Beginner's Norwegian with 2 Audio CDs [Paperback]

Laura Ziukaite-Hansen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 30, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0781810434 | ISBN-13: 978-0781810432

Tips on how to study Norwegian and the rudiments of pronunciation provide learners with the basic tools for self-instruction. Each of the 13 lessons is designed with the novice language learner in mind, and moves from day-to-day dialogue to a comprehensive breakdown of the grammatical elements contained in the previous dialogue. Important cultural notes give a context to the user, while exercises reinforce newly acquired concepts and terminology at the end of each chapter. The appendix contains a full glossary, commonly heard Norwegian expressions, and a key to the exercises. This title includes 2 companion CDs.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Laura Ziukaite-Hansen received her M.A. in Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. A resident of the Boston area, she has taught classes in the Norwegian language for many years.

Product Details

• Paperback: 287 pages
• Publisher: Hippocrene Books (July 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0781810434
• ISBN-13: 978-0781810432
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #283,972 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #15 in Books > Education & Reference > Dictionaries & Thesauruses > Foreign Language > Norwegian
  • #43 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Languages > Instruction > Scandinavian

More About the Author

Laura Ziukaite-Hansen is the author of two books - Beginner's Norwegian and Norwegian Practical Dictionary.
While still at the graduate school at the University of California-Berkeley, she was approached by Hippocrene to write the two Norwegian books - an assignment she found both intriguing and challenging. Having taught the Norwegian language for a number of years, she was very well aware of the need for a comprehensive, innovative and affordable two-way dictionary geared towards an English speaker. She hopes the Practical Dictionary will be a valuable companion to anyone studying Norwegian. And for those who are thinking of getting started - Beginner's Norwegian can be a great resource.
Currently, Laura works as Director of Executive Programs at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. Prior to that, she had worked at Google, Clearblue Technologies and CIEE.
Laura has a BA and an MA in Scandinavian Studies from Vilnius University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, respectively. Recently, she graduated from Harvard University with an MA in Management. She speaks Lithuanian, English, Norwegian and Russian. She is married to Jon and has a wonderful little boy named Magnus.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a wonderful course for beginning Norwegian!!, October 15, 2005

By 

Brian W. Capeloto MD (Anaheim, California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beginner's Norwegian with 2 Audio CDs (Paperback)

The author Laura Ziukaite-Hansen and Hippocrene Books have really hit the nail on the head with this beginner's course in Norwegian. The accompanying audio CDs make the difference!

The author does a great job organizing the basic Norwegian grammar into 13 easy to digest Lessons. Each lesson features a well-constructed conversation (from a language learning stand-point), grammar notes and isolated vocabulary and expression lists for each lesson. The great news is that the audio CDs give a normal speed and sentence by sentence rendition of each conversation, and a complete read-out of the vocabulary and expression lists in crisp, clear Norwegian.

Finally, an adequate volume of recorded material! Most courses in this price range are too skimpy or incomplete in terms of decent audio recordings (especially for isolated students learning the language on their own). The native speakers have nice precise diction and are easy to listen to. Ms. Ziukaite-Hansen also utilizes a nice phonetic system in the text which makes the Norwegian phonemes easy to understand, and makes it much more facile to go on and pronounce new Norwegian vocabulary words once this course is completed. She also includes a lot of cultural notes on historical and contemporary Norway which is enjoyable as well.

I think this course is ideal for the new learner of Norwegian or someone with previous knowledge desiring an efficient, quick review.

This book (and CDs) is a far superior method to learn Norwegian for travel to Norway than to just grab a phrase book and go. You can easily create new sentences based on the patterns studied here, plug in new vocabulary (appropriate for your situation) and really have a powerful command for a beginner.

I love the Scandinavian languges (I've studied all five of the modern languages off and on for many years) and am particularly fond of Norwegian. This course is just a whole lot of fun and works through very quickly! One could probably complete the 13 lessons easily in 3 to 4 weeks with a reasonable study effort.

I would truly hope that Ms Ziukaite-Hansen write follow-up intermediate and advanced Norwegian courses in the identical format (with audio CDs) as this beginner's level course.

I would also plead with her to use her great organizational and linguistic skills to write a similarly structured course in modern Lithuanian (which is sorely lacking in effective teaching materials for the English-speaking learner)!!

Once again -- a great course, get it for a quick study of Norwegian!

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Better Language Books Out There..., December 26, 2007

By 

Chris A. Christopherson "christcr" (Provo, UT USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Beginner's Norwegian with 2 Audio CDs (Paperback)

I recently reviewed the Teach Yourself Norwegian course/book, and would like to now review the Beginner's Norwegian book/CD's and make some comparisons. In the other review (Teach Yourself), I mentioned that it was my favorite of the Norwegian books I use. This is true, but Beginner's Norwegian is an excellent book and in some ways superior to TY (Teach Yourself Norwegian). I'll also briefly mention the Colloquial Norwegian book here, as well.

Let me start with the superior points of this book:

* If your learning style tends to be visual (meaning: written word) and/or analytical, and you like to see things organized and categorized, you are in for a pleasant surprise here. This book is better organized than other Norwegian courses. Hippocrene has done a magnificent job with their recently published Beginner's Series books (the Danish course is organized in the same way as the Norwegian book).

* Each chapter starts out with a dialog. On the facing pages, there is a complete translation in English. TY does not have this translation (it only has a list of new words presented in the dialog). TY forces you to thumb back to the glossary if you forget a word. I don't want to debate whether, pedagogically, this is good or bad. But I will say that having the translation right there with the dialog saves a LOT of time that would be otherwise wasted flipping back and forth to a glossary--time that could have been spent drilling words with flash cards, which is far more efficient than looking words up in a glossary. You are either going to learn a word or not--having to flip back to a glossary will not help you learn it any faster, it will only waste time and cause frustration. Thank you Hippocrene for providing full translations.

* On the CD, the dialog is spoken at normal speed and then it goes through the whole thing again, slower and with pauses to repeat it. Very nice.

* Each chapter contains a vocabulary list of manageable size and also gives the written approximate English (US) pronunciation. I know many people think this is a bad thing, but I don't. You will not be pronouncing words as English once you have the sounds of Norwegian in your head--the reason I like this feature is that it's invaluable for showing you which letters are silent or pronounced non-phonetically until you are able to remember them on your own. If you start out pronouncing a "t" or "r" that isn't supposed to be sounded, it's hard to break the habit. The written pronunciation helps with this a lot. And if you are just learning pronunciation from the Norwegian spelling, good luck. It isn't as phonetic as it's cracked up to be. Things won't go so well for you at times.

* This book tends to have more exercises than the others--still not enough, but better than most.

What is perhaps not as good about this book?

Well, you will get a more rigorous treatment in the TY book--I'm not sure if that's good or bad because, at times, the Teach Yourself book tends to be a bit overwhelming (at least for me)--mostly with the vast amounts of vocabulary thrown out. I've had to stop, back up, take a deep breath, and relearn vocabulary several times with TY. So with Beginner's Norwegian you will not get as many vocabulary words (or as much grammar) in any given chapter. But, really, I almost think that's good. You get less, but it's drilled into you more completely. I do think that the TY does a bit better with the grammar, though. And TY is definitely more entertaining (the CD and dialogs). Then again, I don't know if that really means anything when it comes to learning a language.

Probably your best bet is to work through both Beginner's Norwegian and TY if you have the time. Then there is Colloquial Norwegian. This is an okay book. I like the varied dialects on the CDs, but truthfully, the presentation in the book is a bit scatter-brained. It's not horrible, but both TY and Beginner's Norwegian are far better organized.

Now for the big question: If you were to buy just one of the books, which would it be???

That depends. If you want the path of learning Norwegian to be a smoother one from the start, I'd say go for Beginner's Norwegian. It's a great book. If you are up for some frustration along the way and are willing to deal with a lack of practice problems (meaning you have to be creative to find your own ways of drilling yourself), go with TY. You'll have at least double the amount of vocabulary and a more complete picture of the grammar when you are done.

But still... bottom line if you're serious: get both and maybe go through Beginner's Norwegian first, then TY. Or you could even get all three (along with Janus's Norwegian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar).

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book for a great language!, October 4, 2006

By 

Dave "Dave" (California, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beginner's Norwegian with 2 Audio CDs (Paperback)

This book is an excellent introduction to Norwegian! If you're starting with Norwegian - start with this book. It's organized well and presents Norwegian in a way that makes it easy to learn without glossing over the challenging parts. Of course, Norwegian is hardly challenging for an English-speaker (compared to most other languages). It it just me, this book, or is Norwegian just an incredibly easy language for English speakers? Great book if you're new to Norwegian or any other Scandinavian language. I'm only 3/4 of the way through and I can already figure out Swedish websites!