Oslo Local Customs

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Do you wonder why you see so many guide dogs in Majorstua /Frogner? The Norwegian blind organizations (blindeforbundet) and Adaptor are located in Sporveisgata, the guide dog school in St Haugen.
So you should not disturb them, the dogs are on duty !

and here's a tips on how to pronouce the three last letters in our alphabet sound file sound file

Æ, Ø Å

Æ


ærlig
(honest)

sær ( strange)
'
Er , verb, to be. ( jeg er, hun er etc) I'm. she is...

The Norwegian Cats make a sound that's Æ-related "Mjau"

And if you hurt yourself and want to scream something , if we're not swearing, we say au au au.

Eventually you can think of the word "van" (American accent) or:
Bad, Ass , have or you can imagine you're at the dentist and have to open your mouth until it hurts.

Ø
is like the e in her It's her car


Ørken
(desert)

kø
(que)

MØØ That's the sound of the Norwegian cow in every child book.

Nøff, nøff, that's the sound of the Norwegian pig..

Å
is pronounced like the a in saw, it's a bit more open. think about the Scottish accent.

jeg så henne ( I saw her)

Ålesund

( a city in Norway)

Jeg MÅ
( I have to)

Ål, place in Norway or an eel.

So if you want to practice å hun er så søt (ooh she's so cute!)

It's complicated to use these letters in my VT guide. Sometimes I just make it easier by using some others letters instead. But it does not make a big difference.

The R-sound can be really difficult for people from English speaking countries they have a reputation for committing a bloody massacre on the Norwegian “R.” It's the rolling that makes it hard. In Norwegian we have different R-sounds according to the dialects. If you think that the R-sound from the west coast of Norway is the easiest, you can just say you learned Norwegian from a person living there. Or stick to the scottish R-sound, if you think it's easier.

sound file

your R-sound should be something like this;) Or the R-sound you make if you'riding a horse, and what it to stop. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr , well that how we do it in Norway...We roll it.

And this is a funny vers about Ibsens ripsbusker og andre buskevekster ( Ibsen's currant bushes and other shrubs. )

ibsens ripsbusker og andre buskevekster..

Name statistics gives us an indication on our culture and values.
Emma, for instance, was a popular name in the 1880's, and then it totally disappeared. In 2003 Emma became a top -10 name in Norway. It may have something to do with the television commercial “friends” where Rachel gave birth to Emma. Emma is the most used girl name from the year 2000 until today. I have actually never heard of a child who's named Hilde after the year 2000. Well except from our ski jumper Tom Hilde, his last name has a double function. Let's go Hilde!

Names derived from the bible and girls names ending with A, are trendy. It's kind of ironic that the bible names are that popular, when most Norwegians claim that they don’t (longer) believe in God.

Kids usually get one last name from their father and one from their mother. Many Norwegian last names ends with -sen, like Olsen. That's very common and not that popular anymore. We want to be special and then we select some other names.

Top ten -names for boys (2009)

Lucas/Lukas

Emil

Alexander/Aleksander

Oliver

Mathias/Matias

Jonas

Markus/Marcus

William

Sander

Magnus

Top ten names for girls

Emma

Linnea/Linea

Nora/Norah

Sofie/Sophie

Sara/Sahra/Sarah

Thea/Tea

Emilie

Ida

Julie

Ingrid/Ingerid/Ingri ( the little princess of Norway is called Ingrid Alexandra)

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This sign means Deaf.
Norwegian sign language was a part of my bachelor program in special education and I wrote a bachelor assignment about deafness and sign language I have also been working for a deaf organization.

The Norwegian deaf population has probably 4000 users, but it's hard to estimate. Most deaf lives in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. Today 90% of all deaf infants receive Cochlear implants and attend main streaming programs. There are not many opportunities for kids who want to communicate in sign language and attend deaf sign language schools.

The Norwegian Sign language (NSL) is an independent language is an independent language and it's just as different from other sign languages than Norwegian spoken language differs from other oral languages.

Sign languages even have dialects. The deaf people in Trondheim use signs that differ from the sign language in Oslo and Bergen. According to some scientists, Norwegian sign language has more in common with French language that Norwegian, and a scientist even think it's more related to Chinese.
Many teachers for the deaf does not know enough sign language but they're still allowed to teach in sign language , cause we're in lack of deaf teachers with teacher education. In 1997 the deaf students got their own teaching plans and sign language was giving recognition as an independent language. It was estimated that the deaf students had the right to learn sign language at school and to have their teaching in sign language. %[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Sign_Language] British sign language

Lessons were given as an alternative and addition for spoken English, and it didn’t go that very well as the Norwegian deaf teacher didn’t know enough BSL in order to teach. So what next? German sign language?

Norway has two official written languages, Bokmål and Nynorsk (new Norwegian". Norway was once in a union with Denmark many centuries ago, that’s why our Bokmål (our majority language) is strongly affected by Danish (it doesn't sound like it though!)

New Norwegian dialect and written language is mainly used on the west coast. In Television about 25 percent of all the subtitles are in Nynorsk according to Norwegian laws. Some of the reporters also speak a kind of New Norwegian dialect. If you work in a public office and you receive a letter written in New Norwegian you're actually obligated to answer in New Norwegian. But I don't think anyone does that if they have a lot other things to do. I don't think they get fired or fined if they answer in normal Norwegian.

The law also decides that all school kids have to learn both languages in school. It has been objected to this law for several decades. It seems to be the case that we all understand New Norwegian and spending our school ours learning to write a dialect that we don’t speak seems to be a waste of time. But our New Norwegian language has strong historical and cultural roots and all attempts to eliminate it have not worked out. I have actually never heard about a person who has actually has needed New Norwegian after graduation. Well maybe if you want to be a Norwegian teacher.

Besides from our two written languages, Sami language is also spoken in the north of Norway (Finmark) where some of the lap people live but most of them live in Oslo. A fellow VTV member reminded me of the complex language situation the Sami people face. They have at least four different Sami languages/dialects. Many years ago the Sami people were not allowed to speak Sami at school. They were forced to speak and act like Norwegians. Today the young Sami people are being taught according to the bilingual model with Sami as a teaching language and Norwegian as a second language and English/German/French/Spanish as a third language

these days there are very, very many Swedes in the center of Oslo. In every store and kiosks you are guaranteed to meet them. They speak Swedish, a language close to Norwegian.


Some New Norwegian glossery: sound file

English/ New Norwegian/ Bokmal

I eg/ jeg
Norway Noreg/ Norge
size storleik/ størrelse
white kvit/ hvit
she ho/ hun
to start byrje/ begynne
a lot mykje/ mye

some useful Norwegian (in Bokmaal)

thank you (tusen) takk
yes (ja)
no (nei)
metro (tebane)
tram trikk
city by
train tog
hotel hotel
norwegian norsk
girl jente
boy gutt
my name is jeg heter.....
godbye ha det (bra)

Silje Vige singing in New Norwegian in MGP 1993 (number five) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-VqRkX-Eqc

Janosch in New Norwegian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNLmKq3UA84&feature=related

http://travlang.com/languages/
(visit this page for a free basic Norwegian course)

If you don’t find a job or get disabled, hey this is your new home!

670 000 Norwegians receive social benefits

NAV is well known for their nativity. There are a lot of examples on people scamming the social system with fake diseases, fictive children and fake mental retardation. On big family were able to receive maternity benefit) for 30 fictive children. Finally someone at NAV reacted to all those twin births, it just couldn’t be possible?

Other people have faked being autistic, and schizophrenic, psychotic and they all received benefits

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is by far not the most intellectuall part of the year

Being a Russ means you have graduated from high school. It has nothing to do with Russia even though I understand why some foreigners could think so. Russ means partying, drinking and doing a lot of crazy stuff. It’s usual for the russes to have a busses and play loud music at night. That’s why there are some many complains about them. (I know, I was a Russ myself in 1999) .The russes are joining the parade on this day. They are the last to go or drive with their busses When they join the parade you'll see that they give away their own personal russ cards. the kids love to collect them. The russes are organized in three different colors. Red represents the general education. Blue represents trade and office education, and Black is for vocal education.

Being a Russ today, can be really expensive, unless you want to spend your money on something else than having the coolest Russ bus, the coolest design clothes, and the best song especially produced by popular artists. From what I have heard, read and calculated, some Russ will pay around 40-50 000NK each! And I didn't really add a zero by accident. The Russ business is a really big business. The companies who are producing all the things that the Russ'es need (or believe they need), earn big money. Where do this money come from? Rich parents? Loans?

All the different Russ groups want to be something different. And that means even more money. They will start preparing for the17 of May even from August. They will get a «dekknavn», a fictive name, and then they will present their real name in May. Everything from interior and clothes are inspired by a special theme, they will call themselves for instance «dancing bananas», and then they will come up with the real name in May.. They'll do everything to get other's attention. A Russ group even rented a plane to promote their logo. I'm not sure if i want to know the prize.

Next year the number of russ busses will increase, and the police have no control. Every year there's some rumors that the next year the busses will be forbidden. But the police have no authority in that matter

When I graduated in 1999 i didn't join any bus, even though is was a lot cheaper than today. I just didn't see the point in using 5000NK on a bus for this day, not to mention that I had to be ready to take my exam two days later. So me and my mates were driving an ordinary car and tried to do as many Russ Knob (tasks)as we could. One of them was driving around in a roundabout ten times. Another task was speaking English in the kiosk. I believe we got a jelly man for doing that. We also tried to spend the night in the middle of a roundabout with tents and sleeping bags, but then we decided to skip the whole project.

So instead of using my savings to join a popular bus at the end of the school year, I went to California instead. And I don't regret that choice.

the russ knobs


If you look closely at their hats you’ll notice some strange things hanging out from it. It’s a knob, a kind of reward if you do something crazy like kissing a policeman our slept in a roundabout for one night. A nail means that you have been sitting under your desk at school for one hour. A little teddy bear means you went to school in pajamas. These rules change from each year

a popular party place for the russe's to hang out is Tryvann. That's a party place .

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The Norwegian system is divided into primary school, age 6-12), lower secondary school (13-15) and upper secondary school (15++).All three facets of the Norwegian educational system have undergone extensive reforms.

My personal opinion is, (others may not agree) that the Norwegian school system is more cozy than school in another part of Europe. There are a lot of trips and funny projects. One school I know went skiing every Friday. Another school for special needs children learned to make cakes and hamburgers. They were bad at mathematics but they made very good cakes ;)

Many schools have discipline problems; the pupils have problems with authorities like the teacher and principal. It may have some connections with the Norwegian upbringing; many parents are more like buddies to their kids and not their parents. That's probably why the kids have problems with taking orders from their teachers. I also believe that many Norwegian kids are spoiled brats. Just take the public transport and see for yourself.

We do not do well in the PISA when it comes to reading, mathematics, science etc. The schools are very interested in the social environment of the kids. There have been many attempts to stop bullying of students. The schools are working continually on this, but I don't know if it has any effect.

In public Norwegian schools, they want all their pupils to be in the same classroom, but they don't always get the same amount of homework, it’s adjusted to the student’s gifts. Earlier the students with special needs like specific learning difficulties like dyslexia and dyscalculia often had their tutoring in another classroom. Today schools are trying to avoid this because of bullying from other students. Instead they often practice two- teachers- systems in order to help the special need students.

Some decades ago kids with development disorders went to special schools where they could meet kids at their own mental age. Later on they were mainstreamed and many had social problems with the other students. Those days the parents often have the ability to choose which school is best for their kids. But in some cases the kids are going to the same school as their peers, but have their own classroom and their own teacher, and they practice reverse integration. That means that the "normal" pupils will visit the kid in his classroom and do some social things with her/him. I don't know if that the best solution, I think it's important that the kids develop friendship with kids that are like themself and have the same mental age. Social interaction and making friends is important for everybody.

Another aspect of the Norwegian school system, is that being a teacher does not have high status, like other countries for instance Finland. Almost everybody can be a teacher; you don't need to be an A-student to become a (good) teacher. The teachers who have their education at the university earn a lot more, and are specialist in specific subjects. A general teacher usually teaches in all subjects. It takes four years to be a general teacher and from this year they can actually choose between being a lower school teacher and teaching in high school. I really admire the students who want to become teacher these days. It's one of the jobs that are really criticized. One of the advantages of having this job is all the holidays. In the summer they have a two months break.

Recently the schools in the east of Oslo had problems getting qualified teachers. In the east side of Oslo there's lot of problems with criminality and minority groups and integration problems. Most students are very bad academically. In order to beat this problem young teachers get more salary in compensation for all the problems they might face. and it works!

One of the hot issues we're facing today is whether the kids should have homework or not. Some politicians seem to think that having home work only will increase the differences between the kids. Some kids are blessed with smart parents, others are not. So in order to fix this problem, nobody should learn anything.

Most pupils go to public school. But there are alternatives. There are Christian private schools, Montessori schools and Rudolf Steiner schools. Only the public school is free of charge. In Oslo we also have an international school, French and German school etc.

Most politicians want all the kids to attend the same school. But why should they? All kids are different and their way of learning is different. But I wish that all these schools could be free of charge.

After ten year at school, the pupils choose a secondary school/high school (videregående skole) before they go to university or starting a practical work. The students that are theoretical weak in school or belong to a minority group often choose a practical career, and go to trade school for three years. There are a seriously amount of drop out. It has been said that it’s too theoretical for the students. Many students have problems enough talking and writing English, why do they need German too? And why does a student who wants to be a car mechanic need to learn how to analyze poems?