Søndagsspørsmål #372 - Sunday Question Thread

[u/dwchandler]

This is a weekly post to ask any question that you may not have felt deserved its own post, or have been hesitating to ask for whatever reason. No question too small or silly!

Previous søndagsspørsmål

[u/roarmartin → u/[deleted]]

I don't think you will face any problems. I know several nynorsk enthusiasts who would be thrilled by hearing you "speak nynorsk". Be aware that the pronunciation teached to Bokmål learners is not very different from the  Standard Østnorsk (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_East_Norwegian) that most of us learned when we learned to read. We use it when we read loud and maybe also when we otherwise wouldn't be understood. Personally, I used it a lot  when working in several ministries some years ago. It made it much easier to communicate, especially by telephone. It is understood by everyone, so it is the obvious choice to learn instead of some dialect with a lot of awkward pronunciations. To me, it is a language like any other language, and I find it natural to call it Bokmål, regardless of what linguists call it.

[u/mabynke → u/[deleted]]

I know some who do that. It sounded a bit funny to me at first, simply because I was not used to it, but after a little while I didn't think about it anymore. (After all I'm used to a great variety in spoken Norwegian.) My guess is that it's common in parts of the country where Nynorsk is more prevalent.

[u/Betelgeu5e → u/[deleted]]

We learn to speak before we can write. That means that bokmål or nynorsk doesn't affect our speach at all. The Oslo dialekt is sort of close to bokmål, I can kindof agree. But other places like Bergen or Trondheim has completely different dialects to both nynorsk and bokmål. Your question isn't really answerable. Because it doesn't exist any connection between speech and writing.

[u/Betelgeu5e → u/[deleted]]

You should focus on one dialect and practice speaking it, instead of trying to speak exactly as the written language.