A little bit more about
„Norsk er gøy”
modern
effective
not only the langugage
a gripping story
inspiring
rich in content
a «must have»
modern
effective
not only the langugage
a gripping story
inspiring
rich in content
a «must have»
Meet Jan and Maria!
That is more than only learning.
Get to know the Students’ Book inside out!
What does the Students’ Book contain?
Small, helpful Vikings 🙂
It is late summer and a beautiful Spanish waitress is serving a cup of coffee to a Polish construction worker. This is the way the characters Maria and Jan meet each other, and they are introduced to us.
In the first few subsequent chapters we find out that Maria is tired of having flatmates, we accompany her when she is visiting some flats, we observe how Jan is helping her arrange new accommodation (advices abut finn.no and gis bort websites). We meet many of their friends and we find out that not all of them work in their fields. Maria’s bad case of pneumonia is a great pretext for Jan to take care of the girl, who he is in love with, but she treats him only as a friend…
But because the story develops gradually and events are linked, I would not like to reveal too many details. I can only disclose that the plot of the book covers the period of the entire year, so we follow both seasons and special events, and I need to stress here that some of my students were so intrigued by the story that they signed up for the next course of mine to learn about Jan’s and Maria’s further adventures and see what the future will hold for them. 🙂
It goes without saying that the primary aim is to help You learn Norwegian. The book is fully packed with a lot of words and phrases to help you communicate in Norwegian. As you will notice quickly, the texts are a bit longer than in case of the majority of the available textbooks at the same level. It can be challenging but it provides you with an opportunity to learn more words at the same time. It is up to you to determine your learning pace.
The second mission of the book was offering readers some entertainment. My goal was to make the story interesting enough so that you would feel like opening it with pleasure. Throughout the book we follow the story of the two main characters: Maria from Spain and a guy from Poland whose name is Jan. In each text, most of which are dialogues, we meet at least one of them.
Maria and Jan experience different daily situations, which also happen to all other foreigners such as: falling in love, finding accommodation, booking an appointment with a doctor, considering money saving policy, finding interesting ways of spending leisure time.
And here comes my next important goal: to share with you as much advice and many tips on life in Norway as possible. I sneak out all the information, which to my foreigner’s mind, you may find useful. But because there is no enough space and occasion to put everything in the first book, more advice and tips will appear in the next two books at B1 and B2 levels (I’m in the process of writing them).
The book covers levels A1 and A2, but in fact, it goes beyond these levels.
Needless to say, during the writing process I was all the time sticking to the syllabus of the Norwegian language which is based on Common European Framework for Reference for Languages and social studies for adult immigrants. The syllabus includes a list of topics that should be covered by all Norwegian students’ books
The book in made up of more than 70 texts which fall under separate 22 categories. In each of them you will find 3, 4 texts which one way or another are related to the main topic. The texts are frequently only the background for the story of Maria and Jan. The texts are mostly dialogues and a lot of useful expressions that help to hold a conversation in Norwegian can be found in them.
Each text includes a lot of new words and phrases. In order to help you learn systematically, without being harmfully overloaded, I always put a few words on the word list to memorize them, they are introduced from the fifth text onwards. Learning new words is extremely crucial, and having such a ready-made list of words is often more motivating than learning all the new words from the text.
Each text is followed by comprehension questions. By answering them you test your reading comprehension skills. They will surely prepare you also for Norwegian exams which include such types of tasks. The questions are accompanied by one or two questions for discussion that you should answer either orally or in writing, (but most preferably in both forms).
In writing, because when you write you learn a lot, you expand vocabulary and prepare for Norwegian exams. But it is even more important to start talking as soon as possible. The moment you have questions, you can prepare yourself at home, look up the words you want to use, practice sentences to say them aloud in the class afterwards, or the most preferably, have a conversation in Norwegian in everyday situations. Remember, do not put off speaking until you learn Norwegian well. You learn by speaking, even when you make mistakes.
When questions are discussed, grammar needs to be dealt with. I always try to underline grammar in the text to make it easier for you to understand how it is used in a conversation.
It is marked in the text in orange. Grammar is difficult and confusing for many students, but Norwegian grammar is basically quite simple. Take some time to understand it and observe how it is used in the texts, do the tasks in the workbook (which will be released with the student book) and everything will be fine.
For most thematic categories I created a small list of useful phrases and expressions. Many of them were used in the texts, but thanks to the solution you have an overview available in one place.
At the end of the book the whole grammar is available in one place, especially for those who would like to have the grammar information gathered. There is a list of all the words that were used in the book in alphabetical order. You will also find the number of the page and the line next to the words, which can help you check the context quickly
Let’s not forget about Ask and Astrid, who hopefully will help you to scrape through the book.
They, like you, are frustrated when suddenly they face a lot of difficult grammar and they are elated when they finally understand it. There are some moments when they (especially Ask) are close to give up or are angered at learning Norwegian or even me 🙂 All people have their good and bad days, learning a foreign language is not always effortless and pleasant. Ask and Astrid pay attention to certain aspects when they struggle to speak Norwegian with others. They ask hard questions, and thus they give me opportunities to explain common and significant daily aspects that are missing in some textbooks.
Last but not least, Ask and Astrid are students who just like you attempt to find the best way to learn Norwegian in an efficient manner. I do my best to help them achieve the goal, and furthermore, I talk about useful learning techniques. The dialogues between them and the characters can be a little tougher to comprehend and may contain some advanced vocabulary items and phrases. Unfortunately, it could not have been avoided, but it is reassuring that you do not have to learn these words now. And if you attend a Norwegian course, your teacher will explain to you what you need to know so that you will not miss anything important.
