Norway is the westernmost, northernmost – and in fact the easternmost – of the three Scandinavian countries, located in Scandinavia west of Sweden. Best known for the complex and deep fjords along its west coast, it stretches from the North Sea near Denmark and Scotland into the Arctic Ocean where it borders northern Finland and the northwestern tip of Russia.
Learn Norwegian in Norway
Do you have a family connection to Norway? Or do you want to learn Norwegian for work or for moving to Scandinavia? You can find language schools, private tutors and also online classes to help you learn and improve your Norwegian language skills.
About the Norwegian Language
Norwegian is the official language of Norway. The language is very close and mutually intelligible with the two other Scandinavian languages, Danish and Swedish, and more distantly related though not mutually intelligible in spoken form with Icelandic and Faroese, but completely unrelated to Finnish. Sami is a minority language which has official status in some Northern regions. Road signs and other public information is then provided in both Norwegian and Sami (note that Norwegian and Sami place names may differ, maps will typically use the Norwegian name). Sami is related to Finnish, but not to Scandinavian languages. There is no standard spoken Norwegian and a wide range of dialects is used even in public broadcasting.
What Other Languages Are Spoken in Norway?
Most Norwegians at age 60 and downwards speak English well. So, learning any Norwegian before your travel is not necessary. Just ask the person you are talking to if he or she speaks English will suffice. For the last 2-3 decades a lot of Norwegians have spent at least a few years learning either German or French at school, however this is nowhere near the number of people who speak English. Spanish and Italian are now growing increasingly popular, but almost exclusively at larger schools in the largest cities.
In addition, a wide range of minorities live in Norway, both native and more recent immigrant groups. Several languages are spoken by cultural groups without having status as official languages, like Romani, Finnish, Kven and Urdu.
Popular Places to Study
The capital, Oslo, is quite a melting pot. It is a multi-cultural city with many different ethnic groups, in addition to all Norwegian dialects, a large number of languages from all corners of the world can be heard in Oslo. Stavanger also have a lot of western immigration due to a large NATO headquarters being located there as well as the oil industry. Other places you can study include Ålesund, Tromsø, Trondheim, Hamar and Fredrikstad.