Learn how to ask for and tell someone the time of day
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yura : Hi there, I'm Yura. |
| Filip : Hei, I’m Filip! |
| Yura : -Welcome to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Absolute Beginner Season 1, Lesson 11 |
| Yura :In this lesson we are going to teach you how to ask and tell someone the time of the day... |
| Filip : ..in Norwegian or på Norsk, as we say it. |
| Yura : Yes... And what time is it now? |
| Filip : About lunchtime I guess... I’m getting hungry. In Norwegian we would say, det er snart lunsj og jeg er sulten. |
| Yura : Let’s get on with the lesson |
| Filip : Alright, so to start off with, this is probably a good time to check if you remember all the numbers from 1 to 12, which you should’ve learned in our previous lesson. |
| Yura : If you don’t, just go and review the first 20 numbers and you should be fine. |
| Filip : In our conversation Mark and his colleague Espen are talking about the time. |
| Yura : Norwegians are already quite formal in their language but as we have pointed out before, there is no required formal language in Norwegian. Rather, it’s a nuance in the speech. Let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Mark : Espen, hvor mye er klokken? |
| Espen: Den er syv. |
| Mark : Takk. Jeg drar i møte klokken halv ni |
| Espen: Det er om en og en halv time. |
| Mark : Riktig! |
| English Host: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Mark : Espen, hvor mye er klokken? |
| Espen: Den er syv. |
| Mark : Takk. Jeg drar i møte klokken halv ni |
| Espen: Det er om en og en halv time. |
| Mark : Riktig! |
| English Host: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Mark : Espen, hvor mye er klokken? |
| Yura : Espen, what time is it? |
| Espen: Den er syv. |
| Yura : It’s seven. |
| Mark : Takk. Jeg drar i møte klokken halv ni |
| Yura : Thanks. I am going to a meeting at half past eight |
| Espen: Det er om en og en halv time. |
| Yura : That’s in an hour and a half. |
| Mark : Riktig! |
| Yura : Right! |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Yura : You know what? |
| Filip : What? |
| Yura : I think I just thought of a great idea for some practice. |
| Filip : For this lesson, you mean? |
| Yura : Yeah. You remember how you said Norwegians try so hard to be polite to strangers? |
| Filip : Don’t exaggerate, now. Norwegians are usually polite to strangers because of their culture. |
| Yura : Yes, and the listener could totally exploit that behavior. |
| Filip : Oh, how? |
| Yura : When they have learned to ask what time it is in Norwegian, they could use it to practice Norwegian with strangers. |
| Filip : Oh you mean by asking them what time it is and seeing if they can understand the answer? |
| Yura : Exactly. So listeners, when you are in Norway, try going up to some random strangers and asking them what time it is, and see if you understand their response. |
| Filip : Well, if they are going to do that then we better teach them how, shouldn’t we? |
| Yura First, let’s take a look at the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Yura : Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is: |
| Filip : hvor [natural native speed] |
| Yura : how |
| Filip : hvor [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : hvor [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : mye [natural native speed] |
| Yura : much, a lot |
| Filip : mye [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : mye [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : klokken [natural native speed] |
| Yura : time (clock) |
| Filip : klokken [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : klokken [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : den [natural native speed] |
| Yura : that |
| Filip : den [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : den [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : å dra [natural native speed] |
| Yura : to leave |
| Filip : å dra [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : å dra [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : møte [natural native speed] |
| Yura : meeting |
| Filip : møte [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : møte [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : halv [natural native speed] |
| Yura : half |
| Filip : halv [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : halv [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : om [natural native speed] |
| Yura : in |
| Filip : om [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : om [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : time [natural native speed] |
| Yura : hour |
| Filip : time [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : time [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : riktig [natural native speed] |
| Yura : correct |
| Filip : riktig [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : riktig [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Yura : Let's have a closer look at the usuage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Filip : The first word/phrase we’ll look at is “om”, which means “in” or “if” depending on the context. |
| Yura : In this lesson we are using it as “in,” |
| Filip : Yes, but this is only possible when talking about time. In any other context om means "if." |
| Yura : Can you illustrate that point with some examples? |
| Filip : Alright. So when you're talking about time consider this sentence; |
| Filip : jeg er der om tjue minutter. |
| Yura : "I’ll be there in twenty minutes." |
| Filip : The easy part about learning Norwegian is that so many sentences can be directly translated to perfectly sensible English. In this case you can easily see that om means “in.” |
| Yura : Then how about in another context? |
| Filip : Alright, here we go |
| Filip :Vet du om du kan komme? |
| Yura : "Do you know if you can come?" |
| Yura : Okay, here it doesn’t translate directly, however om becomes “if” in this sentence. |
| Filip : Yes, om du kan komme, which means “if you can come.” |
| Yura : Ok, so now it's time to teach you how to ask what time it is! |
Lesson focus |
| Filip : Let’s get to the grammar! |
| Yura : To ask what time it is in Norwegian, you need a simple phrase. |
| Filip : Well actually there’s two ways of asking, but let’s start with the one featured in our dialogue. |
| Yura : Right. So the first one as you saw in the dialogue is a bit longer than its alternative, but it is better for practicing Norwegian with. Filip, show us! |
| Filip : Hvor mye er klokken? |
| Yura : Literally this means “how much is the clock?” It’s a simple phrase, but as we said, there’s also a much shorter alternative. |
| Filip : Yes. It’s a bit shorter and easier to remember. But I’d say it’s not that good for practicing Norwegian. Also, let me warn you that it’s slightly incorrect, grammar-wise. |
| Yura : Let’s hear it. |
| Filip : Hva er klokken? |
| Yura : This translates literally as “What is the clock?” Let’s hear them both again. Please repeat after Filip. |
| Filip : Hvor mye er klokken [pause] |
| Yura : And? |
| Filip : Hva er klokken? [pause] |
| Yura : Alright, so let’s look at what the possible answers could be. |
| Filip : Yes, to answer you need to know a few numbers. |
| Yura : Right, repeat for yourself the numbers between 1 and 12 and you should be fine if you can remember them. |
| Filip : The answer itself is pretty simple. Basically it’s den er plus a number being the time of the day. |
| Yura : Ok. So literally translated we’d be saying something like. “It is....” and then “5” for example. |
| Filip : Exactly. I’ll make some examples then you can guess at what time it is. |
| Filip : Den er 12 |
| Yura : "It is 12" |
| Filip : den er 3 |
| Yura : "it’s 3" |
| Filip : Alright. Den er 7 |
| Yura : hmmmm.. "It’s 7?" |
| Filip : Yes. Correct. |
| Yura : As you may have noticed in Norwegian there’s no A.M. or P.M. after the time to indicate whether it’s day or night. Why is that, Filip? |
| Filip : Well, because it's normally understood by both people already. I mean, you rarely need to know whether it’s day or night since you are usually in the same place as the person you're talking to. |
| Yura : Ahh, but what about over the phone and such? When you're in two different countries? |
| Filip : Well, it is possible that the other person could try to reaffirm whether it's during day or night with another question, but we shouldn’t worry about that now. Let’s instead try to make Norwegian simple. |
| Yura : Right. But there are some things we haven’t talked about yet. Like what if you just want to say what time it is without anybody asking you, regardless of the context. |
| Filip : Well just substitute den with klokken. After all den is a pronoun and is used to substitute klokken whenever that is the topic. |
| Yura : Hmm. Just give us an example. |
| Filip : Ok, Klokken er 4. |
| Yura : Ah I see, it's really simple then. Okay, another thing I was wondering about, what if you want to be a bit more punctual than whole hours? |
| Filip : Yes, then you would have to use a few extra words. Let’s do it like this |
| Yura : Ok, go ahead. |
| Filip : For simplicity, let’s use Klokken er ti as a base. |
| Filip : Klokken er ti |
| Yura : It’s ten o’clock. |
| Filip : Klokken er ti. |
| Filip : Ok next. Klokken er halv ti |
| Yura : "It’s half past nine." Ok, literally this means “the clock is half to ten.” Norwegians round up to the closest whole hour, rather than down from, like in English. It’s half past nine therefore becomes |
| Filip : Klokken er halv ti |
| Filip : ok next is |
| Yura : It’s a quarter to ten. |
| Filip : Klokken er kvart på ti. (pause) |
| Filip : good. Next we have Klokken er kvart over ti |
| Yura : it's a quarter past 10 |
| Filip : klokken er kvart over ti. |
| Filip : correct. I think that’s a good enough start. |
| Yura : I think so too. We covered a lot of ground! |
| Filip : Ok, so let’s stop here and congratulate the listeners on a good job, well done. |
| Yura : If you missed some of it, feel free to listen again. Repetition always helps! |
| Filip : Thanks for listening. And we hope to see you again in our next lesson. Farvell! |
| Yura : See you next time! |
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