Learn about using incomplete sentences
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina:Hi everyone, I’m Gina. |
| Nora:And I am Nora. |
| Gina:And welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Beginner season 1, Lesson 20 - See the Signs in Norway. In this lesson we’ll look at a peculiar phenomenon in Norwegian. |
| Nora:Yes, and that is the fact that full sentences are not necessarily always used in Norwegian. |
| Gina:Now, we always try to stress that you should make your speech as easy to understand as possible when you’re speaking Norwegian. |
| Nora:But that doesn’t mean you’ll find it the same way in Norway. |
| Gina:So in this lesson, we’ll look at incomplete sentences in Norwegian. |
| Nora:The conversation is between Kjersti and Lars. Kjersti is in for a surprise when she turns up at her school. |
| Gina:Yes, it almost defeats the purpose of going to the capital in the first place! Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina:Let’s talk a little about closing times in Norway. |
| Nora:Some Norwegians think everything closes too early. |
| Gina:Shops close at 8-9 pm. |
| Nora:And supermarkets at 10-11 pm |
| Gina:And not only that, banks and certain public offices at 3 pm. |
| Nora:Even pubs, bars and clubs sometimes close at an inconvenient hour. |
| Gina:And as if that wasn’t enough, many shops and offices are closed on Sundays or they keep only short hours. |
| Nora:This includes post offices as well, who don’t do deliveries on Sundays. |
| Gina:So what is the reason for this inconvenient opening time schedule? |
| Nora:Well part of it, like closing on Sundays, has to do with an old law that isn’t in effect anymore, but which is still considered to many an unspoken rule that should be followed. |
| Gina:As for banks and others it’s simply a tradition, and traditionally people worked from 8-9 am to 3-4 pm. |
| Nora:Many find the banks closing times especially inconvenient, but there hasn’t been a shift towards more convenient banking. |
| Gina:But many supermarkets used to close quite early some years back, but they have gradually started to be open longer and longer. |
| Nora:Right. Let’s hope banks and others follow the same trends. |
| Gina:Yes, definitely. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina:Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Nora:Til Og Med. |
| Gina:It’s similar to “until” in English. |
| Nora:But in Norwegian, it becomes a phrase that is built up by three words - til meaning “to” and og meaning “and”, and finally med meaning “with”. |
| Gina:This is a phrase you’ll see quite a lot in Norwegian. And it can be translated as words other than “until”. |
| Nora:That’s right - it’s also what you use when you want to say “even” in English. |
| Gina:Let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:Til og med Espen ville ha pizza. |
| Gina:“Even Espen wanted pizza.” |
| Nora:Fristen for konkuransen var til og med fjerde september. |
| Gina:“The deadline for the contest was until the fourth of September.” |
| Nora:Another word we want to look at is Januar. |
| Gina:I don’t believe we have ever talked about the months in Norwegian. |
| Nora:And while learning them early on is more common in lower education, it has now come to a point where you really should know them. |
| Gina:We have already mentioned two months in this lesson, so let’s see what the other months are as well. |
| Nora:Januar |
| Gina:“January” |
| Nora:Februar |
| Gina:“February” |
| Nora:Mars |
| Gina:“March” |
| Nora:April |
| Gina:“April” |
| Nora:Mai |
| Gina:“May” |
| Nora:Juni |
| Gina:“June” |
| Nora:Juli |
| Gina:“July” |
| Nora:August |
| Gina:“August” |
| Nora:September |
| Gina:“September” |
| Nora:Oktober |
| Gina:“October” |
| Nora:November |
| Gina:“November” |
| Nora:Desember |
| Gina:“December” |
| Nora:Good! |
| Gina:Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina:In this lesson you’ll learn incomplete sentences. |
| Nora:We’ll look at how they commonly appear in both daily speech and in written form everywhere around you in Norway. |
| Gina:When it comes to speaking, incomplete sentences are a common thing to Norwegians. |
| Nora:More than incomplete sentences, contracted sentences are much more frequently used. |
| Gina:Indeed. When a Norwegian speaks at full speed you’ll often find that whole sentences sound like one long word and that several letters often seem missing from the different words. |
| Nora:Of course, this makes it quite inconvenient for people who don’t speak Norwegian that well. |
| Gina:It can sometimes be so hard to follow that even native speakers have to ask the speaker to repeat the sentence. |
| Nora:Very true. We sometimes don’t understand our own language. (laughs)... |
| Gina:(laughs) Now before we look at just how Norwegians contract sentences and use incomplete sentences, let’s look at the sentence in our dialogue. |
| Nora:Stengt til og med tredje Januar? |
| Gina:This means something like “Closed until the third of January?” Looking at this sentence word for word, it isn’t that hard. |
| Nora:First we have an adjective stengt. |
| Gina:Which means “closed”. |
| Nora:This is followed by the phrase we saw earlier, til-og-med |
| Gina:You might remember it translated as “until”. |
| Nora:Then the order number tredje |
| Gina:“Third” in English. |
| Nora:And finally the name of the month, januar. Yes that’s correct, it means “January”. |
| Gina:Now the sentence above is not an incomplete sentence per se - it is completely okay to call that a full sentence. |
| Nora:But it is lacking in terms of being a good sentence, because we don’t know what is “closed until third of January”. |
| Gina:We should have put the Subject and the Verb in the sentence before the Object, so that it became |
| Nora:butikken er... |
| Gina:“The shop is”.... |
| Nora:...Stengt til og med tredje januar. |
| Gina:So when shortening sentences in Norwegian, what do you usually do? |
| Nora:As you heard here, we omit the Subject and the Verb. |
| Gina:A common place to hear incomplete sentences is as answers to questions. Let’s look at an example. |
| Nora:Hvor skal du? Til apoteket. |
| Gina:“Where are you going? To the Pharmacy.” |
| Nora:The answer here really just contains the Object of the sentence. The rest of the sentence, jeg skal meaning “I am going” is omitted. |
| Gina:Other common situations where you’ll hear incomplete sentences is in quick comments or short replies. Let’s look at some examples here as well. |
| Nora:Syns ikke filmen var dårlig. |
| Gina:“Don’t think the movie was bad.” |
| Nora:Så pen! |
| Gina:“How pretty!” |
| Nora:Now that we have seen how some incomplete sentences are usually formed, let’s see how Norwegians usually contract certain sentences. |
| Gina:In an earlier lesson, we talked about... |
| Nora:ha’kke, vi’kke, få,kke, etc.? |
| Gina:And those are some common contractions. Now we’ll look at some other common contractions. Note that this is mainly regarded as slang as well. |
| Nora:First is Åssen gåre? It comes from the phrase Hvordan går det? |
| Gina:"How are you doing?" |
| Nora:Next is Ære ikke dålig værute? This comes from the phrase Er det ikke dårlig vær ute? Note that here, we are contracting the er and det. |
| Gina:“Isn’t it bad weather outside?” |
| Nora:Next is Hvorran hare sæat du æ her? This comes from the phrase Hvordan har det seg at du er her? |
| Gina:“How come you are here?” |
| Nora:Now here’s a final note on these contractions and incomplete sentences. They are largely based on dialect. |
| Gina:Yes. The ones we’re talking about here are most common around the Oslo area, and the area surrounding the Oslofjord. |
| Nora:Also, many people don’t use such heavy slang. The examples were simply for demonstration purposes. |
| Gina:So listeners, when you’re speaking Norwegian, it’s best not to attempt to use slang consciously. Instead be sure to speak clearly. |
| Nora:That last one is very important. But this lesson should help you understand the slang that is being spoken around you. |
Outro |
| Gina:Well, that’s all for this lesson. |
| Nora:I recommend listening again to this lesson, especially the grammar point. Try to catch where all the contractions happen. |
| Gina:And please read the lesson notes for a written explanation of all we have said. And feel free to leave a comment too. |
| Nora:See you next time! |
| Gina:Thanks for listening, bye! |
| Nora: Ha det! |
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