Learn how to greet an old friend in Norwegian, plus some common questions and answers you'd encounter in this scenario
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Filip: Hi everyone, I am Filip. |
| Becky: And I’m Becky. Welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Lower Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 5 - Meeting an Old Friend in Norway |
| Filip: In this lesson, you’ll learn general phrases and questions for when you reunite with old acquaintances, or just meet someone after a long time. Kjersti and her childhood friend Lars, meet randomly on the street, and stop for a small conversation. |
| Becky: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Becky: Now Norway is a small country, right? |
| Filip: Yep, small country, small population. Around 5 million. So the chance that you’ll meet a familiar face randomly on the street is very high. |
| Becky: And this is especially true for the larger cities. But in smaller hamlets and villages, things are a bit different. There you are likely to meet people more than often... |
| Filip: ...and so it might not feel as special as when you meet someone you haven’t seen for a long time, even though you both live in the same city. |
| Becky: In cities like Bergen and Oslo it’s not always easy for people to keep in regular contact, and that’s why it’s more likely that you’ll be surprised about meeting someone randomly there, for example in the same cafe or bar. |
| Filip: Among friends you meet around once or twice every other week, it’s common to say “Hi, how are you?” when you first meet them. It isn’t as enthusiastic as our characters were in the dialogue, but they hadn’t met for a long time. |
| Becky: And it’s exactly with those people that you haven’t seen for six months, maybe a year or even several years, that you exclaim enthusiastically “Long time no see!” |
| Filip: Who knows, you might even meet some friends from home while visiting Norway. If you do, then this lesson will come in handy! Try greeting each other in Norwegian! |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Becky: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Filip: Alright, the word ‘Siden’ can have two meanings in Norwegian. The first one is the one we saw in the dialogue. ‘Lenge siden sist or siden sist vi møttes.’ |
| Becky: Those are “Long since last” and “Since we last met” respectively. This is direct translation by the way, and is not based on any context. Now, for the other usage of ‘siden’ you have to look to the English word “the side”. |
| Filip: “The side”, since ‘siden’ is the singular definitive form of “side”. It can be used in a sentence like this ‘den ene siden eller den andre.’ |
| Becky: “this side or the other”. Now the next word is a bit of a no-brainer, but it still deserves some attention. ‘Wow.’ Norwegians like to adopt English words, and while this might not be that popular with the older generation, it is certainly used a lot, and part of daily speech for anybody under 50. |
| Filip: Now, on to the next two words. We haven’t done that much grammar in this series, and we haven’t talked about plural nouns, or how to conjugate these. As a small remedy for that, we’ll introduce these two words that don’t change whether they’re plural or singular. |
| Becky: Mind you, this only counts for the indefinite form of the word and not the definite. In other words, the form where you’d put an “a” or “an” in front of the noun in English, and not “the”. |
| Filip: The two nouns are ‘barn’ and ‘år’. If you say ‘barn av verden’, it could either mean... |
| Becky: “Children of the world” or “Child of the world.” |
| Filip: The same applies if you say ‘flere år’ or ‘ett år’. |
| Becky: This translates as ”several years” or “one year”. Now let’s look at some more examples using the words we just explained. |
| Filip: Right. ‘Se på den andre siden av gjerdet’ |
| Becky: “Look at the other side of the fence” |
| Filip: Wow, er det virkelig deg? |
| Becky: Wow, is that really you? |
| Filip: Jeg har to barn på to år.. |
| Becky: This one’s a bit tricky, but it should translate as “I have two children of two years of age”. Okay, let’s move on to the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Becky: In this lesson, you’ll learn about greetings and questions related to reunions with people you haven’t seen for a long time. |
| Filip: To do this, we’ll analyse Lars and Kjersti’s short conversation. |
| Becky: So first up we have “Long time no see”. |
| Filip: ‘Lenge siden sist!’ It’s the most common way of greeting people after not having had contact for some time. |
| Becky: It directly translates to “Long since last”, but there’s no phrase like that in English. |
| Filip: Now, after the first person has said ‘Hei [name] lenge siden sist!’ the other person is likely to respond with some similar version of that phrase. Then they’ll counter with the question ‘Hvordan har du det?’ |
| Becky: In natural English, this translates as “How are you doing?” Literally translates as “How have you it?” But that doesn’t sound right in English. Now, the factory response to this question would be...? |
| Filip: Det går bra. |
| Becky: Which means “I am doing well” or in literal translation “It goes well.” Can you start to see the pattern here now? Asking how “it” goes. |
| Filip: It’s definitely a quirky way of asking, but that’s how the phrase goes. Now to stitch together the whole conversation we’ve now got: |
| Filip: Hei Lars! Lenge siden sist! |
| Filip: Hei Kjersti!, Jo lenge siden sist! Hvordan har du det? |
| Filip: Det går bra! og du? |
| Filip: Det går bra med meg og! |
| Becky: This shouldn’t be too hard to remember. |
| Filip: Also notice how in the last two lines the first speaker asked ‘og du’? Which means.. |
| Becky: “and you?” |
| Filip: Exactly, quite similar to how Kjersti asked in the dialogue ‘og med deg’? |
| Becky: “and with you?” Now both questions are great to have in your arsenal, because they quickly fire the same question back at the person who asked first. |
| Filip: Also notice how the second speaker in the scenario answered. ‘Det går bra med meg og!’ Did you hear the ‘med meg og!’ part? |
| Becky: It translates as “with me too” or “with me as well”. Finally, Kjersti also said ‘Takk’ before responding to the question. This is just polite, and can easily be put into a conversation like that to show a bit of gratefulness for being asked. For the sake of practice, let’s look at some other ways your reunion conversation could go down. Alright, all these examples are variations on the greetings. |
| Filip: Hei, lenge siden! Hvordan går det? |
| Becky: “Hi, It’s been a long time. How are you?” Although literally this would translate as “Hi, long since! How goes it?” |
| Filip: Det går bra, takk. Hvordan går det med deg? |
| Becky: “I am fine thank you. How are you doing?” Literally though this means “It goes well, thanks. How goes it with you?” |
| Filip: Hei, vi har ikke sett hverandre på lenge! |
| Becky: “Hi, we haven’t seen each other in a long time!” This one could be more or less be translated word for word. |
Outro |
| Filip: Well, that concludes our lesson. |
| Becky: Take your time to listen to this lesson again and read the lesson notes to make sure you take everything in. And we’ll see you next time! Hade. |
| Filip: Bye! |
Comments
Hide