Hva gjør du nå?
It's been a while since I've done a MOOC but I did quite a few back to back last year so it was nice to have a bit of a break. I got an email a while ago letting me know about the exciting courses that were on offer this year and one of them was Introduction to Norwegian from the University of Oslo. Well, I'm a sucker for languages and with the history of Norwegian settlers in this area, it seemed like a good one to try!
It lasts four weeks in total and this was the first week. It looks quite well structured although there's a lot to get through! The tasks are split into two days of work which is an interesting way to do it. The course follows half a dozen different international students in its videos which is nice, it's like you're one of the group and a new international student too. One of the videos took place in a supermarket, showing one of the students buying groceries and asking for help finding a product; it was really nice to see that and get a small idea of what Norway and Norwegian is like in daily life.
The instructors have tried to add some humour in the course itself but with the grammar aspects too. When discussing the gender of nouns in Norwegian, I was most amused to read the following introduction:
Yunha er ei jente. Thiago er en gutt. Donald er et troll.
(Yunha is a girl. Thiago is a boy. Donald is a troll.)
The language itself is quite interesting. It has a lot of similarities with English and German so I can pick out some familiar words in the text. It's harder with the speech though! A lot of the consonants at the end of words seem to be dropped when spoken so that means the words get run together quite a bit which makes it difficult to distinguish them. Like the phrase Hvem er det? (Who is it?) Individually the words are pronounced as vem, are, dair but together the phrase gets said like 'vem are-ah?' Mostly the words are pronounced as they're written except for jeg meaning I which is pronounced as yai to rhyme with guy. Considering there's a lot of I sentences to start off with, that is taking a bit of getting used to! There's a musicality to the language though, it reminds me a little of Welsh in that way. It has some other weird quirks as well. For example, countries are capitalised but not nationalities or languages. Lots of other words that you would expect to be capitalised aren't, such as days of the week.
So far I've had to say where I'm from, what I'm currently doing and what I tend to do on Mondays. I had to introduce my family and talk about what I was going to buy next time I went shopping. I also had to make sentences using particular verbs. I've also started to get particularly adept with the keyboard shortcuts for the vowels å and ø!
Jeg heter Nathaniel og jeg kommer fra Storbritannia. Jeg er britisk.
Jeg studerer norske og drikke te. Jeg pleier å støvsuge på mandager.
Jeg har ingen brødre, men jeg har en søster. Hun heter Apple og hun jobber i en butikk. Min mor er en husmor.
Jeg skal kjøpe et glass kaffe, et brød, en pakke ost og en stor sjokoladeplate.
Jeg leser ei bok. Boka er kjedelig og veldig lang. Jeg er ikke gøy å lese den.
There's also a chatbot to help you practise using the language, it asks questions and you type in the answer. It's quite amusing although I had to use Google translate a bit. Still, I'm now able to say Jeg liker te, men kaffe er bedre which is a vital sentence I feel. I've had some fun conversations in the comments section, with another British person and also with one of the educators. There definitely seems to be a lot of interaction and willingness to practise the language with each other in the comments which is very nice. In general, it's just been very enjoyable and I think that helps a lot with learning. Hopefully week 2 will be just as good!
It lasts four weeks in total and this was the first week. It looks quite well structured although there's a lot to get through! The tasks are split into two days of work which is an interesting way to do it. The course follows half a dozen different international students in its videos which is nice, it's like you're one of the group and a new international student too. One of the videos took place in a supermarket, showing one of the students buying groceries and asking for help finding a product; it was really nice to see that and get a small idea of what Norway and Norwegian is like in daily life.
The instructors have tried to add some humour in the course itself but with the grammar aspects too. When discussing the gender of nouns in Norwegian, I was most amused to read the following introduction:
Yunha er ei jente. Thiago er en gutt. Donald er et troll.
(Yunha is a girl. Thiago is a boy. Donald is a troll.)
The language itself is quite interesting. It has a lot of similarities with English and German so I can pick out some familiar words in the text. It's harder with the speech though! A lot of the consonants at the end of words seem to be dropped when spoken so that means the words get run together quite a bit which makes it difficult to distinguish them. Like the phrase Hvem er det? (Who is it?) Individually the words are pronounced as vem, are, dair but together the phrase gets said like 'vem are-ah?' Mostly the words are pronounced as they're written except for jeg meaning I which is pronounced as yai to rhyme with guy. Considering there's a lot of I sentences to start off with, that is taking a bit of getting used to! There's a musicality to the language though, it reminds me a little of Welsh in that way. It has some other weird quirks as well. For example, countries are capitalised but not nationalities or languages. Lots of other words that you would expect to be capitalised aren't, such as days of the week.
So far I've had to say where I'm from, what I'm currently doing and what I tend to do on Mondays. I had to introduce my family and talk about what I was going to buy next time I went shopping. I also had to make sentences using particular verbs. I've also started to get particularly adept with the keyboard shortcuts for the vowels å and ø!
Jeg heter Nathaniel og jeg kommer fra Storbritannia. Jeg er britisk.
Jeg studerer norske og drikke te. Jeg pleier å støvsuge på mandager.
Jeg har ingen brødre, men jeg har en søster. Hun heter Apple og hun jobber i en butikk. Min mor er en husmor.
Jeg skal kjøpe et glass kaffe, et brød, en pakke ost og en stor sjokoladeplate.
Jeg leser ei bok. Boka er kjedelig og veldig lang. Jeg er ikke gøy å lese den.
There's also a chatbot to help you practise using the language, it asks questions and you type in the answer. It's quite amusing although I had to use Google translate a bit. Still, I'm now able to say Jeg liker te, men kaffe er bedre which is a vital sentence I feel. I've had some fun conversations in the comments section, with another British person and also with one of the educators. There definitely seems to be a lot of interaction and willingness to practise the language with each other in the comments which is very nice. In general, it's just been very enjoyable and I think that helps a lot with learning. Hopefully week 2 will be just as good!