Wow!

Hello :)

You’re incredible 👏🏽

Can't believe no one is talking about your humongous balls of steel like..... WOW. I think anyone who's learned a second language can know the fear, embarrassment, and humility involved and you just gloss over any of that and dive in head first

Sad to see that you went to the biggest, dirtiest andugliest city in Norway when you were here:( You should have gone to Bergen or Ålesund, especially Ålesund, top 5 most beautiful cities in the world.. And also i would have invited you inn for a Coffe..;)👍

One time I met an american who spoke perfect mandarin! I have so much respect for americans.. They're very smart people.

That is awesome.

@@Dah42 ofcourse🇺🇲🇺🇸

@@Dah42 that’s so kind of you to say! Usually we hear the opposite nowadays 😅

@@Dah42 Very smart people but then ask them to point out a country on the map, lol :p

Would you say aside from the accent is the pronunciation of words there?

@@DarkAngel2512 well it's pretty poor in terms of pronunciation but as long as you listen it's fully understandable. He didn't say a single word that wasn't so while it's not perfect i'm really impressed by how well he did.

@@gullinkambe6726 yep. He picks up accents much better/quicker than I could.

His accent is american not english

@@rainzwastakenn what language do you think they speak in america bruh

How correct and understandable he was?

@@Bleideris0 I'd say he spoke about at the level of an average person who's studied Norwegian for maybe 4-6 months. I could understand him well, he responded cohesively to questions I didn't expect him to even understand. The interviewer didn't take it easy on him either, he spoke at a fast pace, yet he showed that he understood him.

same, his pronunciation is very good

@@Blazey0908 That intrigues me the most. By learning to speak face to face he got even pronunciation correct

Kjempe bra hjort!

As norwegian, i agree!

As a Swede I picked up on these things but I let it slide given he was only given 2ish weeks

thats not that interesting, norwegian can be understood for 80+% by swedish ppl

@@beerbuntenbach6201 Nynorsk can't be spoken by anyone though. It's a written form of the Norwegian language. As is bokmål.

As a dane i understood him clearly aswell. Xiaoma is very skilled.

@@beerbuntenbach6201 what was interesting was that an American guy learnt the language in 2 weeks and someone from another country could understand what he was saying

@@alvidoranwashere anyone can reproduce sentences xd I followed a major in scandinavian language and culture in Amsterdam and understood the prof after 2 weeks just fine as well. It really isnt that impressive. Both germanic languages

yuh

Right? I aspire to be like him

Everywhere.

He is very disciplined and I think he has a technique down after so many languages. You can tell he’s not always fluent, but a lot of people including myself have a fear of practicing in public until we feel perfect. Just goes to show that being bad at something is apart of the process and we’ll reach our goal if we practice.

The ability to so quickly comment on videos is quite sad. Do you live in your mom’s basement

i just wish he learned how to pronounce Ø

Yes…not norwegian but if you do it with respect I think it’s fine, I mean it’s like you waving the American flag..like it’ll be different if you did it without respect (like letting it touch the ground)

Cultural appropriation. I’m triggered now.

I decided to learn Norwegian as a linguistic exercise recently (background of the English language), and I think the pronunciation and intonation of many Norwegian words is seriously adorable. I thought Norwegian would sound similar to German (which I also speak), but the pronunciation is very different.

Berre veive flagget våres så mykje som du vil! Norsk kultur er inklusiv, og SJWs kan dra til hel****

Ja, jeg synes at det var spennende også. Han snakket godt norsk for bare lære det i to uka. Jeg synes at lære norsk er ikke så vanskelig også, men det trenger litt tid. Jeg ble overrasket over hvor tatt er norsk og engelsk. (Jeg lærer norsk for en år).

Yeah he's pretty awesome

Hah, yeah, that is how I pronounced brus. Must be the American accent of Norsk.

@@user82938 actually it's kinda funny because people (from all over the world) learning to speak Norwegian usually end up talking in an accent similar to this 🤔

@@trikop7575 because the tone in the language has no vocal in it

@@ArythemB I'm not quite sure what that means 🤔

indeed it is

Oh high, mate!

Niko omilana

Not as impressive as welcome to luton

anyone else notice how much weight that boy has put on?

Ja d var ganske imponerende ass

I speak a bit of Dutch and I understood most of the Norwegian used here so thats also closely related

and all the nordic countries are very fond of each other too no?

@@ben4194 that can not be true i understand 0 dutch and im norwegian

@@richardli4038 yes but we joke with eachother a lot

and how is your Polish? ;)

@@przemo5711 Technically, if they all live in Norway, it shouldn't matter. I live in Brazil with my wife and I don't expect her or her parents to know Norwegian... Makes no sense.

I guess that's why a lot of Scandinavians speak English very well.

@@rorschacht8478 its mostly because we learn it early at school, and only kids tv shows are dubbed over.

Language families truly are fascinating.

@@rorschacht8478 probably because their own language isn’t spoken elsewhere. Like me, Dutch, doesn’t get you very far.

To me (a Swede) Norwegian and danish just sound like funny Swedish, and I’m sure it’s like that for Norwegians and Danes too lol

Where in Norway are you? I'm halef-heartedly learning it from the UK and I'm aware of the dialect system, what dialect are you having to adapt to?

Would you shit your pants deliberately or by accident?

No, it's not. Someone who has learned a language for 6 months will not forget half of their progress after a few months. That's the difference.

@@justaname1837 do you know how his brain works? Or how about how often he practices different languages in an attempt to retain some knowledge? Im not sure how he does either and to what extent, but considering he can speak many languages and switch between them and be understood, he likely is doing better than any of is would lol

@@justaname1837 plus you are completely wrong lmao, i took french in school for an entire year and ive forgotten almost all of it because i didnt continue to practice and i never had the passion for the language. Xiaoma seems to be very passionate about learning languages in general, i wouldnt put it against him to remember a lot of what he learns for a considerable time esp since he speaks with native speakers to learn. Even if he only spent two weeks learning he still spent entire days speaking with locals and impressing them

Held og lykke med at lærer dansk ☺️🙏💪

@@champenhimself Tusind tak 🙏

Konstigt, många svenskar förstår norska bättre och tycker det är enklare än danska. Men norrmän och danskar kanske förstår varandra lättare?

I was in Iceland one time. Met a Norwegian guy at a bar and we small talked for a while in each our languages, me being danish. There was an American next to us who was confused what language we were speaking. He was blown away when he found out we were speaking the same one. It was a funny experience.

@@celeroon89 ​inte konstigt, det är jo typ samma språk man skriver i Norge och Danmark - mycket mer likt än norska och svenska. Så självklart fattar dom varandra lite bättre än dansken o svenskan fattar varandra.

I'll have to take your word for it haha

Making a grammatical mistake would be very hard, seeing how similar it is to english.

Jepp

And I already spot a grammatical mistake in this comment

@@taylorliu9093 ironic, isn't it?

Yeah it’s cool too because I only know English but I somehow also knew what every sentence meant in that conversation.

@@parky7417 You referring to the subtitles?

@@parky7417 bruh

I have been trying to learn Spanish for a long time, and I would say that being able to understand a spoken language is harder for me than remembering words.

Interviewer didn't do him any favours either by speaking more slowly, but at least they didn't use an interviewer with a dialect because that would've been downright cruel, lol.

I can corroborate this. I gained a greater mastery over Korean being in Seoul for three weeks and engaging in conversation at every possible opportunity than I did studying it in class for a year and a half (though some fundamentals aren't at all bad to learn through study).

Finally its here *yes* *kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rNRoisen0NO4d6c.html*

Så du sier at folk klarer å si dette…men de klarer det ikke allikevel? Love your videos.

"most of the difficulty lies in pronunciation and cadence".....and actually beeing able to understand the hundreds of different dialects.

I've been learning Swedish for a while, would you say that Norwegian is easier or more difficult than Swedish, in terms of like, long words, pronunciation, etc? because the Jeg vs Jag is interesting, Jag means 'i' right, but Jeg hasn't directly been translated to 'i' in this video, does it mean 'i' too?

Also as a german you understand a lot of words as they are basically the same, in addition to a lot of english like words. Reading on the other hand is a nightmare ;) Same goes for swedish which sounds to me more english based and danish is a complete mess! At least "Tak" is the same in all 3 languages afaik.

Ja, samme her!

kinda same even tho im swedish

how was his tones? My friend lived in Kristiansand and she always got a comment that she spoke with too low tones and that sounds impolite. Our Viennese dialect are spoken with a lower tone. Also I learned that Oslo is pronounces Ushlu -- correct? at least I can survive on OST and øl ...

Do you think he did an ok job? I only speak English, so I just have to trust the subtitles. LOL

Great Job!!!! just in two weeks??? wow!

Pål is such a norwegian name, haha. Love it

seems like you two were good Paals

Hehe, må si på 2 uker så ble jeg meget imponert :) !

@@MrRoyalGard Next question is: Will he still remember it in two MORE weeks? 🤪🙃

ja fy faen! æ hadd alltid lyst te at han skulla lær sæ Norsk og så glad for at han tok Norsk og ikke svensk eller dansk

Jag är lite avundsjuk faktiskt

hahaha he will never do albanian😂

Yes please!! My grandmother is from a small town outside of Nenagh. I’ve always been interested in the Gaeltacht region. Getting some more exposure to the language would be great!

I took Irish lessons years ago at a local community college. I wish I kept up with it. I didn't really have anyone to speak it with.

This would be HARD

Was about to post that he should try Irish. I am a newly practicing Irish Pagan and would love to be able to speak it for spiritual purposes to An Mórrígan and An Brígid.

absolutely do irish im all for this

Seems like a beautiful country and language

He did something I did when learning/speaking Norwegian, which is sometimes you accidentally slide back into English because some of the words are so close. Like he starts saying "or" a couple times and then corrects to "eller." I don't mean eller and or are close. I just mean I would find myself slipping because a word earlier in the sentence was close to English.

@@user82938 yeah, another one I noticed is "også" and "also"

@@ominousplatypus380 yes! I mess that one up all the time.

Jeg skal ikke lyge uttalen og grammatikken er helt for jævelig, men samtidig med tidsperioden i betrakning er det forståelig.

@@vekteren3549 det viktigste er at han gjør seg forstått og forstår motparten. Grammatikk tar alltid lenger tid å lære. Det han har fått til på bare 2 uker er rett og slett imponerende

@@AndreHansen96 Helt enig!

Plus the mental pressure was on him. But he has his methods for learning languages, and it works for him.

So from what I’ve heard it takes a Native English speaker about 500 hours to learn Norwegian, now let’s assume he did only 8 hours a day for two weeks, that’s about 112 hours, now let’s assume that because he’s spent so many years learning many different languages, that process is just faster for him because he knows how to make his learning the most efficient, in that context, it’s not too insane that he did this, plus he probably spent more than 8 hours on it some of those days.

Huh so he says only 2 hours a day, I’m skeptical lol haven’t seen the whole video yet

@@democracydignityhumanrights studied with tutors 2 hours a day, and then went out to practice speak in real life. I think

But I was heartbroken when he said most of the people in Norway were not Norwegian.

@@ItsameAlex Oslo has a bigger immigrant population than elsewhere in the country, but these people are usually fluent in Norwegian, having grown up here. Besides that, a lot of people come here to work temporarily, or maybe they've just recently moved here. There are TONS of Swedes working in stores and restaurants in Oslo too.

La oss være ærlig språket hans var langt bedre enn vi alle kunne forventet, men problemer ligger på hvordan han uttaler ord. Norsk er et lett språk å lære, hvis du har f.eks Engelsk som morsmål.

@@vekteren3549 Det må være ekstremt svært at lære et skandinavisk sprog på så kort tid. Han vil snart kunne klare sig i Sverige og Danmark også uden problemer.

@@simonjrgensen6761 Det er forskjell på å lære språket og pugge setninger

🇮🇸🇳🇴🇫🇮🇸🇪

luk røven

It was sarcasm making fun of liberals who cry “cultural appropriation “ lol

Quick question for you as you are obviously familiar with English: I am British (Scotland specific) and would very much like to travel Scandanavia at some point during my lifetime, but am nervous of doing so. If I were to go to (e.g.) a cafe in Norway and order in broken Norweigan would that be seen as positive for making an effort, or would I be seen as stupid as the waiter could probably speak better English than I can Norweigan?

It was mild sarcasm, as most rational people don't see it the way the extreme liberals do. Everyone wants to see people who are not of their country engaging and supporting their culture, but western extreme liberals only criticise their own people for participating or getting involved in other cultures.

@@ClockworkGrouse Norwegian here. We always appreciate it when someone tries to make an effort. More so because tourists know most of Norwegians speak fluent English, so they just go with that from the start. Even if you just start of with a few words in Norwegian and then switch over to English, it would be appreciated. Not needed in any shape or form, but appreciated nontheless.

@@ClockworkGrouse As Norway is quite diverse, at least in the cities, so to have an accent isn't frowned upon at all :) But if you ever were to switch over to english for your own sake, you'd find most Norwegians in almost any age can speak English fairly decently :)

Or you were too much laisy! You shouldn't be shame of you and your skills.

The way languages are taught in England at gcse and below is widely useless

But German is also significantly more difficult than Norwegian. I struggled with German too. You get so caught up in the complicated grammar that you're afraid to speak it. Norwegian grammar is easy and uncomplicated, pronunciation can be a challenge, but the grammar is even easier than English.

@@ThundrGurl also most people dont want to learn the languages required in school which is usually French, Spanish, Or german only. Also most the teachers arent actually native speakers so their knowledge is limited also.

@@bigrig8539 I gotta say I was quite lucky. I had took 4 years of Spanish in high school and had an incredible teacher for most of it. We took a fluency exam at the end of senior year and almost everyone was only one or two brackets below fluent (on a score of like 8 or 10, it's been a long time so I can't remember the grading system). My skills have definitely rusted since then, you kinda do use it or lose it, but honestly I think if you dumped me in the middle of a Spanish speaking country I could get back home without too much trouble.

Same here, but the Duo stuff was easy. Norsk er et morsomt og lett språk å lære. Men det er meg. 😊 Did you read the grammar on the website, or just use the lessons on the mobile app?

I used the website. Jeg er ikke flink til å lære språk. Men jeg har heller ikke anstrengt meg nok, det skal jeg innrømme.

@@ThunderPants13 watch Norwegian shows if u havent !!! very fun to try replicate how they speak. id recommend Ragnarok and skam. there's love & anarchy but idk if id say its a great show 🤣 edit: my bad, love & anarchy is in Swedish

First tip: You are American, not Norwegian. Remember that. Americans always come to Europe and say ‘oh I’m actually Irish/Italian/Greek/Norwegian’ etc etc, no, you’re not. You’re just American. Sure, you may have Gaelic, romance, Hellenic, Nordic ancestry, but you’re not Irish Italian greek or Norwegian. It is especially insulting to Irish etc who are not genetically Gaelic etc, you realise not everyone in Europe is genetically from the country they live in? Same as you. Sweden for example, is only 2% less diverse than the US.. it’s not 100% blonde people. Sweden has a huge Asian population, why it’s nicknamed Swedenistan. London, is 45% white British, making them a minority in their own capital. But British people of African or Asian descent are still British. So don’t tell Europeans that you’re actually from their country, it’s super irritating, I know you may think I’m being rude, but to have Americans constantly come here, being totally ignorant of our countries and history, then tell us ‘I’m actually from here’ with a thick US accent.. nobody appreciates it. Now, I know you’re not saying it to mean you come from here, and that you just mean genetically you have ties to here, but still, nobody likes to hear that. Especially because everyone in Europe has ties to each other. The Scandinavians invaded Ireland, UK, France etc, the Greeks and romans invaded everyone, the french invaded UK and Ireland, the Spanish invaded Ireland, the Germans invaded everyone, the Russians invaded half of everyone etc etc, we all have genetics leading back to wherever.

@@burn8325 bro they literally said "im American" and "but have Norwegian ancestry" first tip i.e. keyword: ANCESTRY. they literally didn't claim to be Norwegian. i am irish (legit wow i even speak irish) and it is irritating when Americans say they are also irish bc their great great gran aunts daughter was half irish blah blah. but in this case the op didn't say they are Norwegian only that they have Norwegian ancestry.

If you watched the end of the video he did say he couldn't understand some questions and had to switch over to English. It was probably just edited out. Not a slight at all just pointing it out.

Agree! I just found this guy. I’ve been taking French for years and am passively trying Norwegian and Japanese. I am awful at Japanese though

This is definitely the most impressive part in my opinion. I've been self-teaching Norwegian for about a year, and I tried listening to the interview without watching the screen. I could mostly understand what Xiaoma was saying (a few words here and there that I didn't catch, but I got the gist). However I couldn't follow the interviewer's words at all, he was far too fast for me to process.

I agree, i had the same experience in Dutch. There were so many situations that I could answer but i just did not get what they say/ask. Even though, i knew the words they used.

The biggest challenge with understanding comes when you go outside the Eastern parts of Norway. We have a wide arrange of accents. I'm very used to seeing my accent subbed on TV where everyone speaks Norwegian. I speak Gaugamål which is generally a Western dialect if you divide similar ones in four groups. One big difference I can point out between mine and the Eastern style is that we use a guttural French-like R sound instead of the rolling sound. I can barely roll my tongue :D

He had learned Swedish before this video and its very similar to Norwegian ..

True

I thought he had a mix of Swedish and Danish in there, so definetly.

I was about to post the same, but for Danish 😂 I even think he had a bit of a Finnish accent to his Norwegian, but as a Dane I could understand everything he said. Well done, @Xiaomanyc !

Good luck with Danish pronunciation 😂

@@Frexuz For helvede man! ;)

Same

Deffinetly

@@stadtjer689 Most deff

*Definitely

I just commented on that reaction I get from native speaking Swedes. It's bewildering but I'll take the charity!

Damn, I get that too. If there is subtitles and I start reading them I'm not even able to watch the show, so I can't use subtitles.

Is it true that Norwegians and Swedish can't understand Danish though?

HAr du vært i Trøndelag?

@@Jujudo No it isn't. I'm Danish and have lived in Sweden and Norway for shorter periods of time and there has been very few problems with language. Most problems were me asking for specific items that had a different name in Danish but simple conversation was just fine between the languages

@@Jujudo I'm Danish, so I'm not sure my answer will be 100% on point. From what I've heard from my Norwegian and Swedish friends, they understand each other more, than they understand us Danes. They can read Danish far better than they can understand it to my knowledge. Maybe a Swede or Norwegian can chip in here to confirm? :)

Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. That’s three. What about Finnish? Not considered Scandinavian?

@@your_royal_highness completely different language. If I'm not wrong Finnish actually doesn't have any "language siblings"

@@ph_swe There are a few languages related to Finnish, for example Estonian. But it's true that it isn't at all related to Swedish, Danish or Norwegian.

@@your_royal_highness I see this mistake a lot, Finland and Iceland are part of the Nordic countries with Scandinavia, but Scandinavia is only Denmark, Norway and Sweden Icelandic is similar to old norse, but finnish is an entirely different linguistic tree

Sorry Denmark the truth is the Swedes and Norwegians can't understand you

I could also hear germanic influence in the words. Interesting language with an awesome accent.

@@TorrentUK Yes! Norwegian is very similar to all the other Nordics but also other germanic languages. Really interesting stuff!

Totally common road to stumble on when dialects are involved 😂 Even the people where I'm from struggle with the dialect I have!

Finally its here *yes* *kzfaq.info/get/bejne/rNRoisen0NO4d6c.html*

Damn good point…

Hey hey!

Yeah I understood him perfectly and I am Swedish too. The only neighbors we can't understand are the Danish because they are permanently drunk and chewing on potatoes while speaking.

@@MyAmazingUsername this explains why my Danish grandpa said to stick to English, it sounds nicer, when I was young

If I wanted to learn a language that would be the most intelligible to Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians which one of the three would it be?

@@MyAmazingUsername *Finland clears throat*

I found Norwegian to sound really similar to German and Flat German at times! That was pretty astounding

Sort of. Except Danish is really difficult to understand, even for a Norwegian and Swedes. I also know a Finnish person who understand Swedish, but not Danish, and barely Norwegian. It takes some training.

@@blabladuweier8654 Easy answer to this.. Swedish/Norweigan/Danish is a germanic language in the bottom

If you learn Danish, the two others come somewhat free i agree, but not the other way around, Swedes and Norweigans have a harder time understanding us, than we do them in my experience, i can speak all 3 languages fairly well, the trick to being able to communicate with everyone properly is to use old Danish/Swedish/Norweigan, there's alot more similairities in old speech than in new speech, so i'd recommend that to everyone.

i'd be bold to say that this could also be applied for many slavic or balkan languages, they're sort of similar!

I’ve considered learning one of those two! I’m still torn haha 😅

@@chadbailey7038 Just pick one and you'll be able to understand the other one rudimentary

Skärpning nu, annars så får vi nä jävla problem här! Hälsning, en Norrbagge.

@@chadbailey7038 either one will give you grief 😅

@@chadbailey7038 As long as you don't pick Danish we're good!

@@holtergeist English speakers have a significantly harder time understanding old English than a Norwegian I'd wager.

@@AnyVideo999 If you mean pre Shakespeare then yeah, language was primitive back in those days and it's not comparable to any modern day languages.

I want to learn Japanese so I can watch anime without subs lol.

WTF I just saw you comment on NDMD 😂😂

just to be clear. nope, you wont.

I wanna learn Japanese and or Norwegian how do I go about it?

Im also learning Japanese. How's your progress coming along, Khalilah?

Immersion Learning

Jeg synes det var en bra forklaring 😊

Enig! I endorse this👍🏼

I wish you could teach me, thanks for the tip, it was awesome

Veldig godt forklart, jeg må bruke denne forklaringen neste gang noen spør meg om hvordan disse bokstavene uttales.

Checks out for äöå in Swedish too 👌

Urdu is such a beautiful language! I have always loved this song: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m62DasegzKyuaZ8.html (I am pretty sure this is in Urdu - not 100% sure!) Here are some more Urdu songs by the same singer though. I don't understand a word, but I love the music haha kzfaq.info/get/bejne/g8CRqcxlu7Kveok.html

best of luck to you!

Best of luck that sounds lovely! 🤗 you have a good heart

awesome, good luck!! i would also learn the devanagari script in addition to the perso-arabic script so you can understand both written urdu and hindi

as a Pakistani, Urdu is a tough language (at least in written form). Good luck!

idk jeg snakker litt norsk and i can't understand one bit of swedish

@@lxcid3944 It only works one way sadly 😂

@@OddZodd yup lmao

I studied a bit of Swedish and understood him well. Swedish and Norwegian are more like a dialect continuum than separate languages in my admittedly limited experience. I've heard greater differences between varieties of English.

@@lxcid3944 Jeg = Jag Snakker = Snackar Litt = Lite Norsk = Norska

Feel like it is just easier for Norwegians, Danes and Swedes to understand each other. Because we meet each other alot more and it is just something we know, as a person who does not even know Norwegian that great, wont be able to understand some of the more difficult Swedish words.

@@andersvassli2349 Danes? Speak for yourself 😄🤪😉

Danish dialect of Norwegian confirmed?!?!?!

Same here, I understood as a Swedish person! Great video!

There is only one great Norwegian language the other Scandinavian languages are meer dialects

@@fishmaster665 laughs patriotically in brunost.

@@samuelenblom han borde testa svenska, kanske till och med är enklare

How much does knowing japanese make chinese easier bro

@@TheStruggler0 Japanese uses many of the classical Chinese characters (known in Japanese as Kanji) that have mostly a Chinese based reading and a Japanese based. Which one to use is derived through the context. So learning the Japanese Kanji helps learning chinese Characters. But simplified chinese is totally different to Kanji, so that you have to learn this from ground up

@@Craftlngo ohhh i totally forgot about the simplified chinese thing. its probably going to be a problem.

@@TheStruggler0 in addition to the writing and reading, some of the words are basically the same like "library" or "love". Speaking as someone who learned Japanese before Mandarin Chinese.

@@Craftlngo Thank you for the explanations :) I didn't know that. I thought a Japanese doesn't understand any Chinese and vice versa.

Lol no but seriously

before it was laoshu50500 :(

@@hayzeus876 RIP :(

@@hayzeus876i miss that dude

Do you understand norweigan as a non native swedish speaker? Most of my immigrant friends struggle a lot with that

As a non native swedish speaker, I understand norwegian if it is bokmål and danish to a small extent. I can read and understand all three languages in written form (then again norwegian more than danish). If you know some key words that are different between the languages it becomes easier!

May I ask how you're learning? I'm trying to learn myself

same

Was this demoralising or inspiring?

May I ask why?

be me be born in norway

Jeg er fra Norge også

@@DreamWaterGod Jeg er fra Danmark

I'm pretty amazed at how well he speaks my native language too (American English). 🙂