Planning a trip to Norway? Impress the locals with your language skills with these essential Norwegian phrases for travel.
Norwegian, the language of one of the most beautiful countries you could ever have the pleasure of visiting. With an incredibly dramatic landscape and super friendly locals who probably speak better English than you, I wanted to create a Norwegian travel phrase guide to help put you in good graces with the locals. Slipping in some of these phrases into your conversation with Norwegian will go a long way.
To help me create this new addition to my growing collection of free travel phrase guides, I asked my friend Lisa from Fjords and Beaches to provide accurate Norwegian translations and pronunciation tips. Lisa is a native Norwegian gal and expert on all things Norway.
Travelling to Norway? Then you should learn these top 10 Norwegian phrases
Learning Norwegian? Don’t miss these hilarious Norwegian idioms and expressions
Let’s take a closer look at the Norwegian language so you’re better informed as to its origin, use, and vocabulary. It’s much simpler than you may think and quite easy to learn.
Table of Contents
- A brief history of Norwegian
- Where is Norwegian Spoken?
- Standard Spoken Norwegian and Norwegian Dialects
- Written Norwegian
- Norwegian Pronunciation
- Norwegian Alphabet
- Basic Norwegian Travel Phrases
- Infographic
A brief history of Norwegian
The Norwegian language descends from the Proto-Indo-European language which was spoken about 5,500 years ago. As its speakers began to spread and settle across Europe new languages started to evolve.
In the northwest of Europe, the West Germanic languages evolved into what we know today as English, Dutch, German. But it’s from the North Germanic languages that Norwegian descends.
Norwegian is closely related to Swedish and Danish because they each descended from Old Norse which was spoken in the areas of Scandinavia that are now Norway, Denmark and Sweden.
Even today, Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes can communicate with each other, although Norwegians tend to understand Danish and Swedish more readily than Danes and Swedes can understand Norwegian.
Where is Norwegian spoken?
Norwegian, (‘norsk’ in Norwegian) is the official language of Norway where it is mainly spoken. According to Ethnologue, there are by 5,189,940 speakers of Norwegian. Norwegian is also spoken in the U.S., Canada, and Sweden.
Standard Spoken Norwegian and Norwegian Dialects
For all its similarities with English, being a hundred percent fluent in Norwegian is actually quite difficult as there is no standard spoken Norwegian. Why?
Well, there are several reasons, however, the main reason is due to Norway’s geography. That’s right, that gorgeous mountainous landscape acted like a fence between villages and since the country is so sparsely populated this allowed for many dialects to form.
To give you an example, Lisa, who is from Aurland, explained to me that the dialect of her neighbouring village, Lærdal (just thirty minutes away) is very different from her own. This is because the villages were only connected via a mountain road which was snowed over during the winter. This meant there was limited access between the villages. It wasn’t until 2000 that a tunnel was built to keep the villages connected all year round. Crazy right?
Since there is no standard spoken Norwegian, it is totally normal and accepted to use your local dialect whatever the context or situation. Even politicians and news reporters do this.
Written Norwegian
While there may not be one way of speaking, there are two official variations of written Norwegian. Known as Bokmål (literally “book tongue”) and Nynorsk (“new Norwegian”), the difference between the two is small but still important.
The reason for these two written forms goes back to the 1300s and the 1800s when Norway’s political status declined and came under the control of Denmark. It was during this time that the written form of Norwegian was lost, and Danish came into use.
It wasn’t until the 19th century, when Norway came under Swedish rule, that the country saw a boom in nationalism which led to the creation of two written forms of Norwegian.
Bokmål
Evolving from Danish, Bokmål is by far the most common. It’s used in Oslo and in two thirds of Norway. It is also the form used here in this Norwegian travel phrase guide since this version of Norwegian is used in news broadcasts, on radio and TV, and taught to foreign students.
Nynorsk
Nynorsk, on the other hand is a reconstruction of a standard written form. It was developed by Ivar Aasen, a teacher and linguist who travelled extensively around Norway collecting samples of what was left of the original Norwegian language. He collected his findings in Western Norway and in mountainous areas.
Aasen avoided the eastern parts of Norway as he felt those areas were too heavily influenced by the Danish language. Between 1848 and 1855, Aasen published his findings, which at the time was called landsmål.
It is estimated that 85-90% of the Norwegian population write Bokmål as their main written language. At school, everyone has to learn both written forms but all of your classes in your main language and you spend 3-4 hours learning your side language.
What is the Difference between Bokmål and Nynorsk?
Nynorsk is the ‘actual’ Norwegian written language that was used before the political situation change. While Bokmål is practically a version of Danish.
Nynorsk is considered the written language of villages and rural areas while Bokmål is the form used in cities.
When to use Nynorsk and Bokmål
It’s important to explain that Bokmål and Nynorsk are only written languages. No one actually speaks them.
However, it is commonly said that people in Oslo ‘speak’ bokmål because their dialect is so close to the written language even though by definition it is not possible to speak it.
This can be quite confusing to understand, so if you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section below and Lisa will happily answer them for you.
Norwegian Pronunciation
While a hundred per cent fluency isn’t our aim here, it’s nice to know that for English speakers, Norwegian is not a difficult language to learn because many words are very similar.
The biggest challenge you’ll encounter when you first start learning Norwegian is the pronunciation. But luckily, there are some basic rules you can follow. The main ones to remember is that stress usually falls on the first syllable and the letter ‘r’ is always rolled.
Want to have fun whilst learning Norwegian? Struggling to find decent Norwegian language resources? I recommend getting uTalk. Available as a desktop site and app, uTalk is awesome for learning key words and phrases in Norwegian, especially if you want to use it for travel purposes. It’s great for beginners getting started in a language and invaluable for intermediates looking to fill in gaps in their vocabulary and pronunciation.
What I love most about uTalk is that you can jump around their extensive library of topics and choose what you want to learn, when you want, and at your own pace. Because I believe in uTalk so much, I reached out to them and we’ve teamed up to offer you an exclusive 30% OFF reader discount across all of uTalk’s 140 languages! This offer isn’t available anywhere else! Click here to claim your exclusive 30% discount.
Norwegian Alphabet
Below is the Norwegian alphabet. Note that the last three letters in the table are vowels.
Æ – Pronounced like an elongated version of the ‘a’ in ‘lap’.
Ø – Pronounced like the ‘u’ in ‘burn’
Å – Pronounced like ‘ou’ in ‘four’
Y is always a vowel in Norwegian and sounds more like the y in ‘typical’ than in ‘type’.
| a (a) | j (jod) | s (ess) |
| b (beh) | k (kaw) | t (teh) |
| c (seh) | l (el) | u (oo) |
| d (de) | m (em) | v (veh) |
| e (eh) | n (en) | w (dobbletveh) |
| f (ef) | o (o) | x (eks) |
| g (geh) | p (peh) | y (yew) |
| h (haw) | q (koo) | z (set) |
| i (ee) | r (air) | Æ (a) Ø (air) Å (aw) |
P.S. If you’re reading this on your phone and can’t see the pronunciation column, turn it to landscape mode. For some reason, tables aren’t mobile friendly. Sorry!
Essential Norwegian Phrases You Need to Know
Want the infographic to take with you? Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Travelling to Norway? Then you should learn these top 10 Norwegian phrases
I hope you enjoyed this Norwegian travel phrase guide as much as I enjoyed bringing it together. If you have any requests for other languages, let me know in the comments section! In the meantime, check out the rest of my collection of free travel phrase guides.
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Norwegian Travel Guide Infographic
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Sources Teach Yourself Norwegian | About World Languages | Fjords and Beaches
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Over to you!
Which of these Norwegian phrases did you find the most useful? Are you planning a trip to Norway or have already been there? Let me know using the comments section below or join me on social media to start a conversation.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post.
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