Product Description

Learn Norwegian in just 10 lessons!

Perfect for complete beginners or those in need of a brush up, Teach Yourself Norwegian Conversation introduces you to the key words, useful phrases, grammar, and sample conversations you will need to start speaking Norwegian immediately. In this audio program there are plenty of review opportunities, so you can gauge your progress and reinforce what you have learned.

You also get additional guidance on holding two-way conversations, addressing such issues as speaking with people who talk very fast or use words and phrases you don't know.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33381 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 3
• Binding: Audio CD

Features

• ISBN13: 9780071485043
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"I am a big fan of this series. Commercial packaging, simple concept and a competitive price make these well worth trying...One to watch." -- The Bookseller 20050429

About the Author

Margaretha Simons< teaches Norwegian at the university level.

Customer Reviews

Rosetta Stone isn't available in Norwegian. This fills the need.
I had the need to learn basic Norwegian while on a 10 hour flight to a meeting there. I took a gamble with this product, since there aren't that many options out there for Norwegian. Turns out, it's a good product, and it met my need.

They start you out right away with simple common conversations, and offer them a number of different ways: boy and girl talking Norwegian, boy and girl English translation, boy left out (so you can speak it) and girl speaking, girl left out (so you can speak it) and boy speaking. They encourage you to speak the parts out loud, which does indeed bring you into the spirit of Norwegian much faster and turns the whole process into fun.

You feel quite at home very quickly. They don't stuff "fundamentals" down your throat before allowing you to try things. Quite opposite, you find that you're learning fundamentals almost without realizing it.

It doesn't make you a master of the language, but gets you to the point that you can easily have basic conversations with Norwegians in their home country, and to the point they feel flattered that you have made the effort. Most Norwegians know English, but many don't use it enough to use it as their primary language. Having a basic understanding of Norwegian makes their efforts to communicate to you in English much easier on them. And they are generally very pleased that you try to speak their language and are quite willing to help you along if you prefer to stay in their language.

A good course. Recommended.

Good, not great
I got this in addition to "Teach Yourself Norwegian". While I feel it's a worthwhile addition to my studies, there is something that bothers me much more than the annoying song:

The speech patterns of the people reading the conversations are NOWHERE near natural. They read each word slowly and deliberately, and pause after each and every one. While this can be useful for hearing the exact pronunciation of each word, at least reading the conversations ONCE with a natural speaking pattern would be immensely helpful. In my experience, Norwegian isn't always pronounced with a deliberate pause after every word. Lots of words run together, or very close, when someone speaks a sentence, and hearing someone speak in a natural way would give the reader an idea of how to do that.

A step above some other CD based courses...
Rather than just spewing forth a bunch of phrases to memorize, this CD based course teaches you the first steps of actually being able to speak the language. It introduced words and grammar... and then uses all of it in the dialogs. This is so much more helpful than just rote memorization of a bunch of contrived, scripted phrases. You certainly won't be fluent when finished with these CDs, but you will actually be able think and speak basic Norwegian. You'll be able to form your own thoughts into simple sentences and dialog. I am most impressed with the introduction of the speaking tools (grammar) introduced here. You just don't get much of that in the typical two or three CD courses from other companies.

I use these CD's as supplement for the full TY Norwegian course. They are excellent for that, but certainly stand nicely on their own too. You will learn more about SPEAKING the language in this short course than you will with tens of hours worth of some of the so-called "immersion" CD courses that cost hundreds of dollars more. This course is well worth the money! It's not a miracle fluency course (and doesn't profess to be), but it's a great start to a very cool language.