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Norwegian Pitch Accent | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| couragepiece93 Groupie United States Joined 5766 days ago 77 posts - 78 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin | Message 1 of 42 12 August 2009 at 8:23pm | IP Logged |
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I've been going back through my TY book to learn the tones, as I've neglected them for the most part. I think I can use them very well now, but I have a question about what tone to use on verbs in the present tense. My TY book says that the single tone is typically used on words with one syllable or longer words ending in -en, -el, -er.
So, in standard norwegian, would you pronounce the verb "å hete" like this... hete: 2nd tone heter: 1st tone And would this go for all other verbs? I've been looking up each norwegian word in my Norwegian-English dictionary which gives both pronunciation and tone. It says to pronounce "hete" with the 2nd tone, but doesn't say which tone to use on "heter". Would this also go for plural nouns and definite common gender nouns? Edited by couragepiece93 on 12 August 2009 at 8:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5907 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 42 12 August 2009 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
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I have no idea whatsoever. I don't know what 1st and 2nd tone even means. But I can use both, of course.
I didn't even know Norwegian had tones until I took an intro to linguistics class at uni. To most Norwegians, it's just how you say things. You have to just listen and pick it up that way. Norwegian tones is one of the areas where descriptive linguistics is the least useful for learning how to speak. Listen and listen and listen and you will pick up which words are pronounced which way. But I'm sorry, I just can't answer your question, most Norwegians couldn't. Just listen. Edit, just to note: the genders are masculine, feminine and neuter. That is how they are known to people. Occasionally people will talk about common gender vs whatever they call neuter, but really it's just that some parts of the country make every feminine noun masculine and that's all. Things will make more sense using the 3-gender distinction, because you need to conquer the feminine too even if not everyone uses it in every case. Liz Edited by Lizzern on 12 August 2009 at 9:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| couragepiece93 Groupie United States Joined 5766 days ago 77 posts - 78 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, Latin | Message 3 of 42 12 August 2009 at 9:38pm | IP Logged |
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Ah, that makes since. It would be like asking an American what tone to speak with, I suppose. Thanks anyway, though =D.
I use the feminine gender, even though the TY book doesn't teach it for some reason. I wonder why they don't, it's the only real flaw I can find with the book. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| justberta Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5583 days ago 140 posts - 170 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian* Studies: Indonesian, German, Spanish, Russian | Message 4 of 42 12 August 2009 at 10:28pm | IP Logged |
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I have no idea how tones would differentiate those two words, it sounds the same to me. As long as you aren't neglecting the overall pronounciation and can roll the R's you're good to go in my book. Good luck.
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| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5907 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 42 12 August 2009 at 11:31pm | IP Logged |
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But justberta, you're from the north, no? Tones seem to differ in some parts of the country... The difference in tones between, say, Trondheim (where I live) and Stavanger (where I'm from), is sometimes intense - just think of the word "faren" which is one example that comes to mind where I don't think northern dialects distinguish between its two meanings by tone (or at least do so differently than we) whereas most other dialects do (I may be wrong here). As for hete vs heter, there's a slight difference in tone between the two but they're not the complete opposite of one another and you can probably blame the R for it.
And not everyone rolls their Rs :-) Though I would say, if an American can speak Norwegian with a non-American-sounding R, that's pretty impressive. The thing about tones is that foreigners are expected to have difficulty with the concept so you'll easily be forgiven if you make a mistake (which you likely will and that's fine). Just try to copy what you hear and do your best do pronounce things like that, try to make sure that when you listen to a new word that you note the 'musicality' of it (for want of a better word) and you'll find you'll be able to do it very well with practice. It's not easy to shed the foreign accent completely, I've known extremely few people who have, but don't be too hard on yourself if you're finding tones tricky. It's ok. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cabaire Senior Member Germany Joined 5597 days ago 725 posts - 1352 votes | Message 6 of 42 12 August 2009 at 11:41pm | IP Logged |
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Quote: So, in standard norwegian, would you pronounce the verb "å hete" like this...
hete: 2nd tone heter: 1st tone In Swedish this is true: att heta: second tone. jag heter: first tone. The verb forms with two or more syllables, where the first is stressed, use the second tone. Only the present, if it ends in -er and has no prefix, bears the first tone. So I guess in Norwegian it is the same. The rules in my book are nine pages long, so this is no trifling matter. Ingeborg. PS: I find it fascinating, that in Danish the same difference is made with the stød [ˀ] as in Swedish and Norwegian with the tone accent: So you say at løbe ['løbə], but jeg løber ['lø:ˀbəʀ], the same as it is in Swedish att löpa ['lø:pâ] but jag löper ['lø:pèr]. Edited by Cabaire on 13 August 2009 at 4:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6077 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 42 13 August 2009 at 8:24am | IP Logged |
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Hm. I think I pronounce it like you said, "heter" second tone and "hete" first tone. I have never ever in my life thought about tones and stress in Norwegian before though.
Oh, and concerning gender. I've found us to be very liberal on some of these. I don't know, I am at least. Although I've found some people commenting on it. ;p In the more "working class" (so to speak) areas of the country, we would generally use the feminine noun forms more frequently, if there's a choice between feminine and masculine I use the feminine, and in some cases even convert masculine nouns to feminine. In the more "high brow" areas of Norway (pfff) like Bærum, it's the complete opposite: they use masculine nouns all the time, even if they should be feminine, and if you use a feminine word it's almost vulgar. That is a huge generalisation though. :) Edited by mrhenrik on 13 August 2009 at 8:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5907 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 42 13 August 2009 at 8:58am | IP Logged |
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In Norway as a whole it's got nothing to do with working class vs not-so-working class, except maybe in the area around the capital... But that area is, ehm, special, anyway. No offense :-)
The dialects that stand out that I'm most familiar with that differ from the standard in the use of the feminine are the Bergen dialect (the feminine is not used in schools in that area and every feminine word is simply made masculine, I can't think of any exceptions that I've heard) and the Trondheim dialect (where the feminine is used in words where most wouldn't use it, though I can't seem to think of any examples right now). The point is you should know which nouns are feminine, and which form is most acceptable. There are many feminine nouns you can make masculine without it being a problem and some where you should, I know there are some that you wouldn't do that to but as always I just suck at coming up with examples (though I've discussed this with someone before and we had several examples of words that should remain feminine and others that are feminine but more commonly used as masculine). In the Bergen area you'll see people write "jenten" instead of "jenta" even though that word is rarely masculinised elsewhere, but then again if you were speaking to the queen or the crown princess you would definitely want to use the masculine form of those words (to be appropriately respectful I guess), though it's fine and normal to use them in the feminine in any other context. Just learn the standard and most common version and use that consistently, don't learn a dialect form, but it'll help you to be aware of possible gender messiness in the spoken language according to where people are from. Liz 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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