Here are a few words on the Norwegian language--
A lot of words in Norwegian look or sound like words in English. The words on the right are the Norwegian equivalents of the English words on the left--
snow: snø
grass: gress
open: åpen
school: skøle
fish: fisk
thirsty: tørst
frog: frosk
egg: egg
It turns out that the Norwegian and English languages are distant relatives of one another (both are classified as belonging to the Germanic family of languages, along with a number of other languages, including Danish and Dutch.)
Some of the similarity between English and Norwegian also stems from the fact that the Vikings occupied part of England centuries ago, and brought with them some words--such as egg--which became incorporated into English.
The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters--the three additional letters are æ, å, and ø.
There are two versions of Norwegian: Nynorsk and Bokmål. Bokmål, which is very similar to Danish, is by far the more common, and is what most books are printed in. Nynorsk is preferred in some rural areas of the country.
Google Translate has been a valuable tool as I work to help my sons learn their lessons. Their textbooks (save for the textbook for their English class) are all in Norwegian, so I've been sitting down at the computer typing in phrases to help them translate their lessons. In these sessions, I'm trying to help them both learn the content of the lessons and to learn Norwegian words and phrases. I've found that history, which tends to be written in a straightforward style, is easier to translate than fictional stories, which sometimes have a bit of Norwegian slang or idiom that Google Translate simply doesn't fathom. Here's some text from Mark's history textbook--can you figure it out without resorting to electronic solutions?
Gjennom Egypt renner elva Nilen. Den er verdens lengste elv....For over 5000 år siden begynte egypterne å bygge diker og kanaler.
At the same time, guessing what a word is based on its apparent resemblance to an English word has its hazards. For example, applesinjuice is not apple juice, but rather orange juice.
We can also have our computer do an instantaneous translation of the online edition of the local newspaper. However, the sometimes mystifying results demonstrate the shortcomings of electronic translation. One article about the recent midterm elections in America had the following headline:
"Displays willingness to swallowing tax camel after election."
Norwegians make it a point to teach English to students in grade school. People who work in stores and banks usually have some varying degree of familiarity with English. Walter's and Mark's classmates, for example, have a class in the English language. The goal is to help Norwegian kids navigate the rest of the world. I've been able to go shopping, run errands, and have conversations with the parents of other schoolkids while using English.
The weather is getting gradually colder. So far, there has only been a little bit of snø, and that melted immediately.
