Language course which
is designed to provide a complete introduction and self-study course
to the language, as well as a cultural and historical background to
the people. Each lesson in the textbook contains conversations based
on everyday situations, explanations of grammar and vocabulary
lists.
Данный аудиокурс идеально подходит
для самостоятельного изучения языка.
- Contents:
-
About this book
-
2 Hakon pa jobb 16
-
Hakon at work
-
3 Pa innkjop 29
-
Out shopping
-
4 Hjemme 40
-
At home
-
5 Familien 52
-
The family
-
6 Pahytta 62
-
At the holiday chalet
-
7 Et familiebesok 72
-
A family visit
-
8 Til bords 83
-
At the table
-
9 En vanlig dag 91
-
Everyday life
-
10 Skolen i Norge 103
-
Norwegian schooling
-
11 Vaeret 113
-
The weather
-
12 Togreiser 124
-
Travelling by train
-
13 1 byen
-
In town 136
Colloquial Norwegian
contains 20 lessons, each introducing about 100 new words. Each
lesson is built around a series of smaller units and includes: texts,
dialogues, grammatical explanations, examples of 'Language in use',
and exercises.
At the back of the book you will find a brief guide to Norwegian
pronunciation, a short review of main grammatical points, a key to
exercises, and English-Norwegian as well as Norwegian-English
glossaries.
Below, we explain in more detail about the aim of the various units
and the best way of working with them. If you are to derive maximum
benefit from the book, we suggest you should not skip this
introduction!
Texts
Norwegian is closely related to English, so the early texts aim to be
so simple that learners with English as their mother tongue will be
able to understand them in main outline if not always in detail.
Later, as the texts centre on more specialized subjects, each will be
furnished with word lists to help you understand.
The sentence structure in the texts is not normally difficult, but
some passages contain a vocabulary drawn from special areas. In such
cases we have found it useful to provide lessons with relevant
headings. Thus, there are many words concerning the weather in Lesson
11, (The weather'), and terms relating to parliamentary elections in
Lesson 20, entitled 'Life in Norway'.
The passages represent the written language and
are intended (a) to be generally informative, (b) to expand
vocabulary and (c) to illustrate grammatical points which are then
discussed immediately afterwards. You will then be able to
concentrate on those aspects of the
texts which are of most interest to you, in the sense that although
ideally you should learn all new vocabulary as it appears, this is
not strictly necessary if you want to move on. We do, however,
strongly advise you to use the passages as illustrations for the
Language sections immediately following. It is important for the
understanding of language that the examples given in these
grammatical sections should also be seen in context.
Dialogues
The dialogues represent the spoken language, which often cannot be
translated word for word. Here we are dealing mainly with phrases,
not words. This does not, however, imply that the dialogues are less
important. On the contrary, they contain the everyday language which
you will meet in the street, in the home, and anywhere else where
people communicate orally. Without this language of communication you
would find yourself in difficulties when faced with a situation in
which oral communication was necessary. We therefore advise you not
to neglect any of the dialogues. If you have the cassettes, you
should work with each of them in the following manner:
1 Listen to the dialogue until you can understand it. That will
inevitably take some time. Your first impression will be that the
readers speak very fast, but a deliberate attempt has been made to
maintain a normal speed so that the dialogue should not
. appear artificial. Listen first with the text before you, and then
with your, book closed. You can learn much merely by listening.
2 Now - with your book open - try to imitate the replies one by one.
You can do this by stopping your tape after each line of dialogue and
repeating it parrot-fashion. Make a real effort to get as close as
possible to both sound and intonation.
3 When you are satisfied with your efforts, you can test yourself as
follows: Play one line of the dialogue and answer it with the next
before playing that on the tape. As you play the taped version, you
will be able to decide for yourself where your mistakes (if any) lie.
Now, repeat the process, taking the part of the other speaker in the
dialogue.
The dialogues, like the texts, are also closely
related either to the 'Language points' or to the 'Language in use'.
Language points
We use as few grammatical terms as possible, but they can, of course,
not be avoided entirely, and therefore to help those learners who
have not previously had experience of grammatical terms - or have
forgotten them - we have tried visually to illustrate each new term
as we introduce it.
The general principle employed in introducing grammar is to go from
the easy to the more difficult. Thus, we do not aim at dealing with
verbs in their entirety first, then nouns, and so on.
No grammatical problem is introduced unless it has been illustrated
in the preceding text passage or dialogue. While working with the
grammar, you should therefore constantly keep an eye on the text
above.
We have used a series of patterns to help you with word order. This
method has a particular appeal to those whose method of learning is
visual. Moreover, a single pattern can often demonstrate what it
otherwise would take paragraphs of explanation to describe.
Naturally, these patterns do. not tell you every single thing about
Norwegian word order, but they indicate a very practical and usable
approach. To go further would demand a far more comprehensive
grammar.
You should take care to become familiar with the
grammar in Colloquial Norwegian as it is introduced. Each lesson is
based on the assumption that you have understood the grammar in the
preceding lessons, even if you have not learnt it thoroughly.
Language in use
These sections have more assorted contents, but are not less
important. They can, for instance, tell you what word is used in
such and such a situation, or simply contain common phrases that you
ought to know, but which you cannot be expected to construct for
yourself without further ado.
Exercises
These form an important part of the language teaching; they not only
practise and so reinforce the points that have been explained, but
also often introduce you to new vocabulary and features which
are built on. They should not be ignored. We, for our part,
have tried to vary them so that you won't get bored with them.
The key
There are many different types of exercises in
Colloquial Norwegian, and for some of them it is impossible to
provide you with a key. This applies particularly to those requiring
a personal answer from you. However, others can have other correct
answers different from those indicated in the key.
Ready-reference grammar
This is in no way intended to be a complete grammar. It merely
presents you with summaries of points that are otherwise dealt with
at different stages of the book. Thus, for instance, we do not
include numerals in this summary - but the index will tell you which
lesson you will find then in.
In the Ready-reference grammar you are also referred to the places in
the book where the specific word categories are dealt with.
Glossaries
There are two glossaries at the back of the book, English-Norwegian
and Norwegian-English.
The Norwegian-English glossary contains all the words appearing
in the book, with two exceptions: words that are easily recognizable
for learners with English as their mother tongue are omitted, as are
certain words that are translated where they appear in the main body
of the text.
The English-Norwegian glossary is not as comprehensive, although it
contains all the words necessary for doing the exercises. Nor does
this list contain all information on Norwegian words, so, in order to
discover, for example, inflections you will need to look up the
Norwegian word in the Norwegian-English glossary.
The language
Norway has a rather complicated language situation with two official
written languages: bokmal and nynorsk. The two are not fundamentally
different from each other, and if you know bokmal you will also be
able to understand nynorsk.
Bokmal is used in the cities, while nynorsk is mostly used in the
rural areas. Bokmal is the dominant of the two languages, with around
80 per cent of Norwegian pupils using it as their main language
at school.
The language in this book is bokmal. However, even within bokmal
there is a degree of choice. Certain forms and endings are more
formal and conservative than others. Formal bokmal can, for example,
do without a feminine gender, with all feminine nouns being treated
like masculines. In the vocabulary lists both choices are presented.
The language in this book is 'neutral', being neither particularly
conservative nor particularly informal, as you will find in most
textbooks.
The Norwegian alphabet
The letters 'c', 'q\ 'w', 'x' and 'z' are found in dictionaries, but
do not really belong to the Norwegian alphabet and are only used in
foreign loanwords. On the other hand, Norwegian has three extra
letters: 'ae', '0', 'a'; these are placed at the end of the alphabet
in that order.
