Eat my monkeydust

Todays word: Hurtig

• English translation: Fast, rapid, quick
• Pronunciation: hewt-ti

First attempt

Om sommeren i England
noe tid i August er det et veldig stort, og veldig
fint arrangement som heter "RIAT".
Når vi bodde i England, prøvde vi alltid
å besøke det fordi det var kjempe morsomt å
se på alle de hurtigefly som kom fra
mange land :o)

Errors/Observations:

• I wasn’t sure about the first sentence as I wanted to say “during the Summer, some time in August” but that does not really work the same way in Norwegian. Adding a few commas and changing it to “en helg i August” works in this case.
• Similarly in English, adding veldig before every adjective in a sentence is a little bit “over-emphasising”, so the latter one(s) can be skipped
• kjempe morsomt – this is one of those joining up word scenarios! Quite often with kjempe followed by an adjective, the words can be joined – in this case kjempemorsomt
• One last error, and it’s a bit of a noob mistake as we were doing so well… we are talking about a definitive collection of aircraft “de hurtige…” so we must add “ene” to form de hurtigeflyene
• Når changes to Da – see comments below

Final edit:

Om sommeren i England,
en helg i August, er det et veldig stort, fint arrangement 
som heter "RIAT".
Da vi bodde i England, prøvde vi alltid
å besøke det fordi det var kjempemorsomt å
se på alle de hurtige flyene som kom fra
mange land :o)

Translation:

During the Summer in England, one weekend in August,
there is a very big, fine show/arrangement called "RIAT".
When we lived in England, we always tried to visit it because
it was really fun to see all the fast planes that came
from many countries :o)

Link: RIAT – The Royal International Air Tattoo

Today’s word: overflødig

• English Translation: superfluous, redundant
• Pronunciation: aw-verr-flur-di

Hver dag jeg prøver å lære
litt mer norsk, men jeg synes
det er veldig viktig å lære
nødvendig ord først!
Dagens ord er "overflødig"...
Kan du se hva jeg gjurde der? :o)

Errors/observations:

• Sentence order failure, jeg prøver should be prøver jeg. The verb should come “second” in the sentence, but this doesn’t mean that the first thing has to be a single word – it could also be a word group or sentence fragment.
• An interesting point – when written, using men in this sentence may be seen as too negative in relation to the first part of the sentence, and maybe it should be og. This provoked some discussion, and I’d appreciate comments on that! I believe that when spoken it’s no problem because the emphasis on the word men is what defines the tone of the sentence. When written, maybe the sentence could be reworded.
• Since we are generally talking about some specific necessary words, we should say de nødvendige ordene
• Nødvendig (necessary) is perhaps not the best word to use here, I would rather have said something else but couldn’t think of another word! Nyttig (useful) was offered up as an alternative.

Corrected text:

Hver dag prøver jeg å lære
litt mer norsk, men jeg synes
det er veldig viktig å lære de
nyttige ordene først!
Dagens ord er "overflødig"...
Kan du se hva jeg gjurde der? :o)

Translation:

Every day I try to learn a bit
more Norwegian, but I think it's
very important to learn the more useful
words first! Todays word is "superfluous"...
Can you see what I did there? :o)

Today’s word: bevegelse

• English translation: Movement, motion
• Pronunciation: beh-vay-gerl-ser

My attempt

I dag var jeg spurt å skrive om "bevegelse". 
Kan jeg stoppe nå? Nei... Jeg trodde det ikke!
Kanskje jeg kan fortelle dere om de
bevegelse i magen, eller alle bevegelse
i går på volleyball trening? Hmm... Hva om
den nye politisk bevegelsen som
skal ta over verden?! Ja, først Norge,
så verden.... hahaha!

Errors/observations:

• var should be ble. This is a tough one to get used to, and I need to do some more research on that really
• spurt å skrive should be spurt om å skrive
• Kan jeg stoppe nå is a bit strange and needs context, since it implies stopping motion, so kan jeg stoppe å skrive nå works better
• trodde det ikke should be trodde ikke det – position of ikke in a sentence can sometimes be tricky and will be discussed in a later blog post
• i magen – left like this it could be any stomach, but I want to talk about my own stomach so should say magen min. This can be a bit confusing sometimes, since often you can leave that part out if it is obvious.
• de bevegelse – since I’m talking about the specific movements in my stomach, I should use bevegelsene here
• volleyball trenning – in Norwegian if words sound like they can “roll” together, they can probably be written together! volleyballtrening
• Also, since I’m talking about the specific volleyball training yesterday, it should be volleyballtreningen
• In Norwegian, when you are asking about something, you use hva med not hva om. It sounds strange to translate into English (what with) but it’s just one of those things!
• A common mistake that I make when I’m sloppy, since I am talking about a defnite political movement (THE new political movement) the adjective should take the definitive form by adding an “e” to the end, in this case politiske

Corrected text:

I dag ble jeg spurt om å skrive om "bevegelse". 
Kan jeg stoppe å skrive nå? Nei... Jeg trodde ikke det!
Kanskje jeg kan fortelle dere om
bevegelsene i magen min, eller alle bevegelsene
i går på volleyballtreningen? Hmm... Hva med
den nye politiske bevegelsen som
skal ta over verden?! Ja, først Norge,
så verden.... hahaha!

Translation:

Today I was asked to write about "motion".
Can I stop writing now? No I didn't think so!
Maybe I can tell you about the motions in my stomach,
or all the motion yesterday at volleyball training? Hmm...
What about the new political movement that shall take
over the world?! Yes, first Norway, then the world.... Hahaha!

Today’s word: justere

• English: Adjust
• Pronunciation: ʸewss-tay-rer

First attempt

Vanligvis når jeg søk etter 
bukser i butikkene, er det
umulig å finner noen som har den
riktig størrelse! Jeg har lenge
beiner, så kanskje noen kan justere 
lengden av buksen etter jeg har kjøpt den?
Jeg liker ikke å spør fordi jeg vil heller
ha et lett liv :)

Errors/observations:

• Using søk etter in this context is incorrect, similarily in English it would not be normal to “search” for something like this, rather “look for”, which translates as “ser etter” or “leter etter”
• Silly mistake, å finner should be å finne
• som har den riktig størrelse – since I am talking about a difinitive article (the right size) we must make the adjective and noun definite – som har den riktige størrelsen. A simpler alternative sentence could be “med riktig størrelse”
• lenge is a period of time whereas lange refers to physical length
• beiner should be bein – this word does not take the -er ending in the plural form
• lengden av – should be lengden på – just one of those things!
• Another silly mistake with infinitive verbs, å spør should be å spørre
• The final sentence generated some discussion, with a female colleague saying it doesn’t make sense (because why wouldn’t you ask for extra services that customers are entitled to?) and a male colleague agreeing that from a “can’t be bothered” (and perhaps male) perspective, all we want is to find the right thing and buy it… or leave. Anyway, the sentence could maybe be better as “Det gidder jeg ikke å spørre om, fordi…” implying that I can’t be bothered to ask, rather than just saying that I don’t like to ask

Corrected version (one variation):

Vanligvis når jeg leter etter 
bukser i butikkene, er det
umulig å finne noen som har den
riktige størrelsen! Jeg har lange
bein, så kanskje noen kan justere 
lengden på buksen etter jeg har kjøpt den?
Det gidder jeg ikke å spørre om fordi jeg vil heller
ha et lett liv :)

Translation:

Normally when I look for
trousers in the shops, it's
impossible to find some with the
right size! I have long
legs, so maybe someone can adjust
the length of the trousers after I have bought them?
I can't be bothered to ask about it because I would rather
have an easy life :)

Summary

It’s easy for English speakers to get caught out when talking about when things happen in Norwegian, the most apparent example is in English using “We will take a trip in a week” could be mistakenly translated to “vi skal ta en tur i en uke”. What you’ve actually said is “we will take a trip for a week” as i in this sense means “during”. The correct sentence would have been “vi skal ta en tur om en uke”

Note: Google translate often gets this wrong!

Examples:

• om sommeren – during/in the summer (any summer)
• i sommer – this summer (past or future depending on context)
• forriger sommer / i fjor sommer – last summer / summer last year
• i år – this year
• neste år – next year
• hele år – all year
• hvert år – every year
• for fire år siden – four years ago
• i forrige uke – last week
• fem dager seinere – five days later
• to minutter tidligere – two minutes earlier
• ved/i fem-tiden – around five o’clock (-tiden is like -ish when used here)
• om tre uker – in 3 weeks
• i tre uker – for/during 3 weeks
• i dag / i morges / i kveld – today, this morning, this evening
• i fjor – last year
• ikke på tre uker – not for 3 weeks

Some sentences using the expressions noted:

• Skal vi treffes om to timer? – Can we meet in 2 hours?
• Vi var på besøk hos han Daniel i tre timer – We were visiting Daniel for 3 hours
• Vi besøkte Daniel i tre timer – We visited Daniel for 3 hours
• Rambo har ikke blitt sett på fem år – Rambo has not been seen for five years
• Hun kan skrive hele boka på fem måneder – She can write the whole book in five months