norwegian

Hi! It's me again with a line from the series Wisting. With my collegue, we disagree on the meaning of røyk here. As cigarette butts are central in the story, she thought it was about smelling of tobacco in the following line: "Og så lukter han surt, han lukter røyk." (recording of an abducted...

Hi! This is a line from a Norwegian TV series. I'd like to know if it's an expression, like "pull oneself together" or if it's about literally gathering stuff. The man speaking is a policeman who has just lived difficult moments (custody, risking his life catching a murderer) i morgen drar...

Hi! I have trouble understanding the meaning of "hokus pokus" here The context is a lawyer who answers journalists after they heard that he represents both a police officer accused with tampering with evidence and the man who had been sent to jail because of this evidence. He says they both...

I came across this phrase: Det kan virke som at jeg ikke gir deg nok oppmerksomhet... I was curious as to why the ikke is before gir in the second clause. Thanks!

Dear friends, I am looking for Norwegian idioms/phrases/sentence examples that use the Norwegian equivalent(s) of this English proverb: "Teaching fish how to swim" = Teaching grandmother to suck eggs. I have been given one: egget vil lære høna å verpe. Any other suggestion? Thank you.

I’m translating a small Norwegian article into English, and the author mentions that he purchased something for kr. 3,25. So I’m wondering, should I write that as 3.25 crowns or 3.25 kroner? A lot of sources I’ve seen have kept it as kroner, but they are mostly informal.

I know these two languages (at least bokmål) are quite close, however there are subtle differences, false friends, differences in word order and grammar. I have been looking for a book or resource about this but so far without success. Politikens forlag published some years ago...

Hey everyone, I'm trying to understand a trial scene in Knut Hamsun's Markens Grøde, and I'm not sure what exactly are the titles and positions of some of the elements here. The words I'm struggling with are: Lagretten, Lagmannen, Dommerne. My initial understanding was that this is a jury...

Det er to setninger: De skal komme hit over påsken De skal gå på kurs rett over jul Betyr det at begge handlingene vil skje "i løpet av" påske og jul eller "etter/etterpå" påske og jul?

Hi there. Can you help me understand the difference between ild v. brann? Both translate to "fire" in English. Going off a little research and cognates in Dutch, can I assume that: ild = the "substance" of fire ("vuur" in Dutch). Example: The candle's fire feels warm. brann = an instance of...

Hi everyone, there is a section in Knut Hamson's Markens Grøde when an expedition comes to survey for a copper mine, and each gentleman in the expedition has a title and a profession with some connection to the mining industry. here's the section: - det var en Bergkyndig iblant dem og en...

Hi everyone, It looks to me that there are two main ways of saying "there is... / there are..." in Norwegian: 'det er...' and 'det finnes...'. After looking at sources that use these two expressions, it looks like "det er..." is more colloqual and common and "det finnes..." is a higher...

Hello everybody: I would like to know the meaning of the verb "å bringe bud", could it probably be a fixed construction? I thought "å bringe et bud" was more correct and grammatical. Context: Den fargerike primulaen bringer bud om vår i vintermørket. Månedens blomst i februar er primula...

Would this sentence be correct? "Vet du hvorfor vi er her?" (Do you know why we're here?) I'm not sure if it should be "hvorfor er vi her". Thanks!

I have found sentences such as 'jeg er blitt spurt om..' and 'jeg har blitt invitert til..' and I'm not sure when do I have to use 'være' or 'ha' before the 'blitt + perfect' structure in passive voice sentence For example, to say.. 'I have being mentioned'.. is 'jeg er blitt nevnt' or 'jeg har...

Hey guys! What would a good translation for this be? Multiple options would be cool to have as well. Thanks

Hey guys! Is “jeg så ham i øynene” a good translation of this?

Hey everybody. I was wondering if "noen" can mean somebody in this context: "Bare noen kan gjøre noe slik ut". The meaning I'm going for is "Only someone can do something like this". Thanks in advance.

Hei alle sammen! While looking up the meaning of "gjenge" in the dictionary, I came across this sentence: "alt er kommet i gjenge igjen". (There is context beyond this.) I am not understanding that why this is "alt er kommet" instead of "alt har kommet": I guess the sentence means "everything's...

Hei alle sammen! I was watching Season 1 of NRK series "Side om side", and at the beginning of Episode 6, as a woman is walking by with shopping bags in her hand, her neighbours, enjoying themselves in the lawn (eating and talking), spot her and greet her, and then the woman walking by asks...

Hei! På tross av at jeg har bodd i Norge ganske lenge er jeg fortsatt i tvil når det gjelder bruk av dobbel bestemmelse. Slik som jeg forstår det, forekommer det dobbel bestemmelse ikke bare i forbindelse med denne/dette men også med andre ord som virker bestemmende (jeg tillot meg å kalle dem...

Hei alle sammen! In a sentence I came across in a book for children ("Alice Andersen"), there's the phrase "... hun bare føler på seg at det blir trøbbel". I know that "føler seg" means to feel, to feel like, but there's "føler på seg" here, though it seems the same to me as "føler seg". I...

When I looked it up, it's translated as "other", but it doesn't make sense to me in this context: Mailboksen står stille, tempoet er et helt annet, og man har rett og slett bare lov til å ikke gjøre noe som helst. I thought at first it meant "something else", like in the colloquial English...

I was reading a blog and came across this word, but couldn't find it in the dictionaries that I used. Below is the sentence: Alt går litt treigere, og det finnes ikke noe som er diggere enn å ikke trenge og tenke på hverken tidsfrister eller en agenda. After searching, I think it means "like"...

Hei! I came upon the following sentence while reading an ad of a gym: "For å opprettholde motivasjonen og resultatene, har vi laget flere treningsprogrammer som er tilpasset gutta." I understood that "gutta" must be meaning something like "for boys/men", but is "gutta" some dative form of...

Hei igjen! In the same episode description of "Side om side", there is the phrase "Jonas sin nye diett". Does that literally mean "Jonas' his new diet"? Why both Jonas and "sin": shouldn't it have been just "Jonas nye diett"? (The complete sentence is as follows: "Jonas sin nye diett og Frodes...

Hei! I was reading an episode description from the TV series "Side om side", and I was surprised to read this sentence: "Maria og Jonas vil integreres i sitt nye nabolag" Why not "deres nabolag"? Maria and Jonas are a couple, so they have been taken as one entity, is that why it's "sitt"...

Any suggestion for a standard English phrase that describes "growing up conditions"?

Hei alle sammen! I was checking the meaning of "fremmed" (unknown, alien) in my hardback dictionary, and a couple of expressions it gives are: "det er fremmed for meg": I know nothing about it. "det er meg fremmed": it is alien to my nature. Now, unfortunately, there is no context as such...

why is it possible to say denne gang instead of denne gangen?

Hey, everyone I'm having difficulties understanding the meaning of this word in the following sentence: Uansett hvor dårlig de fungerer, så ligger den drømmen og slurer i dem. De sitter fast, og det er ødeleggende. I thought perhaps it means something like "the dream is slipping from their...

I was trying to create a list of ten words for each letter — as a small vocabulary building exercise —; however, it became very (ovleg...as one of my words taught me) difficult with the vowels at the end. I apologise if they have a specific name which I do not ken well. I started digging...

Hey everyone, these are words I've never encountered before and I'm not sure what they mean from the context. 1. Jeg husker plastkantlistene på rommet der jeg lå Are these some kind of floor panels? 2. Hver eneste hverdagslige transportetappe kan plutselig bli en verden av farer og...

Hello everyone :) I'm trying to translate the profile of a seal into English. It is a female bearded seal (Bella) that lives in the Polaria in Tromsø. This is the sentence: "Hun liker nye utfordringer og kan være veldig energisk, men samtidig bestemt og viser klart og tydelig når hun kjeder...

Hei hei alle sammen! I am having a bit of a difficulty in understanding "øve inn" and "øve opp". "øve" itself, I understand, means to practise or to perform. Hence the online ordbok gives examples such as "øve seg på ski", which I understand to mean to practise skiing (oneself). Then the...

Hi I'm in the process of translating a document with info on a range of building projects, and one is a new administration building, with a "vektbu og innkjørsel". I suspect vektbu should probably read vaktbu? Any description anyone can provide of what one is/contains would be great, and the...

Out of curiosity, are there any words young children (under 10) might say to their family members other than the official word for that family member? (A 'child word' might be ma/mama or da/dada for mom and dad). The various words for mom and dad are quite easy to figure out, but is there a...

This phrase is from a simple story about a guy washing his hands. It is translated, "He sets himself by the sink", but when I look the phrase up, all the contexts are about grooming or taking care of something/someone. Here is the phrase in its entirety: Han steller seg ved vasken og setter på...

Hello. This is a question regarding all pseudo-tonal languages (i.e., those that feature phonemic pitch accent) of Europe (e.g. Norwegian, Swedish, Lithuanian, Latvian, Slovene and Serbo-Croatian). How often is it the case that you mispronounce a word using an incorrect toneme (or that you...

Hello. I would expect compound nouns like Bergenshalvøyen, Trondheimsfjorden and Trønderbanen to be pronounced [ˈbærɡn̩sˌhɑlːœʏən] (with tone 1 as in bønder), [²trɔn(h)æɪmsˌfjuːɳ̍] (with tone 2 as in bønner) and [ˈtrœnːdərˌbɑːnən] (again with tone 1 as in bønder). This analysis would very likely...

Hello. What is the Standard East Norwegian pronunciation of Lillehammer? Wikipedia clearly doesn't indicate how it's pronounced in Oslo but rather how it's pronounced locally. What I hear on Forvo is either [ˈlɪləhɑmər] (with accent 1 as in bønder) or [²lɪləhɑmər] (with accent 2 as in bønner)...

Hi! This is a dialogue from the series Unge lovende. Erik is a 9 year old boy, Håvard is his dad and Nenne is his dad's new girlfriend. Erik: nei, Pappa stopp. Ikke klage når du ikke har bidratt, din forhud Håvard: Hva var det du kalte meg? Erik: Forhud Nenne: Du er jo litt en forhud da. Du...

Hi! I didn't expect it so soon but I'm back with another season of the Norwegian Series Unge lovende to translate into French (via an English translation of the script) Here is something I don't get. Alex has invited her new boyfriend to celebrate Christmas at her mothers'. She asks him what...

I would like to refer someone for this position. Er det Jeg vil henvise noen til denne stillingen ?

Hei alle sammen! I was reading about the resignation of the CEO of a big sports chain in Norway. In the press article (here), there's a sentence like this: "Bjerknes henviser for øvrig til en Facebook-post der han erkjenner han at avgangen er overraskende, men sier det absolutt ikke er noe...

I am posting this on behalf of a fellow "memriser" (i.e. we both use memrise for learning languages). The person in question wrote this on the memrise forum for Norwegian, but nobody is answering so I thought I would try here: "The gender “en”, common and “et”, neutral determine the endings of...

Hei alle sammen! I came across this sentence in a dictionary: "Det ser ut til at ingen visste hva som var hendt." Sorry, as it's from a dictionary, there's no context as such, but I guess it means "It appears that no one knew what had happened." Now my question is about the "til at" part. I...

Consider the following sentence: The islands of Funen and Zealand are separated by the Great Belt strait. Which of the following options (if either) would the Scandinavian languages prefer for translating the highlighted phrase? 1) Storebælt strædet (da) / Storebælt sundet (no) / Stora Bält...

Hei alle sammen! I came upon the phrase "En tullete formulering" here. The article is saying, as far as I understood, that in Norway those who are without papers are afraid to go the doctors, until a health emergeny arises, when they are helped, as the law says then you can help them. Then, it...

Hei alle sammen! I came upon this sentence in a dictionary (hence, there's no context, but I guess that won't be required, as my issue is about the grammar): "Jeg vil ha mine utgifter dekket". Now I understand that "dekket" is the past participle of the verb "dekke", acting as kind of an...