24 April 2002 (draft version -- work in progress)
send additions or corrections to norris.weimer@ualberta.ca

The motto of this list is "learning through sharing". The members of the list are mostly people trying to learn Norwegian, but there are also Norwegian teachers and Norwegians in the list. List members speak English, French, German, Polish, Portugese, Spanish and other languages.

Table of contents

How do I unsubscribe from norskklassen ?

How do I enter the æ ø å characters on my computer ?

Why learn Norwegian ?

• I am going to live or work in Norway.
• My girlfriend/boyfriend is Norwegian. (kjæreste)
• My mother/father/grandparents were Norwegian.
• I am going to visit Norway.
• I want to read Norwegian literature.
• It's fun.

Is learning Norwegian practical?

The strip was originally written in English, but in Norway, it is translated into Nynorsk.

In Norway, it is called Hårek den Hardbalne, and it is in Nynorsk. But it is not available on line in Norwegian.

Which Norwegian language should I learn ?

Norwegians feel strongly about their dialects, but (unlike some other countries) they manage to get along with each other anyway.

The Evolution of norsk
http://www.sprakrad.no/norma.htm (Norwegian)
[next version - something in English]

Norwegian is enough like English that it is not too hard for English speakers to learn how to read it.

How can I learn Norwegian ?

Text books and self-study courses

At the very least, you need a dictionary and a grammar book.

The most important thing is to do a little bit every day. If you spent an hour a day on it, you've got it made. If you only have ten minutes a day for Norwegian, you will still make progress. Again, the important part is not how long you study, but rather that you make it a regular habit.

There is a set of lessons available by e-mail. NorWord -- an introduction to Norwegian

When you sign up, you will be sent a short lesson each weekday for about six months.

The Less Commonly Taught Languages Project maintains a database of where Norwegian is taught in North America. You can search the database for colleges and universities, distance ed, summer courses and k-12.
http://carla.acad.umn.edu/LCTL/access.html

Summer courses in Norway

Courses for newcomers to Norway

Things to read

Newspapers on the Internet
Aviser i Norge på Internet

• Riksaviser
  
  Aftenposten http://www.aftenposten.no/
  Dagbladet http://www.dagbladet.no/
  Verdens Gang http://www.vg.no/
  
  
• Regionsaviser
  
  Bergens Tidende http://bt.no/
  Adresseavisen http://www.adressa.no/
  Stavanger Aftenblad http://www.stavanger-aftenblad.no/
  Fædrelandsvennen http:www.fedrelandsvennen.no
  Nordlys http://www.nordlys.no/
  (osv, see below)
  
  There are many more regionsaviser, too many to list here.
  See these pages for a more complete list of names and URLs:
  
  http://www.sv.no/eksternt/aviser.htm
  http://www.kvasir.no/c/media/newsp/
  
  
• Lokalaviser
  
  There are many lokalaviser, too many to list here.
  See these pages for a more complete list of names and URLs:
  
  http://www.kvasir.no/c/media/newsp/loc/
  
  
• Of special interest
  
  Dagens Næringsliv http://www.dn.no/
  focus: business news
  
  Klar Tale http://www.klartale.no/
  focus: easy to read
  weekly
  
  Forskning.no http://forskning.no/
  focus: science
  has some nynorsk content
  
  
• Other
  
  Nettavisen http://www.nettavisen.no/
  This newspaper does not have a printed version.
  
  
• See also :
  
  Radio/TV system's web pages often have newspaper-style content.
  
  
• Nynorsk
  
  The major newspapers are in Bokmål. If you are looking
  for Nynorsk, look for lokalaviser in western Norway (i.e. Rogaland,
  Hordaland, Sogn og Fjordane, and Møre og Romsdal). For example :
  
  Hordaland (Voss) http://www.avisa-hordaland.no/
  Grenda (Kvinnherad) http://www.grenda.no/
  Kvinnheringen (Kvinnherad) http://kvinnheringen.no/
  Sunnhordland (Stord) http://www.sunnhordland.com/
  

Norwegian Encyclopedia on the Internet

Proverbs, sayings, quotations, and expressions
Ordtak, ordspræk, sitat ...

Abakus http://www.Webland.no/Sitater/

Caplex - Dagens sitat http://www.caplex.net/

http://www.start.no/nyheter/
Look down the page for "dagen i dag" and "dagens sitat".

From a Universitetet i Oslo English course, a list of sayings :
http://www.hf.uio.no/iba/nettkurs/translation/misc/info10proverbs.html

This web site has a searchable database of quotations.
http://creativeproverbs.com/
It is in English, but it gives the country of origin.

Diary

http://huldra.evang.priv.no/dag/no.html
Seven years of an Oslo girl's diary in simple Norwegian. You can read it for weeks and weeks! If you catch up, you can still read something new almost every day.

Tegneserie
Comic Strips

Search engines
Søkemoterer

a Norwegian search engine
http://www.kvasir.no/

Google
http://www.google.ca/advanced_search
Go into the Advanced Search page of Google, and select Norwegian for Language, and put ".no" into the Domain field to only see pages from Norway.

Another Norwegian search engine (uses Google)
http://sok.start.no/

Norwegian Bookstores on the Internet

Children's books and web pages

Norsk fairy-tales

Audio books
Lydbøker

Norwegian movies

Non-Norwegian movies (DVD) with Norwegian subtitles

If you can get a DVD from a different region which does have a Norwegian feature, you have to have a special DVD player to play it, since normal DVD players willl only play DVDs from one region. Note also that the Norwegian DVD players normally use PAL format, not NTSC.

For a map of DVD regions, see :
http://www.unik.no/~robert/hifi/dvd/world.html

Internet radio and TV stations

It would be nice to find a consistent source of spoken material with the written transcript also available (as for a news report for example).

Here is a TV channel on the web which people like :
http://www.tv2.no/