Hey everyone! Today I am starting Norwegian after spending the last couple of days mapping out a fast track plan to fluency (I plan to study in Norway August 2023).
I am not a complete beginner, as I did study Norwegian a month or so relatively instensely 1 year ago, having had fallen in love with the sound of the language. However, I stopped as there appeared to be little chance of me using the language in my future (at that time I planned to study in Germany).
And, well, since then a lot has happened. I am currently in Colombia and have been here almost 6 months now and I am heading to Mexico for a 12 day trip soon. So, as you can imagine, I’ve been studying Spanish as I don’t get much opportunities to speak English here. This experience has been so great and I have been immersed in a totally new environment and met many new people. However, I am missing home a bit now and feel ready to head back to Uni.
That’s where Norway comes in. I’ve spent the last few weeks looking for a relevant course in Germany to study, having had planned to study in Germany. However, after hours and hours and hourssss of looking I really wasn’t satisifed with my options so I broadened the search and found a wonderful human nutrition program in the University of Bergen. I drew up a timeline, made the budgets and assessed my options. Finally, I decided that I would study in Norway and didn’t want to delay too much.
Hence, we come to the part where I have to reach a high C1 in a year. Is this realistic? Well, as you will see in my google doc below, I think it is. There I lay out my language learning approach and also estimate how many study hours I can accumulate before August next year. Furthermore, I will be aided by my previous studies and my fluency in English and German, maybe even a bit from Spanish too. So ultimately I think it can be done.
As for this blog, I will try keep you guys updated once a week (you can also look at my tracking log if you’re interested). If no one reads this, that is also okay, ultimately these will be something for me to keep accountable and look back on in the future. Perhaps in the next blog I can say a little bit about why I don’t just study in Australi jajaj
My boyfriend (who’s German), studied Norwegian for a bit more than a year before moving to Norway. The first semester (at the University of Bergen too, we actually met in Bergen!) he took classes in English + a Norwegian language class. By the end of the semester he was good enough to take normal classes in Norwegian for the 2nd semester. After a year of living in Norway he was pretty much fluent. He did go out of his way to really speak Norwegian with people though. Since most Norwegians speak pretty good English (not all though), they will switch to English really fast. I guess the best strategy is to go to Norway with a good enough level to actually keep a conversation in Norwegian so that the locals feel that :
Effort of speaking English > Effort of trying to understand your awkward Norwegian
It problably helped that his mother tongue was German, if that’s your case it will definitly help since you can guess your way out of most things. I’m French but studied German and it definitly helps for Norwegian (although I very far from being any good yet).
Anyways, good luck, Bergen’s a wonderful place. If you take Norwegian seriously it’s definitely possible to get somewhat good in a year, I’m not sure about C1, but a least good enough to make Norwegians want to speak Norwegian with you.
Wow, what an awesome way to meet each other! I am Australian, so English is my mother tongue and my German is ~B2 so I already have a decent feel for Norsk in terms of grammar and cognates.
How did he go with the Bergen accent? I must say, I find the Oslo accent much more aesthetic (sorry to any Norwegians from Bergen out there). Was accent something important for him? For me, I think mitigating accent is a great way to integrate.
C1 is ambitious but I have scheduled out months of intensive study/practise (alotttt haha) so we will see I guess. I am the human experiment.
Best of luck achieving high proficiency within a year. At the end of the day it will come down to whether you put in the time in an effective manner. If you have any questions I can certainly try and answer them.
The one thing I would caution is specifically settings sights on “C1”. It may be a need as part of the program, but I would really as much as possible try and focus on things you can directly control like time spent “på norsk” i stedet for er jeg flytande?
(Ultra) Reading while listening based on LingQ (see our posts in this forum reg. this technique).
And if you want to study at a university, I’d add some academic Norwegian to the mix and focus on academic writing.
Good luck and keep us updated on how your language experiment goes!
My current goal is to hit 2000 hours by August (taking some months off for intensive study)
I’ve already made some of my own Norwegian audios on audacity, after having completed the Mimic Method course a month ago.
I’ve been using (and really liking) clozemaster for the basic vocabulary and also a bit of Anki for sentences. As well as a random combination of online resources like CALTS, LearnNow etc.
Just had an Italki lesson and am thinking about doing Italki once every fortnight, so I don’t build any bad habits.
I’ve imported Harry Potter og Føniksordenen, started some mini-stories and Ragnarok on netflix.
I still have to look into pimsleur.
This time around I might follow a textbook as well, so I can mitigate the holes that pop up through a more structured approach. And I have found a few really good online C1 programs which incorporate a lot of writing with native teacher correction. And if I felt I wasn’t ready I would take a course in Norway too.
Danke danke, Ich werde Sie alle auf dem Laufenden halten!
If you are already doing some SRS, italki and engaging with native content I personally do not think you also need Pimsleur.
I would personally not recommend any of “Arbeidsbøkene” if you are looking at textbooks unless you are taking a class. Teori- and tekstbøkene would be more than enough as a reference point. Of them, I might recommend “Norsk grammakk - Norsk som andrespråk” just because it has everything and you do not need to buy multiple books.
Without any time pressure I do the same thing in Polish. My approach is to create a course full of exam texts ordered by proficiency level. I never open the lessons. They are just an indicator of how far I’ve gotten on my journey. Normally if there are around 5-10 % new words with a moderate number of LingQs the chances are high that you understand this text also in an exam situation (i.e. without LingQ help). With some practice you will perform well at the other skills as well.
It’s possible, if you manage to hold your motivation and your daily practice. You’ll have to be putting in a good amount of time everyday. Just be mindful of the lulls of motivation, which come, and try not to burn out.
