#27 Norwegian excitement ... is three different emotions! - So exciting! Så spennende! [vokabular]

Ever wonder why “I’m excited” in English never seems to land quite right in Norwegian? We unpack the three routes Norwegians typically take—spent, så glad, and giret—and show how each one maps to a different feeling: curiosity about the unknown, warm happiness with gratitude, and buzzing, physical energy that pushes you to act.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Can Norwegians Be Excited?
• 0:27 Spent For Curiosity And Unknowns
• 2:25 So Gla For Happy And Thankful
• 4:09 Giret For Pumped And Motivated
• 6:03 Practice Prompts And Fill‑In Blanks
• 8:33 Wrap‑Up And How To Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:13

I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it. Wait, how would I say that in Norwegian? Do Norwegians even get excited? Let's uh dive right into it. Um, yes, Norwegians get excited, but we express it in many different ways. And the word that you often find when you translate excited is spent, which is partially a good translation and partially not, because it depends on what you are excited about and what you mean by being excited. If you're gonna watch a movie at the movie theater and you are so curious about how it's gonna be, super excited and curious, it has to be both. Right? You don't know how it's gonna be, and you're so curious, super curious, then you can use spent. I'm so excited about the movie. I'm so curious about the movie. Yeah, so spent poor you legovnah I'm so excited about the Christmas presents. I can't wait to see what I will get. Woohoo! Then spent works. You can also say ooh the ad so spent It's so exciting. Exciting as in oh what will happen? How will the movie be? Or what presents will I get? I wonder. There's always something unknown that you can't wait to discover. Then you can use spent spent po excited about spena exciting. So and spenna film is an exciting movie, a lot of action, a lot of things going on, and you never know what's gonna happen the next second. Then it's spenna. But if you're just happy, just very happy, just thrilled, if that's what you wanna say, then I would rather say so gla. Yeah, so gla. Yeah, I can translate to glad, but I guess it's more happy. It's stronger. It's stronger than just glad. Uh and if you add so, then it's so happy. I'm so happy. I guess maybe we're not so enthusiastic. We're not like we're not excited about everything. We're just super happy, I guess. Just a tiny bit less excited than excited. For instance, you could say oh yeah sho gla for a du adhere. I'm so excited that you're here. Ya sho gla for atu adhad Yard So Gla for Adu Adhad Gla for Excited about or happy about Glafor It also means thankful. It's both happy and thankful. Yeah, add glavana. I'm happy, thankful for the gifts. Glaforgavana And another excitement word you can use is giret or gira depending if you use A endings on verbs or ET endings on verbs. Do you say snaket or snaka for talked? If you say snaka then you would say gira gira giret literally means I'm in gear. And that's also just excitement Yagiret just being full of energy, full of positive tension. So it's more about a bodily emotion than glau, which can be more rational, perhaps. So imagine you are gonna jump from a cliff with a parachute, I hope, or paragliding equipment or something. I guess giret could be a nice word to use. Yeah, I giret, like I'm pumped. I'm pumped, I'm full of energy. And you can use that uh to say that you're you're um you're pumped, you are motivated for something. Oh yeah, I girit po in disc mat idag. I'm pumped for Indian food. Could you say that? Like I'm super ready for Indian food. I really really want Indian food. Yeah, so if there's something you want, you can say yeah I girit poet poa or slap of like I really want to relax. This is what uh makes my body happy or yeah I girit poa or I would love to travel. I'm all in for traveling, I guess. Okay, so now you have three ways to say that you are excited. I'm gonna give you three examples and I want you to fill in the blanks as usual.

SPEAKER_00: 6:13

Y add blank poor chocolada I really want chocolate.

SPEAKER_01: 6:23

Yeah, add blank poor chocolate Y add blank poor Yulebura. I'm excited about the what we call Yulebur Christmas table, which is a Christmas dinner with colleagues or friends. Ya add blank Fayre Yul Medai. I'm happy, thankful, enthusiastic about celebrating Christmas with you. And in all of the examples, there might be one word missing, or there might be more than one word. Okay, I'm gonna give you the three sentences again if I can remember them. Write them down and fill in what is missing. Yeah, I add blank poor chocolata. I really want chocolate. I'm so excited to get chocolate.

SPEAKER_00: 7:31

Yeah, I add blank poor chocolate. Yeah, I add blank poor yule. I'm excited about Christmas. I'm curious about Christmas on the last one.

SPEAKER_01: 7:50

Yeah, I add blank or fide a Yule Medi. I'm excited about happy, thankful for celebrating Christmas with you. The last one could have two options, but remember this is the excitement as in happy for. Okay. Lik it. I hope that makes sense. Please write me, tell me what you think the answers are, and let me know if you have any questions. As always, if you like the episode, if you like the podcast, feel free to share it with someone you think would appreciate it. Any if you have any feedback that you would like to give me, I'm very open for that. I'm trying to develop this. And also, if you really like the podcast and you wanna support it, there is a buy me a coffee page that you can go to to contribute with whatever amount you feel that it deserves.