# Norwegian: Do you speak English?



## Dan2

In much or most of Europe, English seems to be the first choice for communication between a tourist who doesn't speak the national language and a local resident.

In countries corresponding to the major languages of Europe, like France and Germany, I can imagine natives being a little annoyed (tho resigned) at foreigners who simply address them in English without making any attempt to speak the local language, or even, out of politeness, asking, "Do you speak English?" or "May I speak English?"

Now let's turn to Scandinavia, where English is so widely studied, and so well spoken, that I wonder if the situation might be somewhat different.  If I ask a Norwegian, "Do you speak English?", or "Snakker du engelsk?", might s/he not take offense?  ("Do you think I'm so ignorant than I don't speak the international language known by every educated person here?")  Should I then, if my Norwegian is inadequate to the task at hand, simply walk into a shop in Oslo and launch into English, ("Hello, do you sell...") as tho I were in New York?  Or might a good compromise be to ask, "Hei. Får jeg snakke engelsk?", implying, "I'm sure you speak English, but since I'm in _your_ country, I'll ask permission before using _my_ language"?  If such an introductory phrase would indeed be welcome, is my choice of words correct and appropriate for Norwegian, or would native forum members suggest something else?  (So this is both a "socio-linguistic" and a word-choice question.)

Thank you!


----------



## kirsitn

I don't think anyone would be offended if you asked them if they speak English, but in general I would expect (more or less) everyone to be able to reply in English, so there's really no need to ask.


----------



## basslop

To me it would be more polite if you ask first. It is about showing some respect for a land's language by not assuming that your language will automatically work. Besides, there are still quite some Norwegians who do not speak English or speak very poorly.


----------



## anOther

I agree, it would be more polite to ask 'do you speak english', and quite charming to ask 'snakker du engelsk', as a courtesy to people speaking a fpren language.  Even though some might say 'of course' and role their eyes (i've experienced that in france as well).


----------



## anOther

Noticed the last suggestion 'får jeg snakke engelsk', the grammar works, but to me it doesn't seem natural to ask permission, no reason to be that humble, if people speak english they are usually quite happy to practise it.


----------



## In Search Of

Hi!

Good question, one which I'm not sure there's a good answer to. I have been thinking about it myself several times when I've been working in places where there are a lot of tourists. 
I think that asking "do you speak English?" is just fine. And it's true what you said, you may expect people to speak it. (Especially if they work in a place where there are usually tourists.) 
However, I still think it's polite to ask or at least give a clue that you don't speak Norwegian. 
What does strike me as a bit rude is when people start pointing at the menu or talking with their hands wile shouting "We Don't Speak Norwegian!" And they haven't even asked... The thing is if you walk into my cafe and sit down I'll probably walk over and start speaking to you in Norwegian, because I can't smell that you don't speak it. No reason to start waving and panicking... (Not that I think _you_ would, it's just happened to me a lot.) 

I kind of like your suggestion to ask in Norwegian, snakker du engelsk? kan vi snakke engelsk? or something like it, I think it has a polite ring to it! 

Also, just one last observation: Non-native English speaking tourists in Norway never seem to ask "Do you speak English?" They just start speaking it, knowing it's the only way they'll communicate with us.


----------



## oskhen

I've experienced in a job I had dealing with lots of tourists that people just start with "English?", and that's a fine solution, I think. Or one could just start with "Hello", so the one one is speaking to gets time to readjust. I, at least, find nothing rude about that.

(What is silly, though, is when I start talking to customers and they just stares confused at me, perhaps looks at each other, and don't say anything, so I have to find out on my own that they don't speak Norwegian. It has happened often enough to make me a bit worried... But no, I don't think you'd do that.)


----------



## Dan2

Thanks very much.  Each response added something, and all together I got a good sense of what I was looking for.

Jeg borde ha sagt: Jeg besøkte Norge for to år siden med konen min (kona mi? min kone?).  For vi reiste, lærte jeg litt norsk. I travle steder, snakket jeg bare engelsk.  Men flere ganger kunne jeg finne noen som jeg kunne snakke med på norsk.  Det var vanskelig men meget (veldig?) hyggelig.  Nå vil kona mi besøke Sverige.  I think it will be a good challenge for my poor brain to try to a) learn some Swedish, and b) keep it separate from the Norwegian.

So my original question was somewhat theoretical (how do Scandinavians feel about...).  My personal goal is, where practical, to actually speak with Norwegians and Swedes in their own language. (Necessary? definitely not.  Fun? yes, at least for me).

Thanks again.


----------



## Grefsen

basslop said:


> To me it would be more polite if you ask first. It is about showing some respect for a land's language by not assuming that your language will automatically work. Besides, there are still quite some Norwegians who do not speak English or speak very poorly.


When I'm in Norway I almost always start a conversation with someone I haven't met before with *"snakker du engelsk?"*  I completely agree with basslop that it is a way to show "some respect" for Norway's language.  

This expression also has the added advantage of being a great icebreaker too.  I've started up a number of interesting conversations with Norwegians on trains and planes as well as nightclubs too just by saying *"snakker du engelsk?"*


----------



## kris77

After having learned some norsk, when I recently visited Norway I had fun by first starting to talk norsk, then why I botched the situation enough, I switched to English. I had however the opportunity to hear some norsk


----------



## kris77

An alternative would be to state: min norsk er dårlig OR Jeg kan ikke norsk bra nok OR Jeg kan litt norsk , so then they will understand I have to talk in English.


----------



## Grefsen

Velkommen til nordiske språkforumet *kris77! * 


kris77 said:


> After having learned some norsk, when I recently visited Norway I had fun by first starting to talk norsk, then wh*en* I botched the situation enough, I switched to English. I had however the opportunity to hear some norsk*.*


It's been my experience that Norwegians really appreciate it when foreigners make an attempt to speak _norsk. 
_


kris77 said:


> An alternative would be to state: min norsk er dårlig OR Jeg kan ikke norsk bra nok OR Jeg kan litt norsk , so then they will understand I have to talk in English.


Sometimes the challenge I have is that the Norwegian is just speaking too fast for me.  If I say something like "_Vil du snakke litt saktere for meg_" (Will you speak a little more slowly for me), then the Norwegian knows that I am having difficulty understanding them and they can decide whether or not they want to continue speaking Norwegian with me.


----------



## kris77

Thanks for the corrections and input, Grefsen.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Grefsen said:


> Velkommen til nordiske språkforumet *kris77! * It's been my experience that Norwegians really appreciate it when foreigners make an attempt to speak _norsk.
> _Sometimes the challenge I have is that the Norwegian is just speaking too fast for me.  If I say something like "_Vil du snakke litt saktere for meg_" (Will you speak a little more slowly for me), then the Norwegian knows that I am having difficulty understanding them and they can decide whether or not they want to continue speaking Norwegian with me.



You may experience that people in Norway will switch to English even when hearing you speak correct idiomatic Norwegian, but with some "accent".


----------



## kris77

Ben Jamin said:


> You may experience that people in Norway will switch to English even when hearing you speak correct idiomatic Norwegian, but with some "accent".


Yeah, I heard about that , too. It's kind of difficult to learn Norwegian in a country where most of people speak very well English and are not willing to talk to you in Norwegian for tutoring purposes


----------



## Grefsen

kris77 said:


> Thanks for the corrections and input, Grefsen.


Vær så god! 


Ben Jamin said:


> You may experience that people in Norway will switch to English even when hearing you speak correct idiomatic Norwegian, but with some "accent".


Dette er veldig sant!  

I've walked into shops in Norway prepared to only speak _norsk _and after completing  only one sentence the Norwegian switched to speaking English.  



kris77 said:


> Yeah, I heard about that , too. It's kind of difficult to learn Norwegian in a country where most of people speak English very well and are not willing to talk to you in Norwegian for tutoring purposes


One recommendation I have is to spend more time at Norwegian nightclubs and pubs.  You can start a conversation with a Norwegian by saying something as basic as "snakker du norsk" and then offer to buy them "et glass norsk øl."  I've done this several times and ended up having a Norwegian tutor for the rest of the evening.


----------



## raumar

kris77 said:


> An alternative would be to state: min norsk er dårlig OR Jeg kan ikke norsk bra nok OR Jeg kan litt norsk , so then they will understand I have to talk in English.



The two first alternatives work, but I'm afraid that the third doesn't. "Jeg kan litt norsk" means "I speak some Norwegian". It may be understood as "Well, I speak at least some Norwegian, so let's try to have this conversation in Norwegian". 

You can fix the sentence if you insert "bare" before "litt", or replace "litt" with "lite" ("litt" and "lite" isn't the same!). But I would prefer, for example, "Jeg snakker ikke så godt norsk".


----------



## Sepia

I couldn't imagine that anone would feel offended neither when you ask, nor when you just go ahead and speak English. According to me, the problem is totally vice versa: Whenever somebody with a foreignaccent stops and talks to a Dane - at leat in Copenhagen - the Dane is most likely to ignore that he is being addressed in Danish and start speaking to him in English. Without having the slightest idea if the foreigner speaks any English at all!
Or when I take a walk through central Copenhagen and someone stops me to - maybe sell something, make some kind of survey or pass on some advertising leaflet, they usually address me in English. 

I even had some guy (not just some guy, but a pretty famous actor back then - but I didn't recognize him) try to chat me up and we spoke English for about 15 minutes before realizing that we might as well speak Danish (his English was excellent).

That is the situation up there.


----------

