What do you know about Norway?
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I imagine lots of snow and I hear the people are nice. What I know is that there is good black metal that comes out of there.
Oh come on, I burnt the meatballs once, and you're still going on about that?!Rastelin said:
How about that time you invited us to some Herring and Potatoes? The fish was still moving! And I don't care if it's "popular in the east", I'm not eating something that could potentially choke me as I eat it.
One thing that is bothering me within this thread is how well all of you Swedes, Finns, Danes and Norwegians (why is there not a truncated form of the latter?) can write, and most likely speak, very coherent English. Passing off as fluent, or close to it.
This bothers me for two reasons:
1) Many people I know, born here in the States with English as their primary and solitary language, believe there are things like the "4rth of July" and that they "should of" gone to the store. Both examples being a sort of onomatopoeic guess (the former being a complete fuck up of an ordinal and the latter being an obvious fuck up of a contraction) instead of an educated guess based on the only language they've ever known, spoken and been taught. You know, the kind of shit you'd expect from a second grader, not a twenty, twenty-five or even thirty year-old. Now, this would be fine if it were a one-time thing. I make mistakes all the time. But the fact that these (and other) errors are repeated consistently indicate a lack of general knowledge to one's own language and primary means of communication. Which sort of leads me to number two...
2) I speak one language fluently: English. There are a couple of languages I recognize words or phrases from, maybe two I can attempt at translating, but I'm in no way multilingual in the same sense. I can sort of speak French, and by that I mean I could get by in a French-speaking country and I can read some French books/literature/magazines/etc.
But having a conversation with someone? Fuck, I can barely grasp the gist of French TV shows or movies. I have an extremely limited vocabulary compared to a person of French descent or comparable fluency. I am aware of this. As a person who loves language and is fascinated by its history, I hate my stunted growth in this area. I am fortunate to have relatives who are Belgian/Swiss, who live over across the pond and can communicate with me so that I may continue to learn, progress and develop. However, ever since my final year of French nearly 10 years ago, I've been pretty much learning the language on my own... in this state... in this country... (see #1). Suffice to say, even with the wonderful inventions of the Internet and telephones, it's a rather difficult task.
One pathetic thing is that most American schools (especially public schools) do not emphasize the importance of language or multilingualism. Not only is it not emphasized, it's hardly even mentioned. It's not even a requirement for graduation. Also, even though most schools have an "English" class (that most of us are required to attend throughout our entire, obligatory tenure), we learn nothing about the history of the language. We don't compare the language to its nearest linguistic "neighbors" or even "ancestors". We don't learn about diacritics and their importance in other languages, especially those using a familiar Latin-based script, but coming from a completely different language family. Fuck, we don't even learn about language families. We don't define roots of words in order to see similarities in other words and therefore have a greater chance of knowing the meaning of the word and perhaps even its spelling, not to mention its grammatical position, without having seen it before.
You'd think that with a language that's essentially built from other languages, with a humungous lexicon comprised of words from other languages, the above may be slightly important to learn. Well, according to my former school district at least, all of that shit is completely irrelevant.
The point of this post other than the two semi-rants above? I don't know. I just felt I needed to do a bit of outward observation and light venting. It annoys me that my peers have even less of a grasp on their native language, in a land where foreign tongues are essentially silent, than people who natively speak an entirely different language, and who can write (and presumably) speak better than said peers.
Oh, and...
This bothers me for two reasons:
1) Many people I know, born here in the States with English as their primary and solitary language, believe there are things like the "4rth of July" and that they "should of" gone to the store. Both examples being a sort of onomatopoeic guess (the former being a complete fuck up of an ordinal and the latter being an obvious fuck up of a contraction) instead of an educated guess based on the only language they've ever known, spoken and been taught. You know, the kind of shit you'd expect from a second grader, not a twenty, twenty-five or even thirty year-old. Now, this would be fine if it were a one-time thing. I make mistakes all the time. But the fact that these (and other) errors are repeated consistently indicate a lack of general knowledge to one's own language and primary means of communication. Which sort of leads me to number two...
2) I speak one language fluently: English. There are a couple of languages I recognize words or phrases from, maybe two I can attempt at translating, but I'm in no way multilingual in the same sense. I can sort of speak French, and by that I mean I could get by in a French-speaking country and I can read some French books/literature/magazines/etc.
But having a conversation with someone? Fuck, I can barely grasp the gist of French TV shows or movies. I have an extremely limited vocabulary compared to a person of French descent or comparable fluency. I am aware of this. As a person who loves language and is fascinated by its history, I hate my stunted growth in this area. I am fortunate to have relatives who are Belgian/Swiss, who live over across the pond and can communicate with me so that I may continue to learn, progress and develop. However, ever since my final year of French nearly 10 years ago, I've been pretty much learning the language on my own... in this state... in this country... (see #1). Suffice to say, even with the wonderful inventions of the Internet and telephones, it's a rather difficult task.
One pathetic thing is that most American schools (especially public schools) do not emphasize the importance of language or multilingualism. Not only is it not emphasized, it's hardly even mentioned. It's not even a requirement for graduation. Also, even though most schools have an "English" class (that most of us are required to attend throughout our entire, obligatory tenure), we learn nothing about the history of the language. We don't compare the language to its nearest linguistic "neighbors" or even "ancestors". We don't learn about diacritics and their importance in other languages, especially those using a familiar Latin-based script, but coming from a completely different language family. Fuck, we don't even learn about language families. We don't define roots of words in order to see similarities in other words and therefore have a greater chance of knowing the meaning of the word and perhaps even its spelling, not to mention its grammatical position, without having seen it before.
You'd think that with a language that's essentially built from other languages, with a humungous lexicon comprised of words from other languages, the above may be slightly important to learn. Well, according to my former school district at least, all of that shit is completely irrelevant.
The point of this post other than the two semi-rants above? I don't know. I just felt I needed to do a bit of outward observation and light venting. It annoys me that my peers have even less of a grasp on their native language, in a land where foreign tongues are essentially silent, than people who natively speak an entirely different language, and who can write (and presumably) speak better than said peers.
Oh, and...
How did I do on your test? [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.388623-What-do-you-know-about-Norway?page=2#15564177]Playful Pony said:
Tromsø next March would be an excellent time and place for seeing Northern Lights. Unless I'm very much mistaken, this year marks the final year of an 11 year cycle with regards to solar activity, i.e. the year of peak activity, and as a result the northern lights will be stronger and more frequent.Grouchy Imp said:
There are bus tours every evening from most hotels that take you to the islands outside the city where there is less light pollution and impressive scenery.
I live in Tromsø, and have been living here for the last 4 years during my studies at the local university, but I'm afraid I won't be much help with regards to good places to eat. Skarven/Arctandria is a restaurant in the city centre where they serve excellent fish meals (I thoroughly recommend the grilled "tørrfisk", which is a dried and salted fish), but the place is relatively expensive and you might have to make a reservation at least a day or two in advance.
As far as other things to do in Tromsø, the short days will be a problem with regards to typical outdoors activities, but there is a ski lift 15 minutes by buss from the city centre for downhill skiing if you're into that kind of thing, a few decent museums in the city centre (Polaria being the most entertaining - showing all aspects of marine industry and exploration, wildlife, geology etc. for Northern Norway and Svalbard - the fish tanks are very interesting, as well as the panorama videos from Svalbard), lots of places to drink beers and whatever from the worlds northernmost commercial brewery, above average nightlife for a city of 65,000 (thanks to roughly 15,000 students) and a gondola that goes up a nearby mountain for an excellent view of the city.
The ship you mention goes all along the coast of Northern Norway fairly often (I think the southermost port is Trondheim, but it might be Bergen), and it is definitely worth it if you can spare the time and you have the weather on your side.
Oh, and bring a tripod if you plan on taking pictures of the northern lights
If you have any questions, feel free to quote or PM me.
Uuuuh well thats a tough one! We start learning spoken and written English at the age of 6, same time we start learning the Norwegian written language. In adition to this there is TV, movies, games and the internet which is mostly in English. This I would say is the main reason why so many of us have a reasonable comprehension of the language. We hear it and see it written almost every day.Shraggler said:
We also have a mandatory third language to learn, but you are allowed to chose between German, French and Spanish. Most people that learn this do not come anywhere near the level they are at with English. I have a very basic understanding of German despite 3 years of it in school, and I couldn't hope at having a conversation with someone from Germany (although I'd be willing to try if I needed..)!
Well done =3. The spoken language is simply known as "Norwegian" as it varies a great deal due to local dialects. We have two written languages, "bokmål" being the most common, and "nynorsk", which is relatively new. "Nynorsk" litterally means "New Norwegian"... We learn both written languages in school.Shraggler said:
Ancient Norwegian is very simpilar to what Icelandic is today, but it does indeed have more in common with Danish/Swedish today.
The flag is red, white and blue. Same as the States, and UK for that matter!
Vikiiiiiiings!!!!!11111
No but i hear it gets pretty cold there sometimes, pretty dark too in parts.
And I think it may at one point in history have been a union with Denmark, or maybe that was Sweden, I'm not sure.
Oh yeah, statistics say it's a really nice place to live.
That's about all I know.
No but i hear it gets pretty cold there sometimes, pretty dark too in parts.
And I think it may at one point in history have been a union with Denmark, or maybe that was Sweden, I'm not sure.
Oh yeah, statistics say it's a really nice place to live.
That's about all I know.
Hm.
Kristian Varg Vikernes?
Burzum - Filosofem is still pretty awesome, no matter what happened outside recording that thing.
Hmmm...
<youtube=Nn7-CeJfRk8>
And I imagine the sky is often grey and the weather isn't very nice too often.
I drank a lot of alcohol with Norwegian folks. Anything, really. Still, they were always well mannered and never as messed up as, say, them Fins. Finns. Finnish people.
Kristian Varg Vikernes?
Burzum - Filosofem is still pretty awesome, no matter what happened outside recording that thing.
Hmmm...
<youtube=Nn7-CeJfRk8>
And I imagine the sky is often grey and the weather isn't very nice too often.
I drank a lot of alcohol with Norwegian folks. Anything, really. Still, they were always well mannered and never as messed up as, say, them Fins. Finns. Finnish people.
I tend to think of Vikings, wingsuit BASE jumping, black metal and Toki Wartooth...
Most of my ancestors were from Norway, but they didn't spend much time there.
Still, watching that youtube video in the OP made me /facepalm repeatedly. All of those questions were middle school geography stuff. Apply the same questions to any country from Zimbabwe to Lithuania and I'd still get it right... stay in school, kids.
Most of my ancestors were from Norway, but they didn't spend much time there.
Still, watching that youtube video in the OP made me /facepalm repeatedly. All of those questions were middle school geography stuff. Apply the same questions to any country from Zimbabwe to Lithuania and I'd still get it right... stay in school, kids.
Well, it is the neighbour of Sweden, and Swedes like me have a fondness for making jokes (all in good humour, of course) about Norway. Like this one:
"What do you get if you cut a piece of paper in half?"
"A Norwegian jigsaw."
I hear Norwegians return the favour by making similar jokes about Sweden, but I haven't got any confirmation on that matter.
I see you, and raise you this:
UGANDA, DU FRIA, DU FJÄLLHÖGA KO! DU LEVER PÅ CHIPS OCH COCA-COLA!
Pity I won't be watching it; I'll be sitting on the train to Gothenburg at the time. >_>
"What do you get if you cut a piece of paper in half?"
"A Norwegian jigsaw."
I hear Norwegians return the favour by making similar jokes about Sweden, but I haven't got any confirmation on that matter.
Acrisius said:
I see you, and raise you this:
I dunno kompis, they seem to be too busy picking on us from Uddevalla to do that.
So, have you ever heard this version:Acrisius said:
UGANDA, DU FRIA, DU FJÄLLHÖGA KO! DU LEVER PÅ CHIPS OCH COCA-COLA!
Something to be (somewhat) serious about, I guess. Did you know Anders Borg is going to present the budget for the upcoming year tomorrow in the morning at SVT?Acrisius said:First off, Sweden is doing pretty fine too actually! Stupid government didn't want to spend any of our big piles of cash last year, but after a lot of criticism and lowered rates of approval in polls, they've now opened the wallet a bit, finally. Unfortunately most of it is just an effort to play the public into keep liking them, imo, but hey. The point is, we're still doing pretty good.
Second, I didn't know about that christmas tree-thing. That's pretty damn cool!
Pity I won't be watching it; I'll be sitting on the train to Gothenburg at the time. >_>
I know very little about Norway tbh beyond basic geography :/
Being from uk, our stereotypes about norway are positive so guess my impression would be defaulted to "favorable", especially as being a Londoner we get to admire that magnificent christmas tree Norway sends to us every year, a gift that does wonders for our good relations it seems.
Being from uk, our stereotypes about norway are positive so guess my impression would be defaulted to "favorable", especially as being a Londoner we get to admire that magnificent christmas tree Norway sends to us every year, a gift that does wonders for our good relations it seems.
Awesome place but with cold weather. Considering immigrating there. Hard-to-learn language. Problematic...Lots of blonde chicks, worth the effort with the language
Except for that time some of the fine people of your country set it on fire Oo. My grandfather fought in the war, and that episode actually made him cry a little. I've never seen tears roll down that mans cheeks ever before or after! Shows how much that means to him, and how much the help of the UK during the war ment to him. I was rather touched actually, he isn't generally one to show feelings =p. Not that I'm blaming UK in general, I imagine many of you were just as outraged that someone would do that Oo.Frankster said:
Huh, we will be treated to a lecture from Johan Lönnroth instead. And another one tomorrow.Acrisius said:
Hey, that´s homophobic! You Christian Democrat!
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Thanks man, those are some cracking suggestions. Yourself and others in this thread have been so helpful, I've gotten a much clearer mental picture of where and what we'll be doing when me and my friend head out. Thank you so much.Xrysthos said:Tromsø next March would be an excellent time and place for seeing Northern Lights. Unless I'm very much mistaken, this year marks the final year of an 11 year cycle with regards to solar activity, i.e. the year of peak activity, and as a result the northern lights will be stronger and more frequent.Grouchy Imp said:
There are bus tours every evening from most hotels that take you to the islands outside the city where there is less light pollution and impressive scenery.
I live in Tromsø, and have been living here for the last 4 years during my studies at the local university, but I'm afraid I won't be much help with regards to good places to eat. Skarven/Arctandria is a restaurant in the city centre where they serve excellent fish meals (I thoroughly recommend the grilled "tørrfisk", which is a dried and salted fish), but the place is relatively expensive and you might have to make a reservation at least a day or two in advance.
As far as other things to do in Tromsø, the short days will be a problem with regards to typical outdoors activities, but there is a ski lift 15 minutes by buss from the city centre for downhill skiing if you're into that kind of thing, a few decent museums in the city centre (Polaria being the most entertaining - showing all aspects of marine industry and exploration, wildlife, geology etc. for Northern Norway and Svalbard - the fish tanks are very interesting, as well as the panorama videos from Svalbard), lots of places to drink beers and whatever from the worlds northernmost commercial brewery, above average nightlife for a city of 65,000 (thanks to roughly 15,000 students) and a gondola that goes up a nearby mountain for an excellent view of the city.
The ship you mention goes all along the coast of Northern Norway fairly often (I think the southermost port is Trondheim, but it might be Bergen), and it is definitely worth it if you can spare the time and you have the weather on your side.
Oh, and bring a tripod if you plan on taking pictures of the northern lights
If you have any questions, feel free to quote or PM me.
BLACK METAL! (note my avatar) The pioneers were all mostly Norwegian and almost all the famous 2nd wave Black Metal bands came from Norway (Burzum, Mayhem, Darkthrone and Dimmu Borgir etc). Nowadays all the best Black Metal has migrated to Ukraine and France but there are still some great bands.
