Oslo Local Customs

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When it comes to public transport, we're quite uncivilized people. We follow the “first come first served” philosophy*. We don't wait in line to enter the bus, metro or train. We don't give up our seats to the elderly, pregnant and/or disabled people. *. So that's why a campaign has started to educate us. We’re still in training, so please be patient with us! I have tried to teach my dog to wait in line, with bad results, but I have finally realized it would be unreasonable to expect anything more.

So if you think you can help us, seriously we need help!!

* Just make sure they are really old/pregnant/disabled before making this offer.

We all speak English here, so you don't need to speak Norwegian, but if you want to make a good impression, you should learn some basic word and phrases.

For more information about the Norwegian language, se my local custom tips...

Attractions sound file

Vigelandsparken

vikingskipsmuseumet

Kon-Tici museumet

Holmenkollen

Bogstadveien

Karl Johansgate

butikk shop

åpningstider opening hours


cafe/restaurant
sound file

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7G1mMGdLuM

meny menu

kan vi se menyen? kan we see the menu?

kan vi bestille? can we order?

kaffe /te coffee/tea

med sukker uten sukker with sugar/ no sugar

med ost, uten ost with cheese, no cheese

geitost goat cheese

melk milk

saft

saft/juice juice

vann water

ta med /sitte her take away/ eat here

dagens middag today's special

barnemeny child menu

fisk kjøtt hamburger pomfri fish, meat, hamburger, pommes frittes

vafler waffles
rømme sour cream
syltetøy jam

kan vi få regningen? can we have the bill (please)?

regning/bill

Har du noen rimeligere alternativer? Du you have something less expensive?

du skal ikke få noe tips! no tip for you!

transport

billett

enkeltbillett

månedskort

barn/voksen child adult

t-bane metro

trikk tram

tog train

buss bus

forsinket

billettkontroll

ruters reisegaranti

and some words I hope you won't need

dette er et ran this is a robbery

Få pengene ellers skyter jeg, give me the money or I shoot. The robbers will often alter their dialect for not being recognized but we have yet to hear the New Norwegian version;)

bombe bomb

våpen gun

er det en lege her ? is there a doctor (mp) here?

stygg ulykke/ terrible accident

vi trenger en ambulanse/ we need an ambulanse

ring 113 ( en, en tre) / call 113

masse blod/ a lot of blood

legevakt/sykehus/fastlege emergency building , hospital, general practitioner

han er død, han vil overleve he´s dead, he will survive

det brenner! , it¨a fire
brannvesenet/ fire department

Krisesenter woman shelter

Janteloven (The law of Jante" was written by the author Aksel Sandemose in 1933 and was first presented in his work " en flyktning krysser sitt spor" or in English : " A fugitive crosses his tracks". This unwritten law can tell us something about the humans inherent abilty to suppress each other down and their evilness which we were all born with according to Sandemose

The Law goes like this:

1. Thou shalt not presume that thou art anyone [important].

2 Thou shalt not presume that thou art as good as us.

3.Thou shalt not presume that thou art any wiser than us.

4. Thou shalt never indulge in the conceit of imagining that thou art better than us.

5. Thou shalt not presume that thou art more knowledgeable than us.

6. Thou shalt not presume that thou art more than us [in any way].

7. Thou shalt not presume that that thou art going to amount to anything.

8. Thou art not entitled to laugh at us.

9. Thou shalt never imagine that anyone cares about thee.

10. Thou shalt not suppose that thou can teach us anything*

This is a very normal way for foreigners to see Norwegians. So for some people this filosophy rules in Norway. There's not enough room for individuality. Vi are group people not individuals.

So very often people who's want do be different from other people feel this unwritten law. You can't be too sucessful, earn to much money, send your kids to an expensive privat school without beeing critizied.

Bygdedyret is a local variant.

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In Oslo which is an established city you'll have to make an effort to make friends but it's not wise being too eager

What you should not say is "I want to be your friend can we meet tonight?"* . Then we'll run!!

You have to take it easy on us. Ask us about Norway (even things you already know). Compliment on our excellent English (even if you don't think it's that impressive) Try to see if you have something in common

Try some small talks at the beginning, and then you can try to move forward, maybe ask if they want to join you to a Cafe or something informal. Don't expect a home invitation.

You have to take the initiative but try not to be too intense even if it you're impatient. It can be quite a challenge.

I believe that the best way to get Norwegian friends is to join some kind of an organization. Trying to make friends without any connections can be very difficult. I'm an Oslo girl myself and all of my friends come from different kinds of groups, I didn't just meet them on the tram on my way to work.

Or if you just want to talk to the locals, you should invest in a small and quite puppy, or maybe a little pig. We love pets!

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In the middle of the 1970’s we were introduced to skate boards. The politicians were in panic when hearing about the entire damage statistic in countries, which didn’t have any restrictions.So Miljødepartementet the (Ministry of Environment) ruled against in in 1976, the restriction included import industry, advertisement, everything that could be used in order to produce a skate board.
The restriction lasted for 12 years. The police had no longer the authority and capacity to keep track with the influence from other countries and they had to re-legalize it.

But not everyone agreed that the ban had been wasted.
Like one reporter in BBC announced in the TV program “the unbelievable truth”: it’s annoying and they were right, and I don’t know what madness came over them in 1989 for them to re-legalize it.

Britain and BBC has always been our role model. In 1967 when they introduced their TV viewers to colors, our television company NRK ruled against it frightening of the consequences to our viewers if they thought that all saw on TV would represent reality. And we didn’t need that luxury anyway. So the programs produced in colors where converted to black and white by NRK. So in 72, an sa trial colors were introduced.

You’re only allowed to buy alcohol from 0800 to 18PM, every day. The days before Sundays and other bank holidays, there will be no sale after 3PM., but there are no restrictions the day before Ascension Day.

So in order to fix this problem, most people just buy some more beer.

According to some of our very old rules (Gulatingsloven), farmers were at risk of losing their living hood if they did not brew beer their own beer at least every third year.

The sawmill is not allowed to advertise for their legal products

you are not allowed to smoke in other places than outdoors and private companies. You can buy tobacco in your local grocery store, but the store is not allowed to show of the goods. So you have to ask for it yourself and reveal your bad habits to everybody in the store.

When you reach the age of 70 you are no longer allowed to be a bus driver. You can still drive a car, or take foreign assignments.’

You are not allowed to compete in Taekwondo when you turn 35.

Buying sexual services is considered a crime, but selling sex doesn’t make you a criminal.

You are not allowed to sell tickets on the black marked, but you shouldn’t worry about the consequences, we don’t have any sanctions.

can last forever... we hold a world record in long lasting dinner parties.

You're not only supposed to eat dinner but the host probably also want you to spend the evening/night with them, drinking coffee and eating cakes. We're not like the Americans that leave right after dinner. In Norway leaving right after dinner is considered odd or impolite unless the host already knows your schedule.

When you're invited to a Norwegian dinner party, you should ask, if you should bring anything, share the cost. A bottle of wine could be a nice gift, if they drink alcohol, pastries chocolate, flowers (not white flowers, they're used at funerals)

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We have a national police force with approximately 12 000 employees in 27 police districts.

The most important tasks of the police is to prevent criminal offences, The police work with other authorities such as child welfare services, schools and health services

Norwegian legislation regarding alcohol and drugs are more stricter than other European countries.
It's forbidden to drink alcohol in public places such as in the streets or in parks.

Driving car is prohibited even after drinking small amounts of alcohol.

severe sentences may be imposed for the possession of even small amounts of illegal drugs.

The police in Norway and Oslo has received a great deal of criticism
after the tragic incidences in Oslo and Utøya Island, where 77 people died. They were not prepared for a task like this, they did not have a police helicopter available and it took them 90 minutes to get there and arrest the perpetrator. The radio channel P4 had a helicopter but they couldn't do anything else than taking pictures. Some of the kids thought they were in safe when they heard the helicopters, for later being shot by ABB.

In order to investigate the Utøya tragedy, 150 skilled police officers
will be a part of this new commission. We don't have enough police in Oslo left in Oslo. So I'm a bit worried for the safety of my city. New crimes will occur, another terror attack might happen

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Norwegian belongs to the Germanic language family. We have many words in common with German and some words borrowed from English and other Indo-European languages. But grammar differs though. Actually besides from other Scandinavian languages Afrikaans, spoken in South Africa and Dutch seem to be the closest related languages. Like Swedish, Norwegian uses pitch accents, but to a lesser degree. The pitch accents give the language a musical quality and are sometimes employed to distinguish the meanings of homonyms. It can be quite confusing to a foreign speaker when the word bønner has three different meanings according to the accent . (Bønder , Farmers represented by tone 1), Bønner, prayers, beans (tone 2), Our different dialects might represent additional extra challenges.

Norwegian is an SVO language meaning that we usually base our sentences on subject, verb and object. (I have a car) in Norwegian (jeg (s) har (v) en bil (o). But we're also capable of changing the word order like: (Bilen(o) har(v) jeg(s) in English (the car have I)

The Norwegian alphabet consists of 29 letters, the first 26 or which are the same as the Latin Alphabet. The three last letters are
æ, ø and å

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Ø Å.

Norwegian nouns fall in to three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The inflection of the nouns depends on the gender.

Bokmål

m.: en gutt gutten gutter guttene
(a boy) (the boy) (boys) (the boys)
f.: en/ei jente jenta jenter jentene
(a girl) (the girl) (girls) (the girls)
n.: et hus huset hus husene/husa
(a house) (the house) (houses) (the houses)

In English the verb are inflected according to which person is acting (I go, she goes). In Norwegian we don’t inflect verbs like that. Verbs like (I go) and (She goes) are inflected the same way jeg går (I go) hun går (she goes) vi går (we go)

The most difficult part of the Norwegian language is the learning the clauses. Many foreigners speak almost perfect Norwegian but don't master the clauses.

"She says she doesn't want to do it". "(hun sier hun ikke vil gjøre det) If we divide the sentence in two parts :
Hun sier. Hun vil ikke gjøre det.

But when the last sentence is a clause, the word for not (ikke) comes first, it switches with the word vil, (verb). So this is the result: Hun sier hun ikke vil gjøre det. this is Norwegian at an advanced level.

Compound words are written together in Norwegian, which sometimes makes the word extremely long like sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood estimator). Because of the English influence on the Norwegian language, it seems to be a tendency that we split up words that usually are compound occasionally with humorous results. Instead of writing, for example, lammekoteletter (lamb chops), people make the mistake of writing lamme koteletter (lame, or paralyzed, chops);)) other examples include

Smult ringer ("Lard is calling", verb) instead of Smultringer ("Doughnuts")

Tunfisk biter ("Tuna bites", verb) instead of Tunfiskbiter ("Tuna bits", noun)

Tyveri sikret ("Theft guaranteed") instead of Tyverisikret ("Theft proof")

On Mc Donald’s the shift leaders sometimes have sign with "shift leder"in stead of shiftleder. When the words are not written together it actually means " replace leader !"I don't know if the young people working there are aware of this grammatical mistake.