How I learnt Norwegian on my own

Hi, my name is Ilys, I was born and raised in France, and today I have lived in Norway for 3 years. Since the beginning, moving to Norway hasn't felt like moving away from home, but going home. Today it really much feels like I have two homes, and like family or friends, I love both France and Norway equally, but for total different reasons.

I learnt Norwegian on my own and am today totally fluent, and on this channel I want to help you learn for Norwegian to become whatever you want it to become for you.

I have gotten so many questions about how I learnt Norwegian, and today I finally made a video where I try to answer to many questions I have gotten, and where I explain how I learnt, as well as to give you recommendations for which sources to use.

I really hope that this video will help you in your journey,
Ilys

[hcholm]

She's not just fluent, but pretty close to native level. A native Norwegian might notice some odd intonation now and then, but that's about it. Simply amazing.

[GlennErikMathisen]

To anyone wondering. Yeah, she is pretty much fluent. No way I would be able to learn french this fast. This is impressive!

[TempestPhaedra]

There's a lot of good advice so I took notes for my reference, everyone enjoy.

Preparation:
a) Find motivation
Have a goal in mind to help you keep up motivation
b) make a plan based on your motivation and goal
Because her goal was to speak Norwegian like a native, she decided to learn Norwegian the way a child would and approached all of her language learning from that perspective.

1) Listen as much as possible to Norwegian
Because children spend the first few years of life just listening, she decided to listen to Norwegian as much as possible. She found many random podcasts to listen to at every possible opportunity, like while cleaning her room, playing mindless video games, and before bed. She did not understand what was being said so she wasn't picky about content.

2) Read things many times
Kids don't learn grammar, but they do learn books by heart by reading books over and over again. She found text messages sent between characters in a TV show that she liked, wrote down the messages, figured out what all the words meant, and then read the sentences over and over out loud. She used Google translate to have it read the sentences to her and also sent the sentences to friends in Norway to get voice recordings by native speakers.

3) Learn simple words
She made a list of words she thought would be useful, like "alone" "together" "to be" "to have" "before/after" "but" "already" etc. Any time she saw a sentence with one of her words, she wrote the sentence and then read it once a day. She includes pronunciation notes in her notebook. This method helps you internalize different sentence structures so you can create new similar sentences automatically.

She didn't spend time on grammar initially, but learned grammar rules later in the process and thinks it would have helped to learn grammar sooner.

4) Write your own personal texts (e.g. journal or stories)
When she started trying to write her own journal entries in Norwegian, she didn't know how to write anything at first so she used Google translate to type in 5 sentences about her day in English and get the Norwegian translation. She wrote down the Norwegian translation and then read it out loud many times. She got pronunciation help from Google translate audio.

4b) Adapt your method as you get better
As she learned how to put together sentences on her own, she moved to writing her sentences in Norwegian, then writing the sentences in English in Google translate and comparing what she wrote to what Google provided to learn what her mistakes were.

5) Buy and read books
She wanted to read adult level books even though they were too difficult and she couldn't read them at all. She treated like she had no choice and she had to figure it out on her own. She took a book with her everywhere, opened to a random page, and looked to see if there were any words she knew or sentences she understood. Her goal became to read the book she had chosen and it was highly motivating to her when she was able to understand parts of it.

6. Listen to audiobooks
She often would read a book and listen to the audiobook at the same time. Sometimes she would listen to a chapter first and try to understand as much as possible just by listening and then she would pick up the book and read along as she listened to the audiobook again.

7. Use series and movies
She would watch an episode of a series and then watch it again and copy down some sentences she thought were useful. She would watch a 2-5 minute scene the first time without subtitles to see what she could understand, then watch with Norwegian subtitles, then watch with English subtitles, then watch another time with Norwegian subtitles, copying down her sentences for something easy to read.

8. Make stories using the vocabulary you want to learn
She had lists of vocabulary that she wanted to learn. She wrote stories in English using that vocabulary and then sent the stories to a Norwegian friend to get a translation and a voice recording. She read and listened to the Norwegian story until she knew it by heart, spending 1-2 weeks on a story. To work on listening and writing she would listen to the recording without reading and then try to write all the words that she heard.

9. Learn sentences by heart
Learning stories and sentences by heart enabled her to speak without needing to stop and think about what she was saying so she could focus more on accent. This is how she speaks quickly and sounds native.

10. Speak to yourself
From the beginning she would talk to herself in Norwegian. She got over discomfort by pretending that she is the best Norwegian speaker in the world. You can speak to yourself about your day, about a movie you saw or a book you want to read, or pick a picture and try to describe it, imagining the story behind it and telling the story.

Conclusion: Don't give up
Even if you feel like you haven't made progress in weeks, you still have made progress.

[alexheslop]

Sat here listening to a French person, explaining her method for learning Norwegian to an amazing level of fluency, in native level English... Amazing work Ilys!

[annagorbunov]

I'm from Days and Words. He made an entire video about you. I'm now excited to watch the original.

Your method seems very close to what I decided to do once I started learning languages on my own.

[fidellivino]

Honest tips. No marketing. No click bait. I love it. I learned English pretty much the same way. Now, I'm thinking of learning French

[e-genieclimatique]

in brief:
**Introduction:**
- Ilys, originally from France, has been living in Norway for 3 years.
- She learned Norwegian on her own and is now fluent.
- The video aims to answer questions about her learning journey and provide recommendations for learning resources.

**Learning Approach:**
1. **Motivation:** The key difference between learning a language in school and learning it on your own is motivation. Ilys' goal was to speak Norwegian fluently, like a native.

2. **Listening:** Ilys began by listening to Norwegian as much as possible, using podcasts and other audio resources.

3. **Learning Like a Child:** She aimed to learn Norwegian as if she were a child, focusing on listening and repetition.

4. **Using Context:** Instead of isolated vocabulary, Ilys focused on learning words and phrases in context. She would write down sentences from movies or shows and practice them.

5. **Grammar:** While she initially avoided traditional grammar exercises, she later found value in understanding some grammar rules to enhance her fluency.

6. **Reading:** Ilys read books in Norwegian, even if they were challenging. She would also listen to audiobooks while following along with the text.

7. **Speaking:** Speaking to oneself is crucial. Ilys would often talk to herself in Norwegian, imagining different scenarios or describing pictures.

8. **Consistency:** Progress in language learning might not always be immediately visible, but consistent effort will lead to improvement.

**Conclusion:**
- Ilys emphasizes the importance of finding a method that works for you and staying motivated.
- She hopes her journey and tips will inspire others in their language learning endeavors.

[bossman]

So many people on youtube talk about the scandinavian languages as being weird and difficult to pronounce. as a native danish speaker, who also speaks mandarin, dutch, and english obviously, i am absolutely blown away. so many language videos on youtube aren't actually fluent. i am speechless at how fluent this sounds. i legitimately wouldn't be able to tell this wasn't a norwegian.

[mrt_]

One of the reasons young kids learn languages fast is that they have close to no shame, and will just try, and eventually learn it.
As adults we have a higher tendency to be scared of doing something wrong.

[AudunWangen]

As a native Norwegian, I can confirm that Google Translate is amazing for Norwegian. I'm surprised how great the pronunciation is.

Your Norwegian pronunciation is great. I literally couldn't detect a foreign accent at all. It makes me happy that you wanted to learn my language.

[jeffwest]

A channel called: ‘Days and Words’ posted a video about you Ilys, called: ‘You missed the best language learning video ever.’ I left the following comment, and then realized that I ought to share it with you as well: “I agree! I came across Ilys’ video about a month ago, and was quickly stunned by her depth of insight and the practicality of her suggestions! Though she likely shares here a few things, gleaned from others, I strongly sense that the majority of her tips are born of her natural intuition and her ability to quickly profit from her own experience of trial and error, as if feeling her way through the new tongue, trusting her perfect blend of instinct and intellect. Her video distills all of the web’s best language-learning advice into some twenty minutes of pure gold. Anyone committed to learning a foreign language needs to follow her lead. And every poster of language-learning content should be recommending her, passionately!”

[willothewispp]

This is SO affirming, because it is almost exactly how I have always approached learning languages. I remember back when I was learning Spanish, I would watch videos from my favourite Spanish Youtubers and repeat them so many times that I could recite the entire video by heart. I would copy intonation, regional accents, pauses, absolutely everything, until I sounded exactly like the person in the video.

Learning to say entire sentences, paragraphs, speeches, etc., is incredibly useful because - like you said - it helps you learn pronunciation and rhythm and speaking at a normal pace. Also, you will just start using whole sentences you've learned by heart, and then instead of piecing together sentences with words, you're piecing together whole speeches with sentences!

[AlbaMinor]

Your Norwegian pronunciation is fantastic. And I think it's fascinating that your native accent is much less noticeable when you speak Norwegian than when you speak English.

[JrKengu]

this point she makes about "you only listen for the first 2 years, you dont speak", is so true. when i moved to england that's exactly what I did, people thought I was weird cuz I never talked, but I eventually started speaking fluently this way.

[CAMPNOU]

I’m not Norwegian but the way you pronounce words like “book” or “stuck” is like I was listening to my Scandinavian friends! You already have a Norwegian accent

[roorvns]

That is quite genuinely, some of the best advice I've heard, when It comes to learning another language. I love the fact that you didn't want to just 'get-by' in Norwegian, you wanted to be fully conversive. That's what I'm aiming for. Your advice is bloody brilliant. Takk.

[alieinhorrorland]

I learned Norwegian when I was 12, I did it exactly as you did. However, as I lived in Mexico I couldn't travel to Norway, so my only practice was through MSN and later while working as a tour manager for Norwegian bands touring Mexico. Then I used this exact method to learn Polish. Now I'm learning Chinese :) Great job, your pronunciation is awesome!

[aliciabeth]

1) What is your motivation to learn (in my case) French and Portuguese?

2) Make a plan that reflects your motivation.
a) Learn like a child
b) Listen a lot to podcasts in 🇫🇷/🇵🇹
c) Children don't learn a language by doing Grammar exercises in the beginning.
d. Listen to the same book over and over again.
e. Listen/Read an excerpt and learn the content (eg. Vocabulary, grammar, conjugation, and pronounciation) then apply it.
f. Make a list of often used/useful words.
g. When reading/watching something, if you find that word, write down the sentence on paper. Add to a list.
h. To learn a word, find it in context then write it on another piece of paper. Read once a day. (Write how you would read it in English and show where the accent is).
i. Write daily journal. Use translator if needed. No shame.
j. Change method eventually to writing first in target language, then translating it and comparing it with the correct translation.
k. Buy books: my goal is to read this book one day and be able to understand everything.
l. Listen to an audio book x1 then listen to it again with a text.
m. Series and movies: watch a scene 2-5 minutes, then copy the sentences. Add to list of sentences.
n. With your vocab lists: write stories, get them corrected and also ask that person to also record a message reading your story.

o. Learn your stories and sentences by heart.

p. Speak to YOURSELF. Imagine you are the best at speaking the language you are learning.

q. Find photos with a lot going on. Describe what you see and make a story about it.

r. You will get better!! Persevere xx

[pedade]

FRANÇAIS:
Je suis vraiment surpris de votre qualité de prononciation en anglais parce que la grande majorité des français qui parlent anglais ont un accent natif très marqué et donc très facile à reconnaître. En fait, au départ, je croyais que vous étiez québécoise (je vis au Québec) car ici, étant innondé constamment dans un monde anglophone en Amérique, notre prononciation de l'anglais est en général plus aiguisée par défaut, comme une sorte de démonstration que nous sommes capables de parler en anglais avec le moins d'accent possible - hi hi! Je constate que vous avez un grand respect pour les langues que vous apprenez, ce qui est admirable. En passant, j'apprends présentement l'allemand, mais cette vidéo-ci de vous m'a donné envie d'apprendre le Norvégien par la suite. Merci de votre générosité, authenticité et accessibilité.

ENGLISH:
I am really surprised by your quality of pronunciation in English because the vast majority of French people who speak English have a very strong native accent and therefore very easy to recognize. Actually, at first, I thought you were from Quebec (I live in Quebec) because here, being constantly inundated in an English-speaking world in America, our pronunciation of English is generally sharper by default, as a sort of demonstration that we are able to speak in English with as little accent as possible - hee hee! I see that you have great respect for the languages you learn, which is admirable. By the way, I'm currently learning German, but this video from you made me want to learn Norwegian later. Thank you for your generosity, authenticity and accessibility.

[inber]

As a Swede, with Norway as our closest neighbor, I would never think from the little I heard, that she’s not a native Norwegian. Her pronunciation is great!