Thursday 14 February 2013

Weekend Norwegian challenge

Since I'm alone at home this weekend, I figured I'd use the time to set myself a little language-learning challenge.

So, by Sunday evening, my challenge is to know THREE Norwegian language songs by heart.

The rules:
  • the lyrics must be available online. I'm not good enough yet to understand all the lyrics by listening only, and if I do it that way I'll only end up mimicking sounds.
  • I must be able to understand what I'm singing. Understanding will make the memorisation much easier though, so this part shouldn't be an issue.
  • by Sunday, I must be able to sing the three songs from beginning to end without listening to them at the same time.

I already did this a while back with the brilliant 'Oj oj oj så glad jeg skal bli', by Kirsti Sparboe, so that can't be one of the three on the list. However, I will be trying to choose relatively easy songs I think, and will probably select ones that I already know a bit.

So, keep an eye on this post - I'll be updating it with my progress throughout the weekend! And do post suggestions!

UPDATE!
I've chosen two of the three songs and have done a bit of work on them.

Adieu, from Eurovision 1982, is a song I already know quite well, in two different versions, the original and the cover by Kurt Nilsen. It's actually been very interesting for me to hear both, because of Kurt Nilsen's distinctive dialect differences, but I shall be trying to learn the original!


The second song is Intet er nytt under solen from Eurovision 1966. A bit of a cheat, as it's pretty short, but it has great lyrics, which I really want to learn.


UPDATE 2!
I've done it! Learned those two songs! I can sing them both without looking at the lyrics - and I recorded it to prove it! Listen below. You'll have to take my word that I'm not reading the lyrics though!





UPDATE 3!
And finally, the third song is done:



This one was much harder in a way - I know it less, but also Britt sings with quite a strong dialect. I didn't want to just copy her pronunciation, and would rather fit it with the way I speak Norwegian, which is much closer to the bokmål standard. I've tried that here, but it's much harder without a model to copy, so there may be more pronunciation slips this time.

Let me know what you think!