Barneblad: Kan du snakke norsk?
Can you speak Norwegian? (and even a little Swedish …)
LORI ANN REINHALL
Editor-in-chief
The Norwegian American
This week’s Barneblad has to do with language, so we find ourselves on the Norsk Språk (Norwegian Langauge) page.
Often, we hear that Norwegian is so hard to learn, but we beg to differ: you already know a good deal! Norwegian and English are closely related languages, in fact, when the Vikings arrived in England about a 1,000 years ago, everyone could understand each other.
Today, there are still many “close friends” between the two languages. To prove this point, we would like to present you with a little quiz. Can you guess the meaning of the following Norwegian words?
Norwegian Quiz
- person
- man
- arm
- hand
- finger
- glass
- ski
- over
- under
- test
If you guessed that these Norwegian words mean exactly the same thing in English, then you have scored 100% on this test. You have just met 10 of the best friends between Norwegian and English, words that are also spelled exactly the same. Congratulations—with a little help with the pronunciation (also not so hard), you really can speak Norwegian!
With our focus on Sweden in this issue, you are probably wondering what these words are in Swedish. While not quite exactly the same, we are sure you can now read them without any problems at all!
Swedish Quiz
- person
- man
- arm
- hand
- finger
- glas
- skid
- över
- under
- test
This article originally appeared in the June 18, 2021, issue of The Norwegian American. To subscribe, visit SUBSCRIBE or call us at (206) 784-4617.
