norsk now

Written By Kai Kol

Learning Norwegian on a budget is very much possible.

In 2021, when I decided to ultimately move to Norway, I connected with a group of foreigners living in Iceland to see if anyone wanted to learn Norwegian with me, as there were no Norwegian classes available in Iceland at the time.

We ended up being a small group of people who used the free online classes from NTNU’s website, going over classes together, practicing our pronunciation and completing lessons together. We watched Disney's Frozen in Norwegian, went to cafés together and just tried our best in general to immerse ourself in the language. It was great fun and the people I got to meet were amazing!

In addition to our group meet-ups, I watched the Netflix show Hjem til Jul and practiced on DuoLingo. Once I moved to Oslo, I started attending classes in person, first A2 with Alfa Skolen and then chose to continue onward with SpeakNorsk.

Three months after I had arrived to Oslo, I was able to land a job working in a bookstore, communicating only Norwegian.

While I definitely experienced impostor syndrome and embarrassed myself on several occasions on my language journey, I also learned a lot and was able to reach level B1 by spring of 2022. To get to level B2, I attended additional classes, volunteered in local organisations and started an in-person language café on Sundays for others trying to practice the language.

Based on my experience, here are some resources for those wishing to get started on their Norwegian (bokmål) journey.

Kai Kol
Next

on the shikoku 88 pilgrimage