 0 / 15 Langenscheidt Norwegisch mit System
: 2 / 100 Assimil Le norvégien
5 x
/daɪ.nə.ˈnaɪ.səs/

User avatar
Ogrim
Brown Belt
Posts: 1009
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:29 am
Location: Alsace, France
Languages: Norwegian (N) English (C2), French (C2), Spanish (C2), German (B2), Romansh (B2), Italian (B2), Catalan (B2), Russian (B1), Latin (B2), Dutch (B1), Croatian (A2), Arabic (on hold), Ancient Greek (learning), Romanian (on hold)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
x 4169

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby Ogrim » Fri Nov 13, 2020 4:44 pm

Deinonysus wrote:I will plan on making these drills my top priority. I'm starting with the tone drills (which are actually at the end of the course) for the Oslo dialect, and then do the rest of the Oslo drills. Then I will at least also do the Bergen dialect drills. Bergen is the second largest metropolitan area in Norway and it is also in the West, surrounded by nynorsk-using areas, although from what I can tell Bergen itself doesn't use nynorsk. But it does use the uvular r and might also share some phonological features with the neighboring rural dialects.


The Bergen dialect is very close to Bokmål, but there are a few differences. It is one of very few dialects in Norway that done away with the distinction masculine/feminine (like in Dutch) - there is a common gender and a neuter gender, the common gender corresponding in the endings to the masculine forms in standard Bokmål. Then within city of Bergen there are two distinct sociolects, "Penbergensk" (Nice/pretty Bergensk) and "Gatebergensk" (Street Bergensk). The latter is closer to Nynorsk but has some particularities unique to Bergen dialect. I guess on the recording what you get is the "Penbergensk" version.
3 x
Ich grolle nicht

User avatar
Deinonysus
Brown Belt
Posts: 1216
Joined: Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:06 pm
Location: MA, USA
Languages:  
• Native: English
• Advanced: French
• Intermediate: German,
   Spanish, Hebrew
• Beginner: Italian,
   Arabic
x 4620

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby Deinonysus » Fri Nov 13, 2020 5:57 pm

Ogrim wrote:
Deinonysus wrote:I will plan on making these drills my top priority. I'm starting with the tone drills (which are actually at the end of the course) for the Oslo dialect, and then do the rest of the Oslo drills. Then I will at least also do the Bergen dialect drills. Bergen is the second largest metropolitan area in Norway and it is also in the West, surrounded by nynorsk-using areas, although from what I can tell Bergen itself doesn't use nynorsk. But it does use the uvular r and might also share some phonological features with the neighboring rural dialects.


The Bergen dialect is very close to Bokmål, but there are a few differences. It is one of very few dialects in Norway that done away with the distinction masculine/feminine (like in Dutch) - there is a common gender and a neuter gender, the common gender corresponding in the endings to the masculine forms in standard Bokmål. Then within city of Bergen there are two distinct sociolects, "Penbergensk" (Nice/pretty Bergensk) and "Gatebergensk" (Street Bergensk). The latter is closer to Nynorsk but has some particularities unique to Bergen dialect. I guess on the recording what you get is the "Penbergensk" version.

Cool, thanks for the info!

The eight dialects that are offered are:
  • Oslo
  • Trondheim
  • Stavanger
  • Malm
  • Bergen
  • Sandnessjøen
  • Elverum
  • Tromsø
Are there any ones in particular with some unique phonological features that it would be good to focus on? I'm thinking in particular about the realization of the tones.
2 x
/daɪ.nə.ˈnaɪ.səs/

User avatar
Ogrim
Brown Belt
Posts: 1009
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:29 am
Location: Alsace, France
Languages: Norwegian (N) English (C2), French (C2), Spanish (C2), German (B2), Romansh (B2), Italian (B2), Catalan (B2), Russian (B1), Latin (B2), Dutch (B1), Croatian (A2), Arabic (on hold), Ancient Greek (learning), Romanian (on hold)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
x 4169

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby Ogrim » Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:04 pm

All Norwegian dialects are unique. :D If at this stage you want to dive into dialects, I suggest you focus on the four our five most distinctive.
Apart from Bergen and Oslo, I would suggest you pick the dialect of Trondheim, it is the third biggest city and it has a distinctive pronunciation and intonation. Then I would pick that of Tromsø to get a typical Northern Norwegian dialect. Again especially the intonation is quite distinct, very different from more southern dialects.

Good luck with your dialect studies.
2 x
Ich grolle nicht

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10462

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Fri Nov 13, 2020 10:30 pm

Deinonysus wrote:Cool, thanks for the info!

The eight dialects that are offered are:
  • Oslo
  • Trondheim
  • Stavanger
  • Malm
  • Bergen
  • Sandnessjøen
  • Elverum
  • Tromsø
Are there any ones in particular with some unique phonological features that it would be good to focus on? I'm thinking in particular about the realization of the tones.


The five I'm familiar with (Olso, Trondheim, Stavanger, Bergen and Tromsø) all use the two tones, but the prosody is never the same. It's not just a question of how the grave accent is realized, but also how full sentences sound.

Have you ever checked out Nordavinden og sola?

"My" five dialects are there. Listen to them and make your own opinion:

Bergen - http://www.hf.ntnu.no/nos/dialect.php?id=6
Oslo - http://www.hf.ntnu.no/nos/dialect.php?id=20
Stavanger 1 - http://www.hf.ntnu.no/nos/dialect.php?id=44
Stavanger 2 - http://www.hf.ntnu.no/nos/dialect.php?id=45
Tromsø - http://www.hf.ntnu.no/nos/dialect.php?id=47
Trondheim - http://www.hf.ntnu.no/nos/dialect.php?id=12

The first four have a 2 in front of the syllable that has the grave pitch accent/pitch#2 - naturally, the two Stavanger samples are very similar, but they're different from Bergen, and from Oslo, and none of them sound like any of the others either. The last two has another symbol marking the pitch#2. Still, they're pitch#2, just different. Trondheim is nothing like Tromsø. Interestingly enough, all examples have the pitch#2 in the same syllables (only the Trondheim example lack a strong pitch#2 for the word gåene - I'm sure it's incidental).

Bergen and Stavanger have skarre-R/guttural R, the others don't. In very broad terms, Oslo, Stavanger and Trondheim are more sing-songy, and Bergen and Tromsø less so. If it weren't for the skarre-R and the Norwegian vocabulary, it's almost as if a Bergen speaker could come from my area. And that's in Sweden.

Any two dialects of the five I mention are as different as any two English dialects you find different enough.
3 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

User avatar
tungemål
Blue Belt
Posts: 947
Joined: Sat Apr 06, 2019 3:56 pm
Location: Norway
Languages: Norwegian (N)
English, German, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Polish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17672
x 2181

Re: Norwegian Blitz: 5 courses in 4 languages & 4 months

Postby tungemål » Sun Nov 15, 2020 4:34 pm

Deinonysus wrote:...This is exactly what I needed because I want to make pronunciation, especially the tones, my top priority, but until now I haven't been able to find any drills. But these drills cover not just the consonants and an long/short vowels but also the tones and intonation, and there are drills for eight different dialects!

I will plan on making these drills my top priority. I'm starting with the tone drills (which are actually at the end of the course) for the Oslo dialect, and then do the rest of the Oslo drills. Then I will at least also do the Bergen dialect drills. Bergen is the second largest metropolitan area in Norway and it is also in the West, surrounded by nynorsk-using areas, although from what I can tell Bergen itself doesn't use nynorsk. But it does use the uvular r and might also share some phonological features with the neighboring rural dialects.

I am becoming more confident in identifying the tone of new words that I hear, especially if they are spoken in isolation, so I have decided to start Pimsleur over and carefully note the tone of each new word that I learn (if it has a tone)
...


If you want to learn the tones, wouldn't it be best to focus on just the Oslo dialect for now, especially since you've only got 4 months? The other dialects have completely different ways of realising the tones, so I can imagine that will become confusing. You can divide the Norwegian dialects into eastern and western, and of the 8 listed, only Oslo belongs to the eastern branch. The intonation of the western dialects is in fact exactly opposite of the Oslo intonation. Just something to keep in mind.
4 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests