Comments on: 5 Things English Speakers Struggle With When Learning Norwegian

By: Rolf Sabye

Rolf Sabye — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 14:10:18 +0000

Came from Norway to the States with my family when I was nine. We always spoke Norwegian at home, and after 68 years and many visits home, I’m still fluent in what I would call conversational Norwegian, and what I use when shopping or in restaurants, etc.
But as a retired engineer, I found it difficult to engage at a professional level with colleagues when in Norway or on one occasion when they visited our company here. Just never used or learned to speak well at that level. They all spoke English of course, but I did the introduction in Norwegian and found that to be a challenge. We all had a good laugh at my expense, and happily switched to English.

By: Carol S.

Carol S. — Sat, 09 Nov 2024 22:25:10 +0000

I learned English when I was 15 and lived with my aunts and uncles. English was not as pervasive in Norway then and my cousins only had rudimentary English so it was sink or swim for me. I recognized early the similarity in sentence structure and one of the first things I concentrated on learning were nouns. “Hva heter det?” Being the first phrase I learned. And then started reading women’s magazines as they were fairly simple to read. Over the many years of going to Norway to visit with my family, I have been surprised how many words are now really English words. It makes me sad in a way that it is happening. Although living in the states I also see how many Spanish words and phrases are seeping into the English language. And having tried to learn Spanish I find I understand a lot more words than I thought I would, because there are words in both English and Norwegian that are similar to Spanish words. Languages are interesting and learning languages and how people use grammar and phrasing opens up your mind to different ways of thinking. Surprisingly, in a recent trip to Iceland, I was shocked at how much I understood when I did not expect to understand anything.

By: Andrew G

Andrew G — Fri, 27 Oct 2023 14:34:51 +0000

Very helpful. After years of living in China and Taiwan and struggling to learn Mandarin, I returned to Canada and chose to learn a language with similarities to English. What a breeze in comparison to Mandarin! The one area I’ve found difficult though is pronunciation. Apart from the Norwegian ø, u, and å, it has been difficult learning words with long strings of letters and syllables, many of them dropped, eaten, or ignored. With Mandarin I got used to strictly one syllable words with all letters (in pinyin) pronounced. In Norwegian I’m always worried about pronouncing too many of the letters. However, learners of English have the same problem, so I get it. Overall, Norwegian is a really fun language to learn. Someday I may even go there and actually speak it!

By: Cindy B

Cindy B — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 17:43:26 +0000

When folks ask, I tell them that learning a second language is hard. But as far as Norwegian, its one of the easier languages to learn. I’m still learning and practicing every day, but more travel to Norway would sure help my confidence!

By: David Nikel

David Nikel — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 17:24:31 +0000

In reply to John Best. That is a completely different company. If you are getting too many emails from them, you should speak to them..!

By: John Best

John Best — Wed, 29 Dec 2021 16:03:57 +0000

This and 51�Թ�� look interesting but need to know if it is part of Norwegian Class 101 as I am sick and tired of their daily sale advertisements.