top of page

Norwegian

Norwegian

Summary

Norwegian is natively spoken by about 5.2 million people, primarily in Norway, where it has two official written forms: Bokmål and Nynorsk. It is integral to Norwegian cultural identity, known for its literature, Norse mythology, and outdoor activities such as skiing. Written in the Latin alphabet, Norwegian grammar features a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order, gendered nouns, and a system of verb conjugations that indicate tense, mood, and aspect.

Stats

  • Language Family: Indo-European

  • Writing System: Latin

  • Writing System Type: Alphabet

  • Writing Direction: L to R

  • Tones / Pitch Accent: 2

  • Morphology: Analytic

  • Cases: 3

  • Grammatical Gender / Noun Class: 3

  • Number of Verb Tenses: 3

  • Word Order: SVO

  • Number of Vowels (Monophthongs): 17

  • Number of Consonants: 23

Areas Where Spoken

  • Norway (official) (96.6%) (5.27 mil)

Resources

Websites

Lessons

Grammar

  • Grammatikk.com - This site is mostly in Norwegian BUT has a few important "beginner" sections in English (marked by the flag). The more you learn Norwegian, the more you can access this site, and it's a great tool for straight-forward refresher with examples. They also update pretty regularly and add new things

  • Språkrådet: The Language Council - This is where you should go if you have questions about how things should be written, what grammar is correct, how to write foreign place names in Norwegian, and the list goes on. I follow them on social media and always make sure to read their (short and concise) articles when they publish them. I've also sent them a handful of emails over the years when their articles on grammar still leave me confused in a niche case

Phrasebook

Vocabulary

Dictionary

  • Ordnett - Norwegian-English online dictionary

  • LEXIN Bokmål & Nynorsk dictionaries

  • Bokmåls- og nynorskordbøkene - A great dictionary for both nynorsk and bokmål (side by side view) which is run by the University of Bergen and the Norwegian Language Council (Språkrådet). This is probably the "most correct" dictionary out there. It includes both verb conjugations and declension of nouns and adjectives. It also shows alternate variations of writing words as well as a short etymology

  • Det norske akademis ordbok - Also a great dictionary, but it only contains bokmål. It is run by Det norske akademi for språk og litteratur and funded by the Ministry of Culture among others. Has a way more liberal threshold for including words, which means that many colloquialisms and newer words will be present here and not in ordbokene.no. It also includes way more examples of usage, both historically/in literature and more contemporary use. This dictionary also includes a phonemic writing of the pronunciation with the "standard" Eastern Norwegian dialect as the basis

  • TriTrans - EN<=>Bokmål dictionary (also for Spanish)

Thesaurus 

News


Videos


Radio


Movies / TV

  • Lilyhammer on Netflix - Ex Ganster Frank Tagliano moved to Lilyhammer, Norway, after testifying against the Mafia. There, he falls in love with a woman and reforms the Mafia to an extent. Warnings: ends with a cliffhanger, sex/nudity (possibly more than you would expect, so be warned - at least 1-2 scenes every episode or so), lots of swearing, occasional blood/gore (not extremely violent), mafia-related themes, guns/gunshots, fights, beating people up, family death, and pet/animal death at the series beginning.

  • NRK Nett-TV

  • NRK TV Utland - Shows available outside of Norway)

bottom of page