Norwegian silent letters
You have most probably already noticed that several consonants in Norwegian may occur as so-called mute or silent letters; which means they are written, but not pronounced.
Below, we briefly have summarized which consonants are silent and where.
1) “d” is silent in “ld, nd, rd” and may be silent at the end of syllables after a vowel:
| kald | /’kɑl/ | cold |
| Trondheim | /’tronheim/ | Trondheim |
| bord | /’buːr/ | table |
| med | /’meː/ | with |
2) “g” is silent in “gj” and in adjectives ending in -ig:
| gjøre | /’jøːre/ | do |
| hyggelig | /’hygeli/ | nice |
3) “h” is silent in “hj, hv” :
| hjelpe | /’jelpe/ | help |
| hvor | /’vur/ | where |
4) “t” is silent in the definite form singular of neuter nouns:
| flyet | /’flyːe/ | the plane |
5) “t” is also silent in one important word, “det”:
| det | /’deː/ | it, that |
Discussion
So, how do YOU practise spoken Norwegian?
A good strategy for learning pronunciation could be to select a dialect of Norwegian you like from CALST and then try to copy it.
Give it a try and tell us how that works for you!
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