What do you know about Norway?
- Thread starter Playful Pony
- Start date
I had a Norwegian roommate last year. He was a champ. Really well spoken, a blast to be around.
I know about the monarchy, and the military service, and the pure and undiluted hatred all Norwegians have for anything swedish (/joke)
I know about the monarchy, and the military service, and the pure and undiluted hatred all Norwegians have for anything swedish (/joke)
um.....well, all i know about it is that your peoples version of black metal, misses the point and tongue in cheek humor of the first wave of black metal and its all around unlistenable.Playful Pony said:
you used to have vikings, actually have a successful welfare state because you dont have entire demographics of people who find it as a cultural necessity to leech of the system.
the capital is Oslo, i wont mention that Breviek guy, you guys actually have a large majority of religious (mostly christian) where 80% confirm they believe in a god or some sort of spiritual life force, which i actually find very nice being religious myself.
And out of all of Europe, id rank you as in the top 5 least shitty, up there with Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and Iceland.
Though i must admit, im still fairly ignorant of Norway and its culture and most i know about it came from wikipedia.
Rampant alcoholism, a higher average wage than most other countries a judicial system that actually appears to work in the majority of cases.Overall its pretty much the best democracy in the world though I think South Korea could give it a run for its money.
Son of a *****. Son of a fucking *****. Mandatory learning of another language at age SIX?Playful Pony said:
To give you an example of how my early schooling went here in the USA: I was selected, I thought randomly, for a Spanish class around the same age which was "first grade" in our Elementary school system. (I later found out that my school thought of me as a "student with high potential" or some such nonsense - yes, I know how pretentious that sounds, but remember: their words, not mine. Also remember, this is an American school I'm talking about - standards are pretty low. I'm not "gifted".) So about halfway through the morning of our six-hour day, a different teacher called the eight or ten of us outside and we walked to a new classroom where we were taught Spanish. The first time this happened, I was scared shitless. I thought I had either done something very serious that I was unaware of or something crazy/horrible happened to my family, etc.
Every single day the Spanish teacher would enter the classroom and those of us that were part of this group got up and went off without saying a word to anyone. We never talked about what we did with any other students or our regular teacher. Once we were done with Spanish, it was back to our regular classroom or recess (depending on how long we spent in the Spanish class) and business carried on as usual. It was so very clandestine and so very "quiet" that I thought we were doing something that wasn't approved or was illegal.
Apparently we were part of a "pilot program" in an attempt to teach students another language at a younger age than they would normally learn it (which would be during High School around age 16, so around a decade later). The fucked up thing is, the program was very successful but it never caught on, progressed or was adopted. For instance, I still remember most numbers up to 100; I can greet, introduce myself and engage in a very basic conversation - all in Spanish, a language I haven't used since then... TWENTY YEARS LATER.
This irks me because I know I could've been fluent by the time I had left Elementary school, and it also raises a lot of questions. Why did the program not continue despite it proving successful (we had to take comprehension-type tests every three weeks or so in order to measure progress I'm guessing)? Why were we just cast off without any explanation or any further options after the program ended? These questions, and others, will never be answered and I don't think the answers would be very satisfying anyway. Other students could've benefit as well. I was definitely no genius. I was actually a pretty crappy student for a long time, so I don't even know how I was chosen for that class. Everyone could have benefit from early learning of a secondary language. It was just such a missed opportunity.
But that was sort of my point in the original post: other languages are not only not learned at an early age, but they're not even required to graduate from school and receive a diploma. I suppose the equivalent would be completing "secondary school" or "continuation school" on your side of that massive water hazard... I think.
And a mandatory third language?! Ha! Are you kidding? As I said, people have a hard enough time over here with their first language. A third language is absolute absurdity! You people are completely ridiculous!
Damn it. How did I remember "bokmål" over "nynorsk"? The latter seems far easier to remember. What does "bokmål" mean? "Book words"? "Book letters"? "Book speech"? Not even close? Fuck.Playful Pony said:
Interestingly enough, the state that I live in has a very high Scandinavian population, especially those of Norwegian ancestry. Apparently our climate is quite similar, although it definitely doesn't snow as much, but it's fairly temperate.
Apologies for the huge walls of text.
I'm afraid you're wrong, Denmark and Norway were in a union, it was called Denmark-Norway. Sweden had Finland, but Finland was considered simply a part and not give the distinction of having its name in the union, all though I think that had more to with the fact that it was a loose group of tribes that were unified under the Swedish. I know most people don't like wikipedia but I think it can be used as a most truthful source in this instance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark_norwayAcrisius said:
EDIT: I had a look and it appears that the Norwegians were the Scandinavian whore and were also in a union with the Swedes. The Norwegians sure know how to get around.
Im from sweden so reckon its not much of a difference just that norway have a more pretty landscape then us. And that from swedish point of view seeing our langued is quite similar they always sound cheerfull,even when their not.
Oh and that our child saying for tired when talking to kids is "pömsig", tho that in norwigian is instead a word for "tired after sex". Created a akward situation for my sister when she talked to a norwigian kid and her parents. Tho its nice that we can basicly talk with our native langued with eachother without having to resort to english on most things
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Oh and that our child saying for tired when talking to kids is "pömsig", tho that in norwigian is instead a word for "tired after sex". Created a akward situation for my sister when she talked to a norwigian kid and her parents. Tho its nice that we can basicly talk with our native langued with eachother without having to resort to english on most things
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You're inferior to Finland, like all! no i'm joking, basic nordic country, richer than most because of all the oil, and if i remember correct you also have the most atheist in comparison to the population, which is something i like, and a beautiful country, like most Skandinavian countrys, and really nice people.