Learn about using compounds in Norwegian and the mistakes that sometimes go along with their use
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina:Hi, everyone I’m Gina. |
| Nora:And I’m Nora. |
| Gina:And welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Beginner Season 1, Lesson 21 - Having Fun With Norwegian Compounds. In this lesson we’ll discuss a slightly complicated, but at the same time funny topic in Norwegian - compounds. |
| Nora:Compounds are only relevant when writing. In Norwegian, “compounds” translates as samskriving. Even though we’ve just said it is only relevant in writing, you could say it also applies to speaking. |
| Gina:In essence, you could say that it is about where to put stress and pitch in a sentence. So that’s what this lesson is about. |
| Nora:In the dialogue, Espen and Kjersti are having fun with some “compound” jokes. |
| Gina:Pay good attention when you’re listening, to the difference between the stresses when they’re pronouncing as one compound word, and when separating. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina:Compound mistakes in Norwegian are actually quite funny. |
| Nora:They are! In Norway it’s commonly mistaken as the word orddelingsfeil. |
| Gina:That roughly translates as “hyphenation mistakes”. |
| Nora:However, this in itself is a misconception. Orddeling or “hyphenation” has nothing to do with it. |
| Gina:It’s whether you separate a compound into two words, or treat it as a linked word. |
| Nora:If you go online and search for orddelingsfeil, you’ll find a lot of pictures of funny situations where compounds have been split into two or more words to create hilarious sentences. |
| Gina:We’ll look at why later on. But in essence, it’s because of how two words when separate are understood as separate, and when compounded they create the compounded word. |
| Nora:Much like “motorbike”. If you separate the compound it becomes “motor” “bike”, which suddenly makes a bit less sense. |
| Gina:Anyway, let’s get on with the lesson and learn more about these compound mistakes. Let’s move on to the vocab. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina:Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Nora:The first one is Har du sett... |
| Gina:It translates as “Have you seen.” |
| Nora:In the context of the dialogue, they are talking about reading or “seeing” compound mistakes. |
| Gina:In English you’ll commonly come across the “have you heard...” phrase, when it comes to anything spoken or written. |
| Nora:In Norway this phrase is quite common too, har du hørt... |
| Gina:In fact, they are often interchangeable. When in doubt about which one to use, use the one you would have used in an English conversation. Let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:Har du sett nyhetene? |
| Gina:“Have you seen the news?” |
| Nora:Har du hørt om den nye filmen til Spielberg? |
| Gina:“Have you heard about the new movie from Spielberg?” |
| Nora:The next phrase is den/det er bra. |
| Gina:The phrase simply means “It’s good”. |
| Nora:It is often perceived to be quite flat and sometimes even sarcastic, especially when commenting on something. |
| Gina:But don’t be afraid of using it. If said with a positive or energized intonation, it will have a very positive impact on the listener. Let’s look at some examples of this too. |
| Nora:Har du sett den nye filmen til Spielberg? Den er bra! |
| Gina:“Have you seen the new movie by Spielberg? It’s good! |
| Nora:Jeg så den nye filmen til Spielberg på fredag... Den var bra. |
| Gina:“I saw the new movie by Spielberg on Friday... It was good.” Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina:The focus of this lesson is “compounds” |
| Nora:In this lesson we’ll look at a famous phenomenon in Norwegian, samskriving. |
| Gina:It is similar to “compounds” in English. |
| Nora:The thing about compounds in Norwegian is that two or more words that form a single word, should always be written and pronounced as one single word. |
| Gina:This concept might be a bit hard to grasp at first for English speakers. |
| Nora:While there are quite a lot of compound words in English, many compounds are also written and pronounced as separate words. |
| Gina:An example of a proper compound in English is “starfish”, where “star” and “fish” are compounded into one word. |
| Nora:An example of a separate compound in English is “dollar bill”. |
| Gina:There are no clear rules on what to compound and not compound properly in English, but if you are unsure, the general rule of thumb is to separate the words. |
| Nora:In Norwegian the general rule is opposite. If you are unsure, compound it as one word. |
| Gina:Let’s look at a line from our dialogue in this lesson. |
| Nora:Hah, Ja tunfiskbiter. Den er bra. Har du sett “Lamme lår”? |
| Gina:This translates roughly as, “Hah, tunafish chunks. It’s good. Have you seen the “Lame legs”?” Here we had two examples of compound words. Now let’s look at it word by word. |
| Nora:First we have hah, it’s an onomatopoeia simply sounding like laughter. Next we have ja |
| Gina:A word you should be familiar with, which means “yes”. |
| Nora:This is followed by the noun tunfiskbiter |
| Gina:In English “tunafish chunks”. Notice how the Norwegian word is pronounced in one single word, while the English compound works as two separate words. |
| Nora:That’s right. Then we have the pronoun Den |
| Gina:Which means “it”. It’s followed by the verb in present tense... |
| Nora:Er. |
| Gina:Which means “is”. |
| Nora:Then an adjective, bra. |
| Gina:Which means “good”. |
| Nora:The next sentence starts with the present tense verb har, from å ha. |
| Gina:Or “to have”. |
| Nora:Next we have the pronoun du. |
| Gina:Which means “you”. |
| Nora:Then the past tense of the verb å se, conjugated to sett. |
| Gina:In English, “seen”. And finally we have another compound whose words are separated, |
| Nora:Lamme... |
| Gina:Which means “Lame”. And... |
| Nora:Lår. |
| Gina:“Thighs”. The last compound in the sentence above should have been compounded into one single word. |
| Nora:So we’d have lammelår. |
| Gina:“lamb thigh”. |
| Nora:Instead of lamme lår |
| Gina:“lame legs”. |
| Nora:By now you might have noticed that there are two rather complicated things about the Norwegian samskriving. |
| Gina:That’s right. One is that compounded words can become quite long, and thus hard to write and speak in one breath. Just look at this word: |
| Nora:Menneskerettighetsorganisasjonene. |
| Gina:Wow, that’s a long word! It means “The human rights organizations.” |
| Nora:Number 2 is that when compounded, many words change shape slightly to better fit naturally with their companion words. |
| Gina:Take for example the word we just said. |
| Nora:Between menneskerettighet |
| Gina:“Human rights”... |
| Nora:And organisasjonene |
| Gina:“organizations” |
| Nora:The letter “s” is bridging the two words. Menneskerettighet-S-organisasjonene. |
| Gina:This is simply to make it easier to pronounce and understand that it is compounded. Another thing about Norwegian compound words, is that you can literally build a word as long as you want. |
| Nora:Take this same word and then add the word sekretariat. |
| Gina:Which means “secretariat”. Let’s see how that adds. |
| Nora:Menneskerettighetsorganisasjonssekretariatet. |
| Gina:"The secretariat of the human rights organizations." By the way, for those of you who don’t know, “secretariat” means a permanent administrative officer or department, usually working in a government. |
| Nora:Now add another word after that, say møte |
| Gina:Which is “meeting” in English. Let’s see how that stacks. |
| Nora:Menneskerettighetsorganisasjonssekretariatsmøtet. |
| Gina:“The meeting of the secretariat of the human rights organizations.” |
| Nora:We can even add one more word or a few more words, but really it only becomes quite silly form that point on. |
| Gina:The point here is that not only do you write this as one word, but you might have noticed that it is pronounced in one go as well. |
| Nora:If not, the words will be perceived as being split and lead to confusion. And trust me, when you pronounce words that long, you’re bound to stumble or run out of breath at some point. |
| Gina:Now if we don’t pronounce it as one word, but split them, we’ll have another problem where they might be perceived as two different words. Let’s look at some examples of how it sounds when that happens. |
| Nora:Lekebutikk. |
| Gina:“Toy shop.” And... |
| Nora:Leke butikk. |
| Gina:“Pretend shop.” Here, the meaning changed quite a lot. |
| Nora:From being a toy shop to being a play, a common past time of playful children. |
| Gina:Now, it’s easier to pronounce most compounds right, as opposed to writing them correctly. |
| Nora:However, remember just the general rule of thumb, which is - if you are unsure whether it should be a separate compound or a closed compound, always go for a closed compound. |
Outro |
| Gina:That was quite a lesson. I think we’ll stop here before it becomes too much. |
| Nora:Do feel free to listen again and to read the lesson notes! I really recommend you do! |
| Gina:Also leave a comment in our comment section. Thanks for listening, everyone. |
| Nora:See you next time! |
| Gina:Bye! |
| Nora:Hadet! |
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