Learn some of the ways the Norwegian word som is used
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina:Hi, I am Gina. |
| Nora:Hi, and I am Nora. |
| Gina:And welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 7 - A Funny Way of Looking at Things in Norway. In this lesson, you’ll learn the expression “seems like” or “looks like”. |
| Nora:In Norwegian, these would be “ser ut som” or “virker som”. |
| Gina:This is the first lesson in a series covering the word “som”. |
| Nora:“Som” doesn’t really have a direct English equivalent, and that’s why we want to talk about it. |
| Gina:In our dialogue we’ll meet another new character, Mille. We’ll also meet a well known character from another series, Lars, who is Mille’s partner. |
| Nora:They are waiting for Kjersti and Espen. |
| Gina:But it doesn’t seem like they are coming. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina:When you’re socializing with Norwegians, it’s common to be quite open and frank about yourself. |
| Nora:That’s right! Norwegians don’t hide much and talk quite freely about any topic. |
| Gina:But be warned, political preferences is a tender topic. As it is in most countries. |
| Nora:If you avoid that topic, socializing with Norwegians isn’t hard at all. |
| Gina:And most of them feel comfortable about initiating conversation with strangers, even if they’re a bit shy at first. |
| Nora:But if you’re too direct, you can end up getting on somebody’s bad side. |
| Gina:Ah yeah. Like commenting on, say for example, a person’s weight, would certainly bring forward an awkward silence. Just like in other countries. Okay, now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina:Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Nora:“Som” is similar to the English word |
| Gina:“That”. |
| Nora:But in Norwegian, “som” is used a lot more often than “that” in English, and under different circumstances. |
| Gina:That is what makes this word so hard to grasp at times. What exactly does it mean? In essence, it points at the word before it for the action that comes after it as a consequence. |
| Nora:Hmm, the listeners might still be confused, so here are some examples. “Er det du som spiste kaken?” |
| Gina:“Is it you who ate the cake?” Here it becomes the word “who” or “whom”. |
| Nora:“Jeg er som en sommerfugl, lett.” |
| Gina:“I am like a butterfly, light”. Here it would translate as “like”. As in “to be like something” |
| Nora:Our next word is “heller.” |
| Gina:It usually translates as “either” in English. There is one thing you should note however - in English “either” can often be exchanged for “as well” by altering the sentence slightly. |
| Nora:And by the way, we are still talking about “either” in the sense of “I have no idea either”. |
| Gina:Not in the sense of “can I have either?”. |
| Nora:Now, the Norwegian “heller” does not have any near synonyms that can replace it. |
| Gina:So you can only use it to mean “either” and “as well”. Let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:“Jeg vil heller ikke spise” |
| Gina:“I don’t want to eat, either” |
| Nora:“Han visste ikke svaret heller” |
| Gina:“He didn’t know the answer either”. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina:In this lesson, you’ll learn one of the usages of the word som. This word has a few different uses depending on which other words it’s placed with, and the context of the sentence. |
| Nora:In this lesson, we’ll focus on using it with the word virker, which is the present tense of the verb å virke |
| Gina:Which means “to be in working order”, |
| Nora:We’ll also be using the word ser ut, the present tense of the phrase å se ut |
| Gina:Which means “to look”. But first, let’s break down the sentence from the dialogue. |
| Nora:Virker ikke som de kommer. |
| Gina:In English, this means “Doesn’t seem like they are coming”. |
| Nora:The first word in this sentence is Virker |
| Gina:It is the present tense of |
| Nora:Å virke |
| Gina:Which means “to be in working order”. |
| Nora:This is followed by the negative ikke |
| Gina:Or “not”. |
| Nora:Next we have the conjunction som |
| Gina:Which in this sentence means “like”. |
| Nora:Then we have the pronoun de |
| Gina:Or “they”. |
| Nora:And finally the verb kommer, the present tense of å komme |
| Gina:“To come” in English. |
| Nora:Now the word som. As you heard in the sentence earlier, virker and som become a phrase - virker som. |
| Gina:In English this means “seems like”. You could call this a set phrase. |
| Nora:Now Virker som in Norwegian works much like “seems like” does in English. |
| Gina:Let’s see some examples of it. |
| Nora:Det virker som vi må bli her |
| Gina:"It seems like we have to stay here" |
| Nora:Bilen virker som den går på tomgang Det virker som bilen ikke vil starte. |
| Gina:“The car seems like it’s idling” It seems like the car won’t start. |
| Nora:Sometimes you may hear virker som followed by the word at. |
| Gina:This is quite common in speech, because it sounds more natural to the speaker, but it has no significance to the sentence itself. |
| Nora:For example, we can take one of the sentences we just said and add at to it: Det virker som at vi må bli her. |
| Gina:“It seems like we have to stay here”. |
| Nora:At doesn’t have any real significance here, it simply makes the sentence sound more natural to some speakers. |
| Nora:Next is ser ut som. Ser ut som means |
| Gina:“Looks like”. |
| Nora:You might remember that we talked about the descriptive word being placed between the ser and ut in order to make... |
| Gina:“(something) looks (description)”. |
| Nora:When coupling ser ut with som it becomes a set phrase, as we said. But adverbs are still put in between the ser and ut. Finally, ser ut som works much the same way “looks like” does in English. |
| Gina:Let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:Du ser nesten ut som en løve |
| Gina:“You almost look like a lion” |
| Nora:Det ser ut som det skal begynne å regne |
| Gina:“It looks like it’s going to start raining” |
| Nora:Finally, here’s a little bonus for coming this far. |
| Gina:Up until now, we have only been using “looks like”. But Norwegian also has a “sounds like”. |
| Nora:The only thing you need to do is swap the ser with høres. This is the present tense of the verb å høres |
| Gina:In English that means “To be heard/to sound”. |
| Nora:Basically, the phrase now would look like this - høres ut som. |
| Gina:Let’s look at an example of this. |
| Nora:Det høres ut som en dårlig idé |
| Gina:“It sounds like a bad idea”. |
Outro |
| Nora:That’s all for this lesson. |
| Gina:Make sure to read the lesson notes and leave a comment on the lesson page! Thanks for listening. |
| Nora:See you next time! |
| Gina:Bye! |
| Nora:Ha det |
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