After having lived in Norway for all of my life I have somehow missed the “third” kind of Norwegian that this guy has learned in school.

39 comments

  1. I know it’s a stretch, but maybe they think davvisámigiella is Norwegian?

    Edit: or they think Trøndish is another form of Norwegian (I’d agree)

  2. May be Bokmål, nynorsk, and spoken, which all have independent grades, or it could be bokmål, nynorsk, and samnorsk (a mix of bokmål and nynorsk), or something else completely

  5. Could be sámi? Otherwise I’d agree with the comment about bokmål, nynorsk & spoken norwegian, since they have different grades in school.

  7. Sápmi? But that’s three different languages too if I understand it correctly. It might’ve been referring to the high school classes. There you have your primary Norwegian the same as in they other education system, secondary Norwegian that’s (if you have bokmål as you primary you have nynorsk as your secondary and vice versa), and lastly oral Norwegian that’s more focused on proper understanding and oral delivery in presentations. The latter is only as a grade and not a separate class though.

  8. In Norwegian high school you get three seperate Norwegian grades: nynorsk and bokmål, but also an oral grade. There is a chance he just confused those for types of Norwegian, or perhaps he considers his dialect to be seperate from the written standard? idk

  10. “all 3 types” is some pretentious bullshit and not part of any curriculum.

    You have Bokmål (the dominant form) and nynorsk which is not even part of curriculum everywhere any longer as its so rarely used outside of the region its spoken.

    Oral is a separate grade, but no one learns a language in school without using it so this person id just full of shit.

    You typically have German classes as part of curriculum if you actively seek it out, and some places can offer you the option of learning French or Spanish if there are available teachers.

    Russian is not on the learning plan unless this person studied language in College.

    EVERYONE in Norway learns English in school. You have both written and oral tests from a young age. Very few Norwegians do not speak English.

    Swedish and Danish are so incredibly similar that most people can both understand and to some degree at least speak Swedish. Danish is a bit trickier but the Stavanger dialect is quite similar in terms of sound.

    Unless this person studied languages on her/his own, there is 0% chance the school curriculum would afford her/him the chance to learn all those languages.

    Funfact: Foreign languages in Norway are defined as languages other than Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and English.

    Someone speaking Russian, French, Spanish, German, etc while not being born in any of those nations is HIGHLY unusual. Not impossible, but anyone who does studies languages.

    My assumption here is that the person is Norwegian. If that is not the case then the odds of him/her speaking the language is reaching polyglot levels of implausible

  16. So I spoke to my former teacher who is a professor in the Norwegian language. Norway only has two official languages unless you count Samisk . The last language isn’t talk much because it is not that widely used. Also the guy that bragging about all these kind of languages seems like a jerk and probably hasn’t traveled a lot

  17. As a Norwegian that works in the cooking industry here in Norway I can comfortably say that most people can speak enough English to make themselves understood. We don’t have many guests that don’t speak Norwegian but the ones that don’t are usually from Slavic countries so they don’t have the best English either 😀

  20. As an english person who is learning Norsk. I obviously understand that you have 2 written languages bokmål and nynorsk. And then a spoken language that differs from the written languages, mostly dependant on dialects. (Duolingo is teaching me Oslo / eastern dialect, whilst the gf is helping me learn her Bergensk) xD

    What is this kebab Norsk? Is that just some form of mixed up and mashed up of all ‘3’? 😂

  21. What is Flamks? Is he trying to saying Flemish? Why would he say Flemish when it’s called Dutch?

  22. >Is it harder for English speaking people to have more language training in school?

    Yes it is. I live in Canada and my first language is English. Learning French in school is mandatory but the teaching was not so good. I ended up going to a summer course at a Quebec university, so I learned a lot there, both informal stuff and pronunciation.

    I overheard my kid’s French teacher during COVID Zoom classes, and it’s like she’s not even trying to speak with any type of French accent, and it is not her first language. It’s unfortunate, I guess there are not enough good teachers, and no one to practice with.

  24. Greetings from Norway 🇳🇴! There are only two Norwegian languages in Norway. Sámi is not Norwegian. Calling Sámi Norwegian is like calling French German because both are official languages of Switzerland.

  34. Why dont they just use google translate if they are in a situation where they can under stand each other i’ve used it

  36. Yes he has just googled it and misunderstood bokmål and norsk.

    But just a question for the native Norwegians, I was under the impression that in Norway there are still newspapers that publish in some old version of Danish bokmål. Is this correct???

    Also would like to clarify that in Sweden we don’t see spoken Danish as a language but as a speech disorder.

  37. The “three” are probably Bokmål and Nynorsk (taught in classes), as well as “bad Norwegian” (you know, swearing and stuff, normally taught in recess and other social contexts). What else could it be? 🙂

Leave a Reply