Sharing the story of the most common question that I’m asked, because I find it really amusing.

Why are you learning Norwegian?

For over 10 years now, I’ve been friends online with someone who I played video games with. We met up about 7 years ago, when he visited NYC. We met up again last March, and when he showed me the photos from his hometown, it looked like a fairy tale. I was looking for a trip to take after I graduated, and I knew I needed to go there.

Jokingly, when we were hanging out in NYC and out one night, he said “You really should learn Norwegian so we can talk shit about people behind their backs.” He then taught me my first word in Norwegian: “Fæn.” (“Fæn” kinda means “fuck,” but really “devil,” as it is a derivative of “fanden,” which is “The Devil” or “Satan.”) After he left, I started learning a little bit, just to mess with him. A few words here and there. Eventually I left for Norway and had so many wonderful experiences there that changed my life.

While I was there, I fell in love with the language and all of its different sounds and the massive variety of dialects I came across. It was utterly amazing and beautiful to me. When I got home, I began trying to actually learn, because before I was just slacking off and learning a few words. Unlike the little bit of Spanish I took in school, I enjoyed studying it. It was fun and challenging. It made my brain work. I drew connections and learned new things about language that I didn’t realize were related before. Fascinated by the differences and the similarities of the intricacies between the languages, I continued my learning, vowing that I’d continue to do it so long as I found it interesting.

I found I progressed fairly quickly because of how much I was enjoying learning it, especially for someone who was teaching myself and not taking a class or anything. I found myself going from understanding one word in a group text conversation, to understanding the gist of the conversation, to understanding most of it. Spoken word is different entirely. I still struggle. I have a strong American accent when I speak. I’ve gotten better, so long as it’s spoken slowly and clearly and with simple words (and not in an impossible to understand dialect!) But I’m still learning because it’s fun, and because I hope, someday not too far off into the future, I can live in Norway.