The Norwegian Alphabet

[linguaholic]

If you are a Beginner of studying Norwegian, you might want to have a look at the Norwegian Alphabet.

[Kaffi]

Just be aware that, most of the letters are pronounced one way as single letters, but totally different in a word.

But the letters i and å , also are words. 

i= in, inside

å= to, and also in some dialect it means river. Ei å = a river.

[AureliaeLacrimae]

What do you mean pronounced differently? Is there a rule or is it more arbitrary? How many combinations are there? Is it more like German - phonology equals pronunciation or? Are å and a pronounced differently (to a great deal) or is it only the length in question? Is one front and the other back vowel?

[Kaffi]

What do you mean pronounced differently? Is there a rule or is it more arbitrary? How many combinations are there? Is it more like German - phonology equals pronunciation or? Are å and a pronounced differently (to a great deal) or is it only the length in question? Is one front and the other back vowel?

You can not use the way the letters are pronounced by that chart to make words.

H [Haaw] is one of the letters that are sometimes  not pronounced or mostly [hh]

j [jee] is in a word like  "jul"(Christmas) [jjuul], its no e-sound.

So while it is good to know, its not something to work to much on, its one of the things the 1.and 2. grade really work on.

[AureliaeLacrimae]

So, you must check the pronunciation of each word before you learn it? Well, this does make things a little more complicated. I was hoping it would be more of a standardised version which doesn't change, but oh, well, I guess I'll have to work on it if I decide to study Norwegian.

One question - are the words pronounced differently then in different instances or will jul always be jul no matter what?

[Kaffi]

So, you must check the pronunciation of each word before you learn it? Well, this does make things a little more complicated. I was hoping it would be more of a standardised version which doesn't change, but oh, well, I guess I'll have to work on it if I decide to study Norwegian.

One question - are the words pronounced differently then in different instances or will jul always be jul no matter what?

The thing with Norwegian , where its similar to English, is that many sounds are not as written.

The color hvit have the h in front, like white have a silent h.

The written language is compiled of a good dose ogf Danish writing for bokmål, and a dash of Latin + a general consensus over the years how the word should be written, like in English.

Nynorsk, is compiled of a set of dialects, spoken late 1800 , and how they where pronounced, + a way of writing widely accepted in late 1800 early 1900 for pronunciation. But have also contained certain elements from Old Norse(norrønt). 

There are also the sounds :

sj

skj

ski

kj

ai

ou

[AureliaeLacrimae]

Well, my native language is Croatian - it's a Slavic language and the pronunciation matches the sounds written to the core - there are no exceptions. So, that's what I'm used to. Then I started learning English and of course, it seems as if there's no rule to pronunciation and the written word, but there really is. People just don't think about it and don't try to learn phonetics. I was amazed with phonetics and I love the charts. I can follow a pronunciation if it's written down in standard terms.

I am wondering about these sj, skj sounds. They're a group of consonants (they aren't a problem. In Croatian, you can have even up to four consonants and no vowels, take for example word for thorn - trn; there are many examples, but at the moment, I can't think of anything else). Are they pronounced like consonants or does j play the role of ''half'' a vowel, like i?