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- Topic: Norwegian (Bokmål) >
- "Jenta spiser brød."
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Oh my gosh...they say that Danish is one of the hardest languages to learn because of the pronunciation, but I think that knowing Danish makes learning Norwegian a lot harder now! It is like defying logic lol
What is the difference between the pronunciation of "jente" and "jenta"? I think they are very similar here in Duolingo.
1481
Listening several times, I got that: Jente = jentá Jenta = jentó (but not exactly an "ó", more like a closed "a".
Jenta is pronounced /jɛntɑ/, while jente is pronounced /jɛntə/.
When listening to spoken Norwegian, pay attention to the presence of the indefinite article to help yourself in differentiating en/ei jente from jenta.
Click here to hear what IPA symbols sound like. Follow these links for Forvo pronunciations ( en jente, jenta ).
So, the commonest way to say "a girl" is "en jente" (masculine), but to say "The girl" we just switch back to the feminine form, saying "Jenta".... ?
Oh my Gosh, I'll just go nuts with this curse, hahaha
If you choose to use masculine = en jente, then you also can use it for definite = jenten. jenten and jenta is both correct.
yea, it said there was no real english equivalent, so I just thought maybe some could explain what their mouth is doing to make the sound.
it is like a slightly deeper 'er' sound, and just your mouth making the sound; your tongue doesn't move as it might do with other letters
Try to say 'her' in a posh, uppity accent (like the queen) and then cut out the 'h' and the 'r' inflection, or say 'er'. hope this helped! But really, there is no English equivalent. go to norwegian 4 people, they have an alphabet page where you can listen to each letter (but apparently it's still in beta and not great).
Although I know what letter you're referring to, note that there is no "slashy o" in Norwegian alphabet. Either you didn't bother to use it in your question or, worse, you don't even use it in lessons. If you don't know how, don't worry. A solution exists for every problem, even this linguistic one.
There are several ways you can enter in non-English characters:
- use the ø button underneath the textbox during exercises
- copy it from somewhere else (search "o slash" on Google)
- on mobile, click and hold the letter o to view more characters
- turn Num Lock on, hold down the Alt key and then enter 155 on the numeric keypad to get the letter ø
- install Norwegian keyboard layout on your operating system/smartphone (most sensible approach)
When it comes to pronouncing the letter ø, remember that it's a vowel so you need no extra tongue/lip/palate gymnastics to pronounce it properly. Its official name is the close-mid front protruded vowel. Let's analyse what this means.
Close-mid refers to vowel height, vertical position (frontal plane) of the tongue in your mouth relative to its roof, i.e., the hard palate. When it's classified as close-mid, this means the tongue is placed little bit higher than what would be the true middle.
To make it more tangible, when you go to the doctors and they want to see your throat, you make the "a" sound by opening your mouth and lowering the tongue as close as possible to the bottom of the mouth (open or low vowel). On the other hand, "i" (pronounced as eeee) can be uttered only if the tongue is almost touching the hard palate (high or close vowel).
Front refers to backness, horizontal position of the tongue relative to teeth and throat (saggital plane). Notice that your tongue falls back when you're pronouncing "a", and is placed more forward when pronouncing "i" (eeee). While sounding the letter ø, the tongue is as front as it can be, just like with the "i".
Protruded refers to roundedness of the lips and in this case, the corners of the lips are closer to each other so the shape of the mouth opening resembles a small circle and the lips inner surfaces are exposed as well.
If you do all the above mentioned positions correctly, you'll be able to produce this sound. If you fail, just form the mouth like when you want to whistle but instead of singing a tune, try saying "i" (eeee).
Click here for the IPA guide, find the ø to hear what it sounds like and then try to imitate it.
I'm curious about why "brod" doesn't have an "en" before it. Is it because it's not "a bread" but just "bread"?
it might be because it's uncountable? en/et/ei is enumerative, since it means one/a
@alexdoestv, you hit very close to the bullseye. Congrats!
In English, bread is an uncountable noun which means it cannot be counted ("one bread", "two breads") or take the indefinite article "a/an". However, you can say "a loaf of bread", "two loaves of bread" etc.
In Norwegian, brød is countable so et brød translates to "one loaf of bread". In this sentence, it isn't explicitly stated so the correct translation is just "bread" because "a bread" is grammatically incorrect.
Click here for more information about uncountable nouns.
