I’m learning Norwegian, but I’m still very much a beginner. Does anybody have any suggestions for resources with the basics? I’m already using Duolingo. Thank you!
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You mean for grammar or for vocabulary? Frankly, if you know English then you can learn any Scandinavian language by simply attacking texts with a dictionary, after you know the basics of how the grammar works. There is no such thing as “simple Scandinavian”, all simple texts use the same grammar, the difference is just how many unique words they put in — and trust me, I took classes as a foreigner here, when you teach yourself with watered-down reading and listening materials meant for learners it ends up making you a lot slower to learn actually and you won’t be used to normal speech and writing.
The basics are something like this: (i’ll use Swedish as an example since that’s what I know)
present, ongoing and future tense are usually the same. jag läser = I read, I am reading, I will read. likewise past and ongoing past: jag läste = I read, I was reading.
en, ett = “a, an”. Not always used where we use it in English, because this is actually a very recent addition to the language. Ex. we say “I am a student”, they say simply “I am student”.
den = the person (who), the, it. Ex. “den som gick” = the (person) who walked. “den röda hunden” = the red dog. “jag gillar den” = i like it.
det = the, that, it. “det röda barnet” = the red child. “jag gillar det där” = i like that (thing that’s sitting) there. “det regnar” = it (is) raining.
de = the (plural objects), those, the people (who). de som går = the (people who) are walking. de röda barnen = the red children.
-en = the (single or plural object). hunden = the dog. barnen = the children.
-et = the (single object). barnet = the child.
-na = the (more than one objects). = hundarna = the dogs.
att = to (verb); that (as in “he said that he would go”, not as in “that thing”). “han sa att han skulle äta” = he said that he would eat. “att äta = to eat”.
sig, ser = to himself, to herself, to themselves. han rakade sig = he shaved himself.
sin, sitt, sina = his own, her own, their own. han åt sin mat = he ate his own food. hon pratade till sina barn = she spoke to her own children.
-a = “to… (verb)”; plural adjective; adjective after the word “the”: lära - to teach, to learn. bruna barn = brown children. den bruna hunden = the brown dog.
-de, -te = past tense verb (lärde = learned, taught; släppte = let go)
-s, -st = passive (lärdes = was learnt, was taught; bakas = is baked). sometimes this is simply a set phrase or the original word isn’t used anymore (ex. “jag hoppas = i hope”, in the past they said basically “it is hoped at my location” but they lost the rest of the grammar and only have this form verb still copying it. vi ses = something like “we are seen”, but phrase for “see you later!”)
-d, -en = past tense adjective (färgad = colored, dyed; skriven = written)
-t = adjective; adverb (snabbt = quick, quickly); “has, had, have… (verb)”, ex. “hon har köpt = she has bought”.in swedish you can remove the “has” and say only this form (hon köpt = she has/had bought) but i don’t know if norwegian allows it.
-r = present-tense verb, plural noun (hittar = finds, hits; ser = sees; gurkor = cucumbers).
-nde = -ing as an adjective, adverb or “the person who”. doesn’t change depending on singular or plural. han kom gråtande = he came crying. den gående mannen = the walking man. du har besökande = you have visitors (=visiting people).
-ig-, -lig- = adjective (our “-ly”). manlig = manly. the only adjective i can think of in english that ends in -ig is “big”.
-sk- = adjective (our “ic, ish”). magisk = magic. engelsk = english.
-are = -er (as in teacher, heater, bigger). marks “person or thing that does something” (whether for a job or not) and “more (adjective)”.
-ast, -aste = -est (as in biggest). marks “most (adjective)”.
depending on which type of norwegian you’re learning (i think?), one has simplified, standardized plurals like danish and the other has archaic plurals stemming from old norse, like swedish. in old times there were three genders depending on nouns (so adjectives were like this: -e = male, -a = female, -t = neuter), but in modern times male and female have merged into “common gender”… except the plurals haven’t changed. here’s the swedish plurals:
-a to -or (gurka, cucumber; gurkor, cucumbers) = old “she” gender
**to -er (**röt, root; rötter, roots) - old "she"
to -ar (hund, dog; hundar, dogs) - old "he"
to nothing (gräs, grass; gräs, “grasses”) - “it”, aka neuter gender. same as our “sheep, sheep” (we don’t say sheep, sheeps). this type can also get vowel changes, ex. “hand, hand; händer, hands” same as our “foot, feet; mouse, mice”.
to -n (öga, eye; ögon, eyes) - “it”. same as our “brother, brethren; child, children”. some fruits and berries are -on even in singular but this stems from ancient times when -on meant “things that grow in pairs or bunches”.
if something is a “material” or “collective object”, it has no plural. ex. gold, marble, wood (we don’t say “i have golds, i carved it out of woods” in english either), likewise rain, milk, coffee (=collection of droplets), but ex. you can be “picking mushroom” instead of “mushrooms” because the mushrooms are seen as a material (for soup etc).
one important thing: på = locationally. Often translates to ”at, on, to” but actually marks any kind of location.
Jag gå-r på toa-n = I (will) walk-s locationally toilet-the = I’m going to the toilet
Han lyssna-r på radio-n = He listen-s locationally the radio = He listens to the radio
Hon är på affär-en = She is locationally the store = She’s at the store
Jag kläd-er på mig = I clothe locationally me = I put clothes on myself
Det stå-r på bord-et = It stand-s locationally the table = It’s on the table
På måndag = locationally Monday = on Monday
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This is amazing, thank you very much! I’m basically looking for anything, vocabulary, grammar, common phrases (why can’t those follow the grammar rules?). There’s two types, Bokmål and Nynorsk. I’m learning Bokmål.
Once again, thank you for this brilliant reply.
No problem!
Sometimes phrases have old grammar, like REALLY REALLY old grammar. For example “sjö” gets -ss in the phrase “till sjöss”, because it uses Old Norse forms from back when each noun had 4 forms depending on what exactly you were saying in the sentence. Same for “kyrka + gård (church + yard/garden/farm)” turning into "kyrkogård (cemetary, because in the Nordics there’s ALWAYS a cemetary next to the church), that’s old grammar from back when there were 4 forms.
The old forms, in a basic sense:
hund-ur = a dog
hund- = until a dog is reached
hund-i = locationally a dog; at a dog
hund-s = a dog’s
hund-ar = dogs; until dogs are reached
hund-um = locationally dogs
hund-a = dogs’
kyrka = a church
kyrku = the other forms
kyrkur = churches
The -u, -ur of “kyrku, kyrkur” turned into -or in Scandinavian (ex. gurka - a cucumber, gurkor - cucumbers), which in Danish was simplified and removed as far as my understanding goes.
The -i of “hundi” (locationally a dog) turned into -e in Scandinavian. The -um (locationally dogs) turned into -om. This is why there are different words for directions:
bak = back
bakom = “back-location”, at the back
“utomhus” stems from ut (out), om (location), hus (house, building) = outside (the) house, outdoors
uppe = locationally “up”. It’s sitting up there.
upp = going until “up” is reached. I went up the stairs.
inne = locationally “in”. Sitting inside.
inn = going until “in” is reached. Going into or inside.
i = within. (general sense)
So sometimes you’ll see ex. “inn i”, which means you were already within something (=i) in some sense, but now you’re going further inside (=inne). Ex. you were walking on a forest path but now you’re going off the path and into the real thick of the forest.
So they also said stuff like “till (…)s”, because it was probably originally something like “I’m travelling until I reach the ocean’s land”, very quickly everything else got cut out except for “until” and “ocean’s”. So nowadays you can still see phrases that are something like like “to ocean’s” where we’d say in English “to the ocean”. (Ex. English’s “I’m going out to sea”)
Sometimes you might also see ex. å instead of på in an old phrase, because the Old Norse was á. Also phrases to do with the king and royalty tend to use old grammar.
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Tusen takk! This is fantastic!
No problem!! Scandinavian is really very fast to learn, the problem is just when you don’t have good resources to teach you the grammar. Most of the people writing textbooks don’t teach very well and don’t know the old language so they don’t know what anything comes from or why it is how it is (it’s the same when learning English and Japanese… and most languages). But, in general the grammar is so simple that you can just plow through texts without really knowing what’s going on.
If you want easy things to read, I’d say to search for recipes because the text can normally be understood even if you have no clue about grammar and are just looking up all the words individually.
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Tell me about it… My French grammar books would be practically useless half the time if I didn’t have experts I could ask when I get stuck.
Recipes are a great idea! Especially since I like cooking. 
Thanks again!
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While I agree that the Scandinavian languages are generally fairly easy for English speakers I would like to point out that Norwegian has some quirks that Swedish and Danish don’t seem to have.
For example when showing possession you can either put the pronoun before or after the thing possessed. And the form of the noun is different depending on where you place the pronoun:
So my dog can be min hund or hunden min.
The gender thing gets a little weird in Norwegian. In Swedish and Danish you have common and neuter gendered words. In Norwegian there is masculine, feminine and neuter. And the feminine words can also be written as masculine. So you need to learn it in both forms.
So my mother can be: mi mor, mora mi, min mor, or moren min.
In Swedish and Danish it would simply be min mor.
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No you can also do this in (at least) Swedish. It’s just dialectal, you still hear and read it. Basically almost all “differences” in (eastern) Norwegian are just dialectal Swedish, including most of the vocabulary. Considering that any time you turn on the radio or watch TV you’re going to hear another dialect, or that you’ll see the same grammatical “differences” in standard Norwegian as in Swedish song lyrics, we can’t pretend as if a learner (or native speaker) can go without knowing them, or that they don’t exist.
The three gender thing, I already wrote about above I think. It still appears in heavy remnants in modern Swedish (ex. noun plurals! and phrases), same as the four cases do. That’s of course, ignoring the few “dialects” that still have 3 genders and 4 cases in full blast. You only have to go back like 100 years to find the 3 genders in Swedish anyway…
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What would be the point of that?
I have not yet come across any of this in the Swedish resources I’ve been using. What dialects are you referring to? You are living in Sweden or have lived in Sweden,correct? Have you noticed if there is a generational difference with these patterns?