Customer Reviews

Norwegian (Compact) [CD]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is actually a good way to learn (any) spoken language. You can easily listen anywhere you have a CD palyer and learn something.

But pronunciation is where it stops, at least for me. I bought this course, as well as the "Teach Yourself Norwegian" book/CD combo. Pimsleur only has 10 lessons, and only in the 10th leasson do you hear anything beyond the present tense (simple future). Truthfully, there's not much vocabulary there either, although the vocabulary that is presented is a good representation of the full pronunciation of the language.

The other course I purchased, on the other hand, immediately give s you a decent vocabulary set, and quickly.

In short, it's a good pronunciation guide, but I wouldn't purchase Pimsleur on its own. It definitely needs to be supplemented with something more comrehensive.

I have attempted several methods in learning Norwegian. My main stumbling block was pronunciation and an over-emphasis on grammar. What I needed was an easier way to learn pronunciation and something that would be more natural to learn. I have found that in this CD set!

What this CD set does is teach you the language in a way that I think most humans learned to speak, by listening and repeating with an understanding what the words mean. It starts slowly, but does not so slow as you lose interest. On the contrary, these CDs keep your interest at every turn. First of all, each lesson is 30 minutes long, not too long as to lose interest and sharpness but long enough to give you a solid lesson. Next each lesson builds on previous lessons and quite often somethig you learned 90 minutes ago creeps up and makes sure you remember the whole course.

This is mostly a listening course. There is a tiny booklet included but its main purpose is to teach you to recognize the words you have already verbally learned. Just as a child learns to speak before reading, this course does the same thing. I would HIGHLY recommend this course to beginners and would recommend using this course ALONE before any other study aids. Once this course has been mastered then you can comfortably move on to other aids. Again, this is a great course!

This program is by far the best way to learn a language. It does not cover a lot of ground for 10 lessons, but when you are done, you know it backwards and forwards. The biggest problem is that it is verbal only, so you never know if what you are saying is really correct. I would say that this is a "must have" for anyone learning the language, but do not rely solely on it- use it in conjunction with other learning tools (books, cd's, etc).

There are a lot of problems that someone living in suburban America encounters when trying to learn a relatively obscure language such as Norwegian. No one around me speaks Norwegian!

Pimsleur was recommended to me by a friend who had heard of the program (presumably from another language) and I must say it's helped me with my pronunciation quite a bit.

I really want to give this product 3.5 stars: There are a lot of different "flavours" of Norwegian: Bokmål, Riksmål, and Nynorsk and a ton of dialects. I'm not sure the Pimsleur Norwegian set does justice to these other aspects of the language. I also wish the Norwegian alphabet was spoken aloud in lesson 1 along with common sounds.

I've tried several courses for learning Norwegian, and this beats them all.

Pimsleur's philosophy is that you first need to learn how to speak a language before you start trying to learn how to read it and learn the grammatical structures. The way they apply this philosophy is very effective. You can only learn so much in their 5 hours of lessons, but you learn it extremely well. They teach you to speak at a normal speed with the appropriate inflection, which is very important in Norwegian.

Også, they have done a fantastic job of identifying expressions that you are most likely to use in conversation. I only wish they had more than 5 hours worth of lessons.

Wonderful program, easy to learn. I play the CDs on my way to work and back...great use of my time.

This is set up in the following format: First you have the native speaker saying something, then you have an interpreter give you the English translation. They slow sentences down for you, break them into smaller parts, then say them in a normal speed.
It's not too bad but I do recommend you proceed with caution. The problem is that this is almost completely oral learning. There's a REALLY thin pamphlet that comes with it but it has very little information. While that may be fine, if you plan on continuing your studies you might be surprised when you actually see all the words that you were listening to and repeating with these recordings. For example:
Although the word for "speak" is pronounced sneh-KID, it is spelled "snakker." You really don't get that from just listening.
Also you'll not be properly introduced to the three additional letters of the Norwegian language å æ and ø. This is crucial for development of the language.
Depending on what you are learning Norwegian for this might not be too bad for you. If you want to be fluent in reading, writing, and speaking the language I recommend taking more conventional methods. You'll be better off in the long run.

I have been living in Norway for 3 years now, married to a Norwegian and taking Norwegain (norsk) classes for one & a half years now stumbling along feeling lost and like I am "missing" something. My verbal has been my hang up point along with writting correctly because I get lost in figuring out what is the right way to say things. You can't just translate because then you are told you sound like an English speaker trying to speak Norwegain. The concept behind this of learning what to say correctly will allow you to write correctly makes perfect sense. I agree this needs to be used in combination with an intensive course that goes over the written language as well should you be studying this to live in Norway or going to spend extensive time here. This, however, is a great starting point or something to be used for if you were to be traveling here. Over all in the week that I have had this I have come further then I have in the year plus I've taken classes here in Norway. I have even started the Farsi (persian) course because I have a close friend who is from Iran. I was able to talk to her in Farsi yesterday! I've only done 4 lessons! She was amazed. I used to speak Japanese and Spanish and I intend to study those again with the Pimsleur course as well!