"Formålet er å hjelpe barn."

Translation: The purpose is to help children.

[askepka]

What is the difference between 'formål' and 'mål' ?

[australsk]

I think the difference is focus of the end point much as the difference between 'purpose' and 'goal' in English.

In English, 'purpose' as in 'The purpose' refers not to the goal but the job of something. For example: The purpose of the intervention is to help children. Here 'purpose' is similar to 'formål' and the sentence above.

Compare: Our goal (end point) is to help children. Here the sentence is not talking about a process but the result of the process. This, I think, would be how 'mål' would be used. Giving a sentence something like: Målet er å hjelpe barn.

I am not a native speaker, so I could be talking total rubbish. However, my dictionary appears to suggest the difference I have offered here.

Lykke til!

[UtkarshSyng]

Formålet vs hensikten?

[MatthewGunia]

How do you know the translation is "The goal is to help children" as opposed to "The goal is to help the children."?

[askepka]

barn - children
barna - the children
So "The goal is to help the children." would be "Formålet er å hjelpe barna." :)

[John700432]

For the life of me I can't hear the "å" spoken, in front of the hjelpe, when I listened to the audio over and over. It seems run together, much as we sometimes do in spoken speech. Is that the case, is it just poor audio, or can the "å" be left out? Takk!

[ButterflyMeow]

For me personally, it took a long time for me to hear things being pronounced & I'm still not 100% on certain words. I'm currently living in Norway and have been attending language school through the immigration program since August. Being surrounded by the language has helped me pick up on different pronunciations but I'm still not good at doing it myself. So maybe just practicing listening exercises more can help you. (and me) Lykke til!