Language/30 Norwegian

Reviewed by: Norris Weimer

Language/30 Norwegian Norsk
Educational Services Corporation, Washington, D.C.
1993

http://www.language30.com/
ISBN 0910542678

"Learn while driving, exercising ..."
"These courses are basic, beginning courses."
"You will not become totally fluent..."

Language/30 is a series which covers 33 languages. I've only tried out this one. But if there is any series where one could say "if you've seen one, you've seen them all", this may be it. Not that other works aren't also based on a formula, but rather, the formula used in this one is *so* simple.

I'm a little bit curious about the history of this series, partly because of the way it is advertised. It claims to be based on "widely acclaimed, accelerated learning method developed for U.S. Government personnel". But I suspect that these methods date from before 1948. I don't know what exactly it is based on, but this course could be described as "rote learning", which isn't exactly "widely acclaimed" these days. The other curiosity is that Charles Berlitz delivers an introduction on some versions. There must be some history to that.

This product consists of two audio cassettes and a phrase book. The phrase book is not much more than a transcript of the tapes.

The format of the tapes is simple. It is organized by topic: "everday expressions", "introductions", "the weather", "at the hotel", etc, as you might expect for something aimed at the travel market. Within each topic, it is just a list of phrases. They give the English, then the norwegian, then the norwegian again, then a short pause.

So much for the facts. Now for my opinions. I have two concerns with these tapes. First, who are they good for? And second, does this work?

I don't have any complaints about the Norwegian spoken (it is said to be a West Oslo accent); it seems natural enough. I do have a complaint about the English spoken though -- it's so slow and so carefully enunciated that you would think the target language is English. It just sounds pedantic to me, as if it were saying "listen real carefully now boys and girls, this is really important!", but of course I already know the English.

If I were the editor of this series, the first thing I would do would be to cut out all the English. That may sounds drastic, but why *is* the English there? It comes *before* the Norwegian, so it ruins your chance to hear the Norwegian phrase and try to understand it. It would be better to have the Norwegian first -- until you can recognize the phrase as it is spoken. Only *after* you are able to do that would you turn it back around so that when given the English prompt would you try to come up with the Norwegian phrase. Even so, it would still only be the audio equivalant of flash cards, and only part of what you need to learn Norwegian.

I don't know how many times you would have to listen to these tapes to learn them, but I'm pretty sure that you will not be able to listen to them that many times, since they will become either boring or annoying.

Another fault is that sometimes it degenerates into a list of words rather than using full sentences. For example, "where can I buy fruit?" is okay, but then instead of asking "where can I buy apples?", it just says "apples", then "bananas", and so on through a long list. What context there was is lost. The repetition wouldn't have hurt.

Actually, if I were the editor, I wouldn't put it on a cassette at all. Cassettes just keep on running, especially while you are driving, To learn material like this the tape just *has* to stop and wait for you after each phrase. One, because beginners need more time to think, and two, because there has to be *some* interaction. If the tape just keeps going, it's going to fade out of your attention span and become mere background noise. I guarantee you that you will not learn anything if you don't pay attention! The learning comes from having to think, not from mechanical repitition. But in any case, nobody can memorize phrases in a strange new language in such big batches.

So as editor, I would computerize this material so that I could vary the order and wait for you to click (at least) before going to the next phrase. But even so, would it work? Can you learn a useful amount of a language without learning any grammar at all? Even if you could remember the right phrase at the right time during on your trip to Norway, would you have any hope of understanding the response?

So who is this product good for? I don't see it being helpful to travellers. It certainly doesn't teach the language, and it doesn't seem like it is even the proper first step for learning the language. It may be most useful for people who already know enough of the language so that it is not all new and strange to them -- people for whom it would be more for practice and review than for learning. For these people, the spoken Norwegian might be a valuable resource; too bad it's not in a better format.

For learning Norwegian while driving, there must be something else??? Audio versions of children's books perhaps?

Further comments by: Pierre Thomson

I got this same set from our local library last year, and I share Norris's conclusion: it's very old and very boring. It could perhaps serve as an introduction to the spoken language for someone with a basic knowledge of the written language. I listened to it two or three times before I got so bored that I stopped. I was afraid it would totally kill my enthusiasm for the language!

My copy had a 1975 copyright date, but I suspect that the material pre-dates that. For a language that is less than 100 years old and in continuous evolution, that is too old. The tapes use expressions like "omforlatelse" and "på gjensyn" which today's youth would consider old-fashioned or formal, as well as using the formal "De" throughout.

My advice would be, if you are looking for a beginning Norwegian course, look a bit farther.