Learn more about the top five mistakes people make when learning Norwegian pronunciation
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Filip: Norwegian pronunciation series, lesson 5. Common Norwegian pronunciation mistakes. |
| Jack: Welcome back to pronunciation series. I'm Jack. |
| Filip: And I'm Filip. We are now at the last lesson in this series. |
| Jack: That’s right. You’ve come such a long way. In this lesson, we are going to teach you another important aspect of Norwegian pronunciation. |
| Filip: This one is the big one. So make sure you listen carefully. |
| Jack: Once you are done with this one, you will be on your way to having great Norwegian pronunciation. So what topic are we covering in this lesson? |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Filip: In this lesson, we will be going over the top 5 pronunciation mistakes in Norwegian. |
| Jack: Yes and it’s important that you, our listeners are familiar with them so that you can minimize them when you speak. |
| Filip: That’s right. What’s our first one? |
| Jack: Tip #1 is to remember to roll your [r's] |
| Filip: Remember that in Norwegian, the letter [r] is not pronounced in the same way as it is in English. |
| Jack: Yeah that’s right. You don’t want to end up sticking out like a sore thumb. And one of the ways that people can detect a foreign accent over the phone is by the way you pronounce this particular sound. |
| Filip: For example, if you want some tickets to the cinema, you say [billetter] not [billettur] |
| Jack: Yeah but if you aren’t that steady on the rolling [r] you can use the [guttural R] as we saw in our dialect lesson. |
| Filip: The French sounding [R] might be hard for some speakers but easier for others. Okay so what’s our next pronunciation tip? |
| Jack: Tip #2 is used to correct vowels. |
| Filip: Right. A common mistake foreigners make is that they apply their native vowel sounds to their Norwegian pronunciation. |
| Jack: Well, it’s because it might be hard to adapt to Norwegian vowels. |
| Filip: So make sure you practice the Norwegian vowels extra hard, because it is highly unfortunate if you end up pronouncing [kake] like |
| Jack: Cake. |
| Filip: Or if you pronounce [smile] as |
| Jack: Smile. |
| Filip: Exactly. There are numerous Norwegian words that are spelled or look similar to English. Their meaning are often the same too. However speak Norwegian with English vowels and you will end up speaking English all the same. |
| Jack: Tip #3 is mind your consonants. |
| Filip: This is also important. |
| Jack: Although this might be somewhat familiar to native English speakers, it is an important point nonetheless. |
| Filip: Especially in words with single consonants, the pronunciation can be quite tricky. [laken] as opposed to [lakken] |
| Jack: The first means bed sheets and the second means lacker. |
| Filip: Right. Or [kjære] and [kjerre] |
| Jack: Which mean darling and cart respectively and how about the triple consonants? |
| Filip: Three consonants in a row are usually set up as a double consonant and a third different consonant. For example [busstopp] bus stop as we have heard in an earlier lesson. |
| Jack: Right. So you pronounce the first part with double consonant, then start the next part of the word with the third one, almost like when combining two words in English, right? |
| Filip: Correct indeed. What’s the next tip we have? |
| Jack: Tip #4 is to learn to be comfortable with non-native sounds as soon as possible. |
| Filip: Remember that Norwegian has many sounds that simply do not exist in English language and that is a problem for most English speakers learning Norwegian. |
| Jack: Right. It might take you a lot of practice before you manage to pronounce some of the sounds correctly. |
| Filip: I know. Even as native speakers, we have problems pronouncing some of them naturally. |
| Jack: So it is very important that you listeners make sure to practice the sounds that aren’t familiar to you. |
| Filip: Yeah for example the sj like in the word [sjø] or the kj in [kjenne] |
| Filip: Right. So what is the last tip we have for everyone? |
| Jack: Tip #5 is to watch out for similar sounding words. Now this could happen in any language but Norwegian is full of seemingly similar words. Paired with pitch accent, it makes it literally impossible to know how to pronounce the word correctly without having heard it first. |
| Filip: Right. |
| Jack: What about some examples? |
| Filip: Well we have the sh examples above or what about this [man, mann] and [man] |
| Jack: Okay so what is the difference here? |
| Filip: The difference is stress on different parts of the words [man, mann] and [man] |
| Jack: And what do those mean? |
| Filip: [man] means one, the pronoun, [mann] means man or male and [man] means main. |
| Jack: Yikes. The two latter are actually pretty similar in English too though. So if you didn’t get the difference in pronunciation just now, make sure you listen again. |
| Filip: Yes one more time [man, mann] and [man] |
Outro |
| Jack: All right. Those were our top five tips for avoiding pronunciation mistakes in Norwegian. |
| Filip: Remember to keep practicing. |
| Jack: We can’t stress this enough. Listening and repeating is the quickest way to get these sounds down. |
| Filip: That's it for this lesson and for this introduction series. |
| Jack: We hope we given you a good introduction to the Norwegian Language and culture. |
| Filip: Thanks for listening. |
| Jack: See you again at NorwegianClass101.com |
| Filip: Hadebra! |
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