An apology, to two strangers

It happens once in awhile that I come across some Americans while I'm at work. Hamar is by far not tourist destination #1 in Norway, but Americans pop up here nonetheless--business trips, reconnecting with family, you name it. It's always refreshing to see tennis shoes with khakis and North Face jackets in any weather. Makes me a bit homesick to be honest.

I've also recently met a few more Americans that have moved to this area and are making a living here in one way or another. It's always fascinating chatting with them and swapping stories.

It's strange how close and how disconnected I can feel to my homeland at the same time.
I have to admit it--I've become pretty darn Norwegian.

This reality makes me slightly akward when I have to switch language gears on the spot and wait on Americans. My brain is so long gone in Norwegian service mode that switching over is not always easy. English...who would have known it would challenge me so?

Most recently I served two delightful American ladies at the fancier of the two places I manage, and I made the mistake of saying "let's see if I can translate this correctly..." when I was presenting our amuse-bouche for the evening. This tasty little morsel existed only in my head as hjemmelagd søt-potet chips med wasabi-mayones og lakserogn; there was no English equivalent. And to be honest my fellow West Coastians of table 17, I didn't mean "English is not my mother tongue and I don't know how to translate this", it was much more like "let's see how awkwardly I translate this doozy, and hva faen er lakserogn på engelsk?".

But it went fine--the homemade sweet potato chip, wasabi mayonaise and salmon roe appetizer didn't challenge my language center as much as anticipated. But entertainingly enough, you Californians misunderstood me, and assumed I was Norwegian like many other Americans before you. I get it...I don't look un-Norwegian, I have at least a touch of that charming Scandinavian accent and then I'm standing before you (in Norway) saying things like, "What's that word in English again?" or "I can't think of the word!" It's totally understandable.

So I'm sorry, for not correcting you. And I'm sorry for not owning up to my American roots. But at that point it was too late. You were both so supportive and impressed with my kick ass English skills, that I didn't dare to disappoint you. You did applaud for me after all! 

And honestly, when I have 8 other tables and I'm the only waitress on shift maybe it's not so bad that you both are under the assumption that I'm Scandinavian and thus not overtly friendly (on the American scale of course).

And while I'm apologizing, I should also add that I'm sorry that I enjoyed the entire scenario so immensely. I mean, it's a pretty rad feeling to wow you both with my so-impressive-for-a-foreigner English skills.

Damn, I'm good at speaking English for a Norwegian!
I'll take it.

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Foot in mouth

It has been way too long since I shared an entertaining language mishap... if you are just tuning in, I have shared quite a few of my own comical language errors via a series called Foot in Mouth. This time...the error was not mine...It was a Norwegian's.

It's typical when you're out shopping that the store employees will come and ask you if you need help finding what you are looking for. More often than not the answer I hear and give in Hamar is some variant of  "No thanks, I'm just looking." One possible no thanks answer in Norwegian is: Jeg titter bare, takk.

And yes, insert foot in mouth here:

A Norwegian friend of a friend was shopping in England when the salesperson asked if he needed help. The Norwegian said, "No thank you, I'm just titting."

Just titting?! Priceless.
Next time I'm on vacation I am going to give titting a try.

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Bergens test, check!

I'm tickled pink.

I PASSED THE BERGENS TEST!
Such a relief!
I was worried
...because I was delirious when I took the test after an insane night at work
and was concerned about my written performance.
It was a bit diffuse.
But....RELIEF. I passed.
Godt bestått til og med.

What's the Bergens Test you ask? This site says it better than me:

The exam is aimed at foreign language speakers who need to document their proficiency in Norwegian when they are seeking admission to Norwegian høgskoler and universities. The advanced test can also document proficiency for job applications and professional licensure.

The "Test i norsk -- høyere nivå" consists of 5 parts: reading comprehension, listening comprehension, grammar, words and expressions,a summary based on an oral conversation or interview, and a written exercise. a final "Skriftlig produktion" (examens are given 2 hours)
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Info about Test i norsk - høyere nivå:
http://www.bkvo.no/index.php?sideID=62&side=info_om_test_i_norsk_-_hoyere_niva_2007

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Foot in Mouth!

It's been a long time since I've shared a Foot in Mouth post...and NO folks, it's not because I speak Norwegian perfectly and don't ever make mistakes. It's just that my mistakes aren't as entertaining anymore. They're even borderline boring. Or maybe just funny for those that also speak Norwegian.

So I have to share a mistake I made quite some time ago and can't really believe that I haven't shared yet. I thought of it last night when I was reading Rik's blog and he related some of his issues with the word for bag (like a plastic grocery bag) in Norwegian and how he did a little jig one day when he pronounced it correctly.

The word is pose. It's challenging for us English speakers to learn to make this 'o' sound. It doesn't exist in English first of all, and it's really important in Norwegian. The word good for example--god. That's something one says fairly often, but if you can't quite wrap your tongue around that 'o' sound as an English speaker is comes out sounding a bit like gud or Gud I should say, because it means God. So think on that one a little while---anytime in the first months that I meant to say good, it is likely that people heard God. All the assumptions about Americans being strangely religious were confirmed.

But it gets even better and definitely more entertaining. The verb å kose (which means to cuddle or in many other senses to enjoy) rhymes with pose and is equally as challenging. Norwegians use it a lot to say they are having a good time. For example: Jeg skal kose meg med ei flaske vin i kveld. This is challenging to translate into English but literally it would be: I am going to enjoy (myself) a bottle of wine tonight. Get the idea? It's an important colloquial verb to know and to be able to use. Enough said.

One time when Lars and I were visiting his family in Tynset, we were at a sports store and I tried on a cross country skiing jacket that was just a little bit too small. And so I, being the educated American girl that I am, quoted Tommy Boy and Chris Farley and said that I felt like a "faaaat guy in a liiiitle coat". Lars didn't get it, neither did Stine. They hadn't seen the movie! Which is appalling if you have any idea what kinds of movies Lars likes; it's totally up his alley. So I wanted to say that we should go home and enjoy that movie, but I didn't quite make the 'o' sound, friends. So they heard: Lars, da skal du og jeg hjem og kuse oss med den filmen!
Lars, then you and I are going to go home and pussy ourselves with that movie!


Awesome! The best part was that I think I realized it first and started laughing hysterically in the sports store.

Insert foot in mouth here!

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My favorite game.

My favorite game of late is a guessing game. Guests at my restaurant invite me to play it quite often. I always see it coming by the looks on their faces; their eyes squint a little bit when I feel my accent slip or when I say something just slightly awkward and I can see their wheels turning. They're wondering. And waiting. I never initiate the game, and it takes different customers varying amounts of time to summon up the guts to make the first move.

Most are shy, and exaggeratedly polite, but if they want to play, if they really want to know the answer to their confusion, they timidly ask one or more of a series of questions, which I will literally translate into English for you and your humor buds' enjoyment:

Du, er du svensk? You, are you Swedish?

Du er ikke fra Hamar eller? You are not from Hamar or?

Jeg hører at du har litt av en aksent. Du er ikke herfra? I hear you have little of an accent. You are not here from?

Unnskyld, men dialekten din...mulig du ikke er norsk? Excuse me, but the dialect yours...possible you not are Norwegian?

All of these questions are always answered the same--No I am not Swedish, not from Hamar, not from around here...No, I am not Norwegian! And then the real fun starts, the guessing game gains speed, more questions are hurled at me and I answer them all, playing along (it is my favorite game after all): No I'm not Scandinavian. No, not Polish either. Or German. Or Swiss. No, keep guessing...coffee's on me if you guess correctly, I tease. No, actually no one has guessed it correctly before. No, not from Iceland either. Serbia? No. No, no, I'm not from Brasil or Australia or England or Ireland or Scotland or France. Not from Spain or Italy either. Not Eastern Europe, not even Europe no. New Zealand? Nope, never been there. Would like to visit though. Canada? Nope, but you're getting closer...

And then my favorite part of all, the climax of the game: Well, it can't be the US right? Because you don't have that rrrrr in your accent, so...gosh, I just don't know where!

JO! Actually it is the US folks. That's where I'm from. If I remember correctly that is. I do believe I was born there. Yep, pretty sure I grew up there and lived there for 23ish years.

Then the game peters out...the questions keep on coming but it's not as exciting any more. Jack is out of the box liksom. Fun for me is over. But luckily, I know, sometime soon, I will get to play again. Who knows where I will be from next.

Game over.

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Misunderestimations.

It's June!?

And before I say anything else, I just typed "misunderestimate" in a message to a friend. Isn't that a "word" that Bush made famous? HELP! Friends, family--please call me, type to me, send me emails, letters, whatever! Force me to engage my mother tongue! My Norwegian must be getting stronger by the day, but apparently my English skills are sadly diminishing. Seriously--a Bushism in my everyday thought process? I am happy that I caught it, but still: what a disgrace.

I finally got access to my bank account! I am officially set up with online access to my very own, official Norwegian bank account! Yipee! So today I logged in to check out how much money I got for my first norsk paycheck ever only to see that my balance was 0,00 kr. Apparently my boss didn't go out of his way to pay me (I didn't have my tax card and account number in order until after my first payday). I hadn't really expected him to in the first place but got my hopes up after a conversation we had. Must have misunderstood him. Such is the life of an immigrant navigating the work world in a foreign language. It's not the first time there's been such an occurence either--today he said that he was nauseous and I thought he said he was warm. He definitely looked at me funny when I said "me too".

To be honest the zeros in my account don't matter that much right this moment; it would of course have been fabulous to see the kroner of my hard work in my digital piggybank but I don't even have my debit card yet (coming soon in the mail near me). I feel like June 10th is going to be a pretty lucrative day in my future...

We lost our first soccer game of the season. We played against a ghetto\tough\dirty team from the other side of the lake (think Willamette or Pacific if you know me from PLU or South or CK if you're a high school bud) . We definitely played like crap, I definitely played like crap; all of our star players played like crap; I may have lost the starting position I finally earned back; it was hot, sweaty AND we had a ridiculous crappy ref. It was just one of those days. The tides were against us, I guess. Or more honestly: we basically lost it for ourselves before the game even started and never mustered up the guts to get back on top.

We will beat them next time. For sure. And we are pumped to make up for that crappy game and get out some agression Friday night against Lillehammer. It should be fun. :) If I am benched, I am hoping to take some rad pictures.

The weather has really turned up. Looks like summer finally arrived. I have been enjoying it as much as I can through large windows, shorts walks to and from work and while wiping sweat off my face and gasping for breath at soccer practice.

Hopefully some day soon I will be able to really enjoy it with a day off, some ice cream, a bike ride--maybe even a dip in the lake!

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Salmon in Spanish

There is a Foot in Mouth coming in this post, but first some very important news: Lars doesn't like fish all that much. I, however, do.

I remember one of my sisters teasing him for being Norwegian and NOT liking fish. That seemed to be a bit of an oxymoron in her mind. I don't hold it against him though, as there are many things that I don't like that he definitely does. There are, in fact, almost certainly more things that are common in everyday life that I don't like that he does enjoy--like black coffee. Or beer. Or wine. Yeah, I'm a pain in the ass...but that's what happens when you have your first drinking experiences in Spain, when the weather is still HOT, and you learn to drink a light, sweet, refreshing Spanish drink like tinto de verano (which is even weaker than sangria).

So I don't cook fish. Ever. Luckily, my good friend Linda is an exceptional cook and invites me for dinner from time to time. We always eat salmon since we both love it and it has been expressed that I am lacking a bit of fish in my diet.

So to get to the Foot in Mouth--the combination of Linda's recent dinner invitation and my speculation about how I developed my drinking tastes in Spain reminded me of a classic one that I just have to share . . . . . .

The year is 2007 and I am studying in Granada, Spain with a group of almost 30 American students. October is transitioning into November and we are awarded a week long and much needed break from our intense Spanish classes. Everyone is making travel plans. I join two roommates, Jessica and Justine, for a few days in London and then an unofficial tour across Ireland afterwards. We have a trip of a lifetime, getting rained on and taking mature touristy shots in London:

We meet a Spanish recommended, Italian friend named Alessandra and have a delicious salmon dinner at her home a bit outside the city:

We hop a flight to Ireland, wander around different crooks and crannies of Dublin, spend some hours recovering in a cozy coffee shop:

(Jessica, me, Justine)

We hit the pubs at night and get bought beer after beer by friendly Irishmen. I don't manage to drink any of them and get reprimanded by Justine for telling our new Irish friend Patty (yes that was really his name!) that Guinness tastes like ass.

We hop a bus across the country and a ferry out to the tiny Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. We rent bikes and ride, regardless of the rain, out to the cliffs.

We head back to our hostel and down to the one and only pub on the island. We meet and dance with some spry young locals:

They try to teach us Gaelic, but our brains are too full of Spanish vocabulary to retain anything else. Exhausted, we head back to Spain, courtesy of Ryan Air. Lucky for us the same Spaniard that recommended us to meet with Alessandra picks us up from the airport. He of course is curious about our trip, and most of all wants to hear about our time with his Italian friend of many years.

All three of us are more or less fluent in Spanish, but that of course does not mean that we are exempt from making asses of ourselves in the foreign tongue. We begin obliging his questions and expressing our gratitude for her hospitality and his recommendation. He wants more details; What did you guys do? How is she doing? Did you see her house? I describe that she was wonderful. She gave us a tour of the city and made us a delicious dinner, I tell him. Justine details what she cooked for us, as it was so very delicious and definitely a highlight on our traveling menu. "Salmon" in Spanish is salmón, which is indeed very similar to the English word, but is also hysterically and unfortunately dangerously close to another Spanish word with a very different meaning.

So Justine wants to say that Alessandra is a very nice woman. And that she made us an incredibly delicious salmon dinner. It comes out a bit like this:

Alessandra es una mujer muy simpática.

Ok, so far so good--Alessandra is a very nice woman. She continues,

Ella nos preparó una cena de semen que fue increíblemente deliciosa.

Insert foot in mouth here!
Semen and salmon do sound similar in Spanish and after over a week of wandering in English speaking lands, I suppose simple Spanish mistakes could be expected. Plus we were exhausted. Which for me, just made it all the more hilarious. We exploded with laughter. While salmón means "salmon", as previously mentioned, semen on the other hand, well that means exactly what it spells in English: "semen". Or sperm. Or cum, or man seed, or however you call it.

She made us an incredibly delicious semen dinner. Wow, she really is a nice woman! And apparently a super cook as well! Num num!

Oh how I love language and the entertainment it provides. I am sure that my next post will be back to me and my mistakes in Norwegian. I do make them almost daily after all...

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In Norway, we rape after dinner

Yes, ladies and gents it's time for another Foot in Mouth. This time however, I am happy to say that it is not me that has made the laughable language mistakes! It is instead a well-known Norwegian!

Petter Solberg is his name, rally car driving is his game. I am not going to pretend like I know a lot about rally culture but I will say that Solberg has won stuff. He has 13 rally wins and 37 podium finishes. He was also the first Norwegian to win the Driver's World Title in 2003. But what is arguably best known for is his English skills (or lack thereof). Among Norwegians he is infamous for his dårlig engelsk (bad english).

For example, Solberg tried to say, "In Norway, we burp after dinner." In Norwegian, to burp is å rape. And there you have the hilarious mix up: "In Norway, we rape after dinner". Ouch.

And equally as good--Solberg tried to explain that when you are racing it is not the great speed that will kill you. Instead, it is if you were to crash! Of course, right? And well said, if I do say so myself. But the poor guy mixed up some Norwegian and English words in a perfectly imperfect combination. You'll need a mini Norwegian lesson to get this joke: speed is fart. Crash is smell. Do you see where this is going??

"It's not the fart that kills you it's the smell."
-Petter Solberg

These blubbers are so hilarious that it almost feels like they are made up! But I assure you, these things have really been said. In fact, Solberg supplies the Norwegian population with so many good lines that an online newspaper actually asked him to NOT improve his English skills purely for the sake of entertainment.

Thank you Petter...for both the laughs and the reminder that I am not the only one making an ass of myself in a foreign language!

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Foot in Mouth

Why are all the language mistakes I make related to sex, bodily functions or genitalia?

First let me explain a simple story so that my most recent mistake makes sense. When I was purchasing the goods for Iselin's surprise party, the gold hats I happened to buy were a bit too small for adult heads (strange, right?). Linda and I didn't let it stop us--oh no--there were six in the package and only five of us. We used the sixth hat as filler for the other ones, scissors, tape and a few minutes later we had converted the cheesy children's hats into cheesy adult hats. Enkelt penkelt. The end.

Now back to the foot in mouth. When we went out to Siste Indre we met up with Lars and the group of guys he had been hanging out with that night, plus Toril, one of the guys' girlfriends. Toril was of course jealous that she didn't have a hat and wanted one of her own. I then found it appropriate to explain to her that if we didn't all have such big heads then she could have very well had her own hat. I started explaining by saying, "Well you see, at the party we had six but..." And was immediately cut off by the look on Lars' face and the realization that the table of rambuncious voices has suddenly gotten a bit quiet.

Let me explain. In Norwegian, "We had six" is: Vi hadde seks. Which unfortunately for me sounds exactly like the Norwegian Vi hadde sex, or "We had sex". So what they heard was: Well you see, at the party we had sex but...". Awesome.

Needless to say, Lars was a bit surprised to hear what had "really" happened in the apartment while he was out. So basically the term "surprise party" has now taken on a whole new meaning with this group. As has "girls night". Uff da.

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Foot in Mouth

Since I have been back in Norway, I have made a few language blunders that still make me smile (and cringe). My ever-increasing collection of similar experiences has recently inspired me to start a series of posts dedicated to just that--language screw ups, blub ups, slip ups and plain 'ol mistakes, both mine and others' (because sometimes it's great to laugh AT instead of being laughed at)--hereafter called "Foot in mouth".

My first example happened over Christmas and I am the star player. After a meal, I got up to get some more water from the kitchen and Lars asked me if I could grab him a toothpick on my way back. "Ikke noe problem," I answered (no problem). "Er det noe andre som vil ha en tannpikker?" I announced to the rest of the family. Nobody else wanted one, and after some language dissection it becomes obvious as to why.

Tannpikker, toothpick...that's what we call a false friend people: words that sound similar and lead you to assume they mean similar things. Turns out pikk does not mean pick. It means dick. I had heard it wrong for months.

But really, nobody else wants any toothdicks? I hear they come in handy after meals.

A toothpick = en tannpirker.

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