#19 Språkforvirret? Lost in translation? Avoid these funny translation mistakes! [vokabular]

 This episode dives into some of the most common translation mistakes that nearly all Norwegian learners make, regardless of their level. Welcome to the world of being språkforvirret – language confused!

Have you ever tried to directly translate "I am talking" to Norwegian and ended up saying something that sounds like "I am speaks"? You're not alone. Norwegian doesn't use the continuous tense like English does, making this one of the most persistent errors among English speakers. Or perhaps you've tried to tell someone you're doing great by saying "jeg er greit" – accidentally claiming you're an average person rather than expressing your excellent mood!

We explore the fascinating false friends between languages, like how "greit" means "okay" not "great," and why "bare" doesn't always translate to "just." Discover how to translate"nice". And learn why saying "noe som det" for "something like that" immediately marks you as a non-native speaker.

Have you encountered any puzzling translation moments in your Norwegian journey? Share your stories in the comments – your confusion might help someone else! 

And if you found this episode helpful, feel free to share it and support the podcast on Buy Me A Coffee so we can continue unraveling Norwegian's linguistic mysteries together.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Episode Inspiration
• 14:40 Common Translation Mistake: "I am talking"

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:14

Hello and welcome to a new episode of the Norwegian Puzzle. As you probably know, my name is Silje, I'm a Norwegian teacher and in these episodes I give you bits and pieces that I stumble upon during my lessons, that people ask me about all the time. But this episode is a little bit special. I got inspired by one of my subscribers over at Buy Me A Coffee and he had an amazing idea for an episode. He wanted me to make an episode with very typical bad translations or things that people translate wrong that doesn't make any sense, but also translations that mean something completely different than what they were intended to mean. So I thought about it for a while and got up with some examples that are very, very common. I would say everybody makes them. Almost everybody, like maybe 90% of my students, have made these mistakes, so maybe you do too, who knows? You'll figure it out soon. So again, thank you. Thank you so much for giving me this idea and supporting me on Buy Me A Coffee. I truly appreciate it. It makes blogging, blogging, no, it makes podcasting really, really fun, because I know that people are listening and appreciating the content. So thank you from the bottom bottom. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. takk fra huh. That was actually a good start, because I don't know how to translate that into Norwegian. I could say Like literally thanks from the bottom of my heart, but I don't think I would say that. I would rather say I would rather say tusen hjertelig takk. Hjertelig meaning heartly, thousand heartly thanks. You could also say tusen inderlig takk, which means a thousand innerly thanks. So basically, a thank you coming from deep inside Tusen inderlig takk.

Speaker 1: 2:55

The first mistake I would like to mention is something that practically all speakers with English as a native language make. I don't think I've ever had a student who didn't make this mistake, having English as a mother tongue, and that is which would be an attempt to translate. I am talking. If you say jeg er snakker, that's like saying I am speaks or something like that. It's really weird. So don't overcomplicate Norwegian grammar. We just say jeg snakker. Forget about er, skip it. jeg snakker.

Speaker 1: 3:57

The thing is we do not really differentiate between I speak or talk and I am speaking or I am talking. It's the same for us. So it doesn't matter if you speak in general, if you are speaking right now, because in the context. We will always know right. If you say, listen to me, I'm talking to you, right, you know you're talking right now. Hør på meg, jeg snakker til deg, right, you get it. Right, you get it. Or I always speak to people, it's in the context. So that's probably why in Norwegian, we normally do not differentiate between something you are doing right now and something you do in general. We will use the same present tense. Just add an er ending to your verb in most cases, and you're good to go. That's it. jeg snakker, jeg spiser, I eat, I am eating, jeg leser I read, or I am reading, depending on the context.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Now we have, of course, some ways of making the nuance and showing that it's something you're doing right now, that you are in the middle of. You can do that. You could say that means I'm in the middle of reading, I am in the middle of reading, I am in the middle of reading, I am reading right now, in this very moment, actively. You can only use it for something that you're doing actively. So if you want to say I am sleeping, it doesn't work Because you're not doing sleeping, it's just a state. So if you really need to emphasize that you are in the middle of something, for some reason you want to specify. You could use the expression jeg holder på med å spise. Jeg holder på med å spise. So jeg holder på med, and then infinitive å spise. Next one Jeg er greit.

Speaker 1: 6:18

If you say I am great, if you literally said that in Norwegian, it means that you are a great person. It doesn't mean that you're doing great. So if you want to say how you are doing, you cannot start with jeg er, because then you're not describing how your day is, but how you are as a person. So you would have to say det går, it's going, and the word you want to use is not greit. That's another mistake. There are two mistakes in this sentence. So it's a very good sentence in a bad way or in a good way, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Greit doesn't mean great, it's a false friend. Greit means okay. So if you say det går greit, you're saying I'm okay, or it's going okay. I'm okay in the sense it's going okay, which is not great. So you probably hear we use that word a lot greit, greit, greit. So when somebody says to you can you do this? Greit? That means okay. It doesn't mean great, I'm going to do it. It just means okay, I will do it. So if you thought greit meant great, then you probably thought that Norwegians are super enthusiastic, which we are not always.

Speaker 1: 7:58

And then I've seen other examples like jeg er bra, which by now you should understand, means I am good, as in I am a good person. Bra using bra could mean I'm a good catch. Jeg er bra. It's weird. That's another thing. What's the difference between bra and god? They both mean good. I will have to make another episode on that, but for now, what you can remember is that bra would be used in a more masculine way, like high status, value for money, whereas go have more feminine values to it, like good as in comforting, or delicious for food.

Speaker 1: 8:49

So jeg er bra. No, you wouldn't say jeg er bra. You would say det går bra. Det går bra, it's going well. Så bra means both good and well, det går bra.

Speaker 1: 9:08

Now what about jeg er god? Can I say that jeg er god? It means I am good, but not that I'm doing well. It means that I'm a good person. It can also mean I'm talented. God can also mean good, as in talented. I'm good at football. jeg er god I fotboll. So don't use that either. If you want to say it's going well, you should say det går bra or det går fint. You can say that as well, det går fint. And if it's going great, we don't say great.

Speaker 1: 9:59

We could say det går fantastisk, det går fantastisk, or det går fantastisk bra, det går fantastisk, or det går fantastisk bra, fantastically well, det går strålende. That's a good one. I like that. Det går strålende. Stråle is beam, as in sunbeam, for instance. Strålende, beaming, beamingly, well, strålende. Det går supert, supert. Or just det går veldig bra, det går veldig bra, det går veldig bra, det går kjempebra, kjempebra, giant, well, kjempebra.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Another example is the use of the word BÅRE. Many people translate it to just, but I don't recommend doing this. Listen to this sentence Jeg bare kom hjem, I just got home. That works well if you translate it with just, but just means different things. The more accurate translation would be only Translate bare to only instead, and then you'll see that it makes no sense at all.

Speaker 1: 11:41

I only came home. Well, yeah, in some cases you would like to say that. But yeah, that doesn't mean that you recently came home. Well, yeah, in some cases you would like to say that, but yeah, that doesn't mean that you recently came home, but that was the only thing you did. You didn't do anything else. So bara means only Nothing else, only that.

Speaker 1: 12:01

So if you want to say I just came home, home like in two seconds ago, recently, use, for instance, akkurat, jeg kom akkurat hjem. Jeg kom akkurat means accurate. Nope, it doesn't. That's another false friend I just got home. Another word that works exactly the same way is I just got home. So the word akkurat that you want to translate with accurate means just like in recently. It also means exactly, akkurat, exactly. So if somebody is saying something to you and you want to show them that you agree that that's exactly what you mean, you can say akkurat Exactly. And when you say that, well, what you're saying is that what they're saying is accurate according to your beliefs. So in some sense it is a little bit the same, but not exactly. So if you want to say it's accurate, something is accurate, you can use the word riktig, det er riktig, det er nøyaktig, it's precise, det er nøyaktig, det er riktig, it's correct, det er nøyaktig, it's accurate, or it's precise.

Speaker 1: 14:12

Next one out is the use of nice. How do we translate nice to Norwegian? And what I very often discover is that when you translate from English to Norwegian, it's easier to translate the other way around, because in many cases we have, or in Norwegian there are, more words for one word in English. That doesn't mean that English has fewer words than Norwegian, but maybe just that in English you tend to use some words a lot instead of using more nuanced words, and nice is one of those words. So there are two ways I would translate it.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Nice could mean higgily or fin. So I have to look at, like, what does actually nice mean, right? If I say, oh, you are such a nice person, then nice means that you're somebody likable, someone gentle, maybe polite, sociable, in a good mood, it's all of those things, right? So it's somebody who you like to spend time with, somebody who shows empathy, somebody who treats you well. That kind of nice would be translated with hyggelig. So when you talk about people, a nice person, I would use the word hyggelig.

Speaker 1: 16:04

So now you're describing the personality, and when you are with a nice person, it makes you feel good, right? So hyggelig describes both the personality, but also an ambience, like the feeling you get, but also an ambience like the feeling you get. So the feeling of well-being feeling, of feeling relaxed, spending a good time, laughter, no stress. So that feeling can also be described with hyggelig. So for instance, it was a nice evening. When you say nice, and what you mean by nice is that you spent a good time, you felt relaxed, you had some laughs, maybe you chatted with people and you enjoyed yourself, then the word to use is hyggelig, det var hyggelig. So that's for the chill ambience makes you feel relaxed and feel good inside.

Speaker 1: 17:19

But then you can also have another kind of nice evening where everything looks good on the surface, like a nice ceremony, right, it's beautiful. So it's nice in the sense of beautiful. It's more on the surface than the feeling you get from it, even though you can of course get a good feeling from that as well. What your focus is on, how does it look, so more like this, that is more your focus. Then I would use fin. Det var en fin kväll. Det var en fin kväll, it was a nice evening If you had a nice ceremony.

Speaker 1: 18:22

I think fien adds that beauty to nice. It's not only how it made you feel, because hyggelig can be just ordering takeaway pizza, right, whereas fien, then it's something a little bit extra, I would say Something unusual, so either that it was a wedding, for instance, or that you had a really, really deep conversation with someone, then you can also use fin. I guess it's a little bit more poetic. Nice as in. You can translate it with beautiful, but not necessarily only on the surface, but also like deeper, beautiful something that sticks in your memory.

Speaker 1: 19:16

Sorry, it's not always easy to define words and also the meaning can vary from context to context. All right, if I'm saying ah, for en fin ring, what a nice ring you got right, then it's just beautiful. It looks beautiful on the surface, that's it. So yeah, depending on what you describe, it means different things and since we're talking about the word fyn, very often I've heard people saying det er fint, when wanting to say it's fine, as in, there's no problem, it's fine, not a big deal.

Speaker 1: 20:06

You cannot say that in Norwegian. It means it's fine or it's nice, or actually more it's nice than it's fine, but it doesn't mean it's okay, it's not a problem. So if you want to say it's fine, no worries. Well, you already know what you should say, which meg sound a little bit counterintuitive. You should say it's fine, it's okay. Or you could also say it's going fine or it's okay. And also, if you say det går, you could also say det går fint, but not det er fint. So let me summarize Sorry, a lot of information. If you want to say it's fine, no worries. Three options, or there are more, but I'm only going to give you three Det er greit, det går greit, det går fint, det går bra. Sorry, I gave you four. Okay, I'm going to stop there. The only thing I want you to remember don't say det er fint.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Last one that I have noted down for today. I meg make a new episode like this later, if you like it. Maybe you have some suggestions also for things that are difficult to translate into Norwegian. Oh and, by the way, I have called this episode språkforvirret, which I think is an amazing word. I love this word. I want to make a cup where it says språkforvirret, because that's a little bit the story of my life. But I love that feeling of being in between languages and being confused. That's what it means language confused. I guess it's the same as lost in translation, when you're like you don't know what you should like, when you start speaking the wrong language or saying the wrong word because you think about another language. That's it Språkforvirret when you're making mistakes because you don't know which language you're speaking anymore. So if you're feeling a little bit språkforvirret, I hope this episode makes you a little bit less språkförvirret. Okay Now, last one, but not the least one, because this is a mistake.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Everybody makes. Every, every, every, every, every, every student I have ever had made this mistake. Nå som det, nå som det. Does that sound familiar? Nå som det, something like that, or at least that's what you think it means. And if you translate literally, yes, it sort of means that, but nobody says that. Nobody says nå som det. Only if you are a foreigner you would say nå som det. It makes sense, sort of, it's understandable, but it sounds silly. What you should say is much easier Noa, keep the noa.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Noe sånt Sånt by itself means like that, or such Noe sånt, s-o the A, with a round above N-T, s-o-n-t Four letters. Noe sånt, ikke noe sant, the with the A, which means something true, ikke sant, right, not true, men noe sånt Å sånt, noe sånt, something like that. If there's something you remember from this podcast, please remember nået sånt. It's so useful when you're not able to describe something accurately in Norwegian. You can say Ja, ja, ja, nået sånt, nået sånt, something like that. And you can also say Nået ja, noe sånt, noe sånt, something like that. And you can also say noe slikt, noe slikt or noe slikt Two ways of pronouncing the same thing. And that means exactly the same thing Noe sånt, noe slikt.

Speaker 1: 25:06

I highly recommend when there is something you want to translate, don't go to the dictionary and find and translate it word by word. I think it is better to use a translator and I think it's better to use it wisely and to use a good translator. I highly recommend Deeple, which is free and it's really really great. D-e-e-p-l. Deepl, . com, I guess.

Speaker 1: 25:36

And when you translate, if you want to translate a word, please put it in a context, write a sentence. If you want to translate a word, please put it in a context, write a sentence, because very often one word can be translated in a million ways and it depends on the sentence you have. So I highly recommend that to put in a sentence. And I'm going to give you an example for this.

Speaker 1: 26:02

If you go into the page maybe not right now, because I guess if you're out walking you meg not want to be on your phone but one thing you could check is, for instance, the word er. I'm not going to say what it means. You probably know at least partly. If you say At least partly. If you say jeg lærer norsk, then it means I learn Norwegian. If you say jeg lærer deg norsk, it means I teach you Norwegian, jeg lærer bort norsk, I teach Norwegian, or I learn away Norwegian. So you see, er. The word er can mean both to teach and to learn, and if you just put in the word er, you would probably get the translation learn. So translate sentences.

Speaker 1: 27:06

If you find a sentence that you're not sure about translate, I recommend translating not only the words you don't understand but also the whole sentence. So the words you don't understand separately and then the whole sentence afterwards, because you meg be surprised that separately doesn't translate the same way as in the sentence. In many, yeah, in many cases, adding a special preposition to a word can change the meaning of it completely. So good luck with that. And, yeah, if you have any examples you want to share with me, please, that would be so cool. If there are any sentences that you've said wrong or some sentences that you didn't understand the correct way because you thought it meant something but then it meant something else, please share it in the comment field where you are. It might be useful for somebody else. takk for i dag. Vi høres!