Norskiserer Meg on Creativity Hacker

Tormenting AI For Fun and Profit

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 13:30:00 +0000

I’ve come up with a fun way to practice written conversations in norsk—by taunting my AI practice partner.

If that sounds like fun, just step behind this curtain and I’ll show you the game.

The Rip-Cord Protocol

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:21:56 +0000

Every language course I’ve ever taken began with how to have a simple conversation, but I don’t think I’ve ever been taught what to do when those conversations break down. And they do break down. All the time. Especially for beginners.

This post recaps a conversation I had with ChatGPT about what I think is a crucial - yet often missing - first lesson in language learning: How to keep conversations moving when the bottom falls out.

I call it The Rip-Cord Protocol.

From Noise to Nuance

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 30 Nov 2025 09:24:35 +0000

As I focus more specifically on ear-training, I’m noticing stages of progress in my ability to unpack the noise into recognizable chunks, but how many stages should I expect on this journey? And what do they look like?

Drømmekaosen

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 10:24:34 +0000

My wife and I were recently comparing our experience of dreaming and I was trying to explain the non-stop chaos of my sleeping life, but I couldn’t quite capture it. So recently I wrote down what I remembered immediately after waking up, and that worked. (She no longer tries to compete for weird. :-)

But the more interesting result was that I then tried to write it out again. In Norwegian.

Without looking anything up…

My First Back-channel Convo

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 18:40:21 +0000

Backchannel Game – Episode 1

Practice session using English input and Norwegian backchannel responses

This transcript demonstrates the first run of the Backchannel Game, a conversational exercise designed to train real-time Norwegian listening-side interaction. The AI tells a story in short English segments; the learner replies only in Norwegian. After each response, the AI continues the story and gives gentle corrections where needed. This format encourages natural context-based responses rather than memorized phrases.

How to Listen in Norsk

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 14:15:52 +0000

One day, I hope to get involved in an actual norsk conversation, and when I do, I want to be sure I’m a good listener. Fortunately that’s much easier than being the dominant speaker. But how do you practice foreign conversations without a language partner?

Verbal Emphasis

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 09:06:54 +0000

There are a cluster of words I’ve been more or less ignoring in norsk; words like “jo” and “vel.” They seem to come scattered randomly in sentences, shifting the nuance somehow, but I’ve been so busy focusing on what the nouns and verbs are doing that I haven’t unpacked all those dangly bits.

Today I decided to take the plunge, in another installment of Useful Conversations With ChatGPT…

Kaffe Kan Fikse en Tregmorgen

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 08:56:38 +0000

Join me for another installment of my “Conversations with Robots” series.

Shelter From The Storm

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 05 Oct 2025 12:45:04 +0000

Have you ever tried learning a language by watching TV and ended up feeling like a leaf in a language hurricane? That’s me. I want to improve my listening skills, but every norsk series I’ve tried seems to be competing in the mumble-Olympics, recorded in a drainage culvert. Surely it’s not all like that, right?

Frinorskliv - Magneter

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sun, 28 Sep 2025 20:09:37 +0000

Hvert skikkelig verksted trenger en måte for å oppbevare verktøy på. Jeg har tatt min tid og har funnet en effektiv løsning for mange av de mest nyttige av dem. Magneter.

Tusenlapper

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:52:30 +0000

It occurs to me that I frequently have interesting conversations with ChatGPT about the Norwegian language, but that I’m the only person benefiting from the resources I consume to generate it.

So in the interests of amortizing my carbon footprint, I’m going to start sharing those convos here. Let me know if you like the idea…

Frinorskliv - Dag 447

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 08:50:26 +0000

Problemet for meg med å skrive på denne dagboken er alltid, “Hva skal jeg skrive om?” Men det er en tåpelig spørsmål. Jeg vil forbedre norsken min for å snakke om livet mitt, så åpenbart det er hva jeg burde skrive om. Og siden livet mitt er meste om prosjektene min, la oss prate litt om dem i dag.

Frinorskliv - Dag 427

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 09:18:54 +0000

WARNING: Clumsy Norwegian coming in 3, 2, 1…

Det har vært 427 dager siden jeg begynt å lære meg selv norsk, men jeg ikke har skrevet mye på norsk ennå. Så i dag skal jeg begynne å endre det. Velkomm til Frinorskliv - en serie hvor jeg skal øve norsken min i små biter og dele dem med verden. Med alle feil og mangler.

PronounceLab - Experiment 2

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 08:51:54 +0000

As discussed in Experiment 1, improving my pronunciation without a native speaker to correct me has been a challenge, but correction is not the only function a native speaker provides. They also provide something I’ll call adaptive modeling.

PronounceLab - Experiment 1

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 18:52:47 +0000

In my continuing quest for creative ways to drill my language skills, the one area I struggle with most is finding ways to evaluate my speech.

I listen to lots of Norwegian audio, and I’ve started reading books and film scripts aloud, so I’m getting plenty of practice at both listening and speaking, but I don’t get any feedback on my pronunciation and diction.

One day soon, AI will be able to converse with me on random topics and gently correct my norsk as we go, the way a native speaker might do, but we’re not there yet. I do intend to make use of live human coaches online, but not until I feel I’ve gone as far as I can with my own crazy methods first. Speaking of which…

Automatic Language Growth

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 18:19:42 +0000

While working on the ear training features for the FrankenTongues app, I stumbled across a reference to the Automatic Language Growth (ALG) model of language learning, and the moment I read it, I had to stop everything I was doing to investigate.

Because it resonates loudly with my own views on how we learn languages.

Norwegian Crime Kids

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 18:15:24 +0000

With my recent experiments in ALG-style language study, I needed to shift gears in my Norwegian reading practice. Instead of reading adult-oriented books and using translation tools to help me over the rough parts, I’m embracing kids books and white-knuckling my way through them without a safety net - no dictionaries, no translations, just context and guesswork.

Today I finished my first one, and thought I’d share some notes about this new approach.

Go home, Norsk. You're drunk.

jeff@smithicus.com (Jefferson Smith) — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 07:10:13 +0000

My journey with learning Norsk hit an unexpected landmine today, all because of our new curtains.

Having learned a decent amount of French in school, I’m passingly familiar with the notion of gendered nouns. So the masculine, feminine, and neuter categories in Norwegian weren’t a problem. And learning that many people collapse the feminine and masculine into a single common gender came as a welcome simplification. But then we bought the damned curtains.