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Tones in Norwegian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5260 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes  Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish | Message 1 of 12 16 January 2012 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have read in several websites over the web that Norwegian has two tones, namely tone 1 and tone 2, but no site has actually described how are they pronounced.
A tutorial on how to pronounce them or at least a recording contrasting the two tones would be useful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hampie Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6663 days ago 625 posts - 1009 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Latin, German, Mandarin | Message 2 of 12 16 January 2012 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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They’re not tonal as the tones in mandarin, and are to a somewhat degree totally ignored by natives. The
orthography don’t mark them, and they change with inflections and there are not that many minimal pairs. People just sound a bit odd when they cannot do them, but, will be completely understood. I’m a Swede, but we have two tones to, or tone accents as we call them. Ánden is the spirit and ànden is a kind of bird. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6913 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 12 16 January 2012 at 11:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually it's the other way around (ánden - bird; ànden - spirit). Other than this, I agree completely with Hampie (and am pretty sure it works just about the same in Norwegian). Look up any random Norwegian clip on Youtube to hear the tones (it's better than a written description). Anyone who can't hear any "sing-song" in these Norwegian clips must be tone-deaf: http://www.ling.hf.ntnu.no/nos/?list The pitch goes up and down just as much as in Swedish (though not identically). Side note - it's definitely pitch #2 which is hardest to imitate (pitch #1 is just the standard two-syllable intonation which any language has). However, some second language learners of Swedish (maybe Norwegian too) tend to exaggerate this pitch #2, and use it all over the place or totally randomly. If you learn it, use it in the right places, otherwise it'll sound even worse than if you didn't use it at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4776 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 4 of 12 17 January 2012 at 8:58am | IP Logged | ||
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This Wikipedia page discusses Norwegian pitch accent (the proper linguistic term for this type of tonality) patterns in some detail. This being Wikipedia, I cannot vouch for its correctness, especially regarding the dialects outside Eastern Norway (I've spent some time learning Norwegian in Oslo, and the description of Eastern Norwegian tone does seem to fit my observations).
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| KimG Diglot Groupie Norway Joined 4981 days ago 88 posts - 104 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Portuguese, Swahili | Message 5 of 12 17 January 2012 at 10:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Essentially, the wiki article seems right. Though 99% of all Norwegians will insist we speak an stress accent language, similiar to German or Spanish, that noone in their dialect got an sing-song dialect (but if they are from eastern norway, those in WEST certainly speak with an sing-song dialect).
Even if Oslo is using the "Eastern" version, either of them is perfectly fine, depending on your taste, available material or native speakers to practice with. Only natives from Norway who misses the tones, are ppl from the absolute north of Norway, and a small area around the city of Bergen (but in Bergen, ppl uses them). Noone got any problems with understanding either version, or those who lack them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5338 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 12 17 January 2012 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
O.k. I am officially tone-deaf :-) I do not hear it. I only hear this when I listen to a Norwegian who speaks English with a very heavy accent. An English colleague used to say that when he heard me speak Norwegian, I sounded like the Swedish cook on the Muppet show. I tried to take it as a compliment:-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6913 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 12 18 January 2012 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Then you do hear it. Almost every English-speaking Norwegian I've heard could be identified as a Norwegian a mile away due to the prosody. (so could most Swedes, Germans, Russians, Spaniards, French, Italians....)
Not being able to hear the "melody" (especially as a native!) is like not being able to distinguish between black and white, or hot and cold. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5603 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 8 of 12 18 January 2012 at 1:08am | IP Logged | ||
What's the difference. Is there a systematic difference in enunciation or do only individual words belong to different pitch types? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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