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?
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What follows is another installment in my ChatGPT conversation series…
ChatGPT: There are a few gems that play nice with learners:
Home for Christmas (Hjem til Jul) – Light, romantic comedy. Words are clear, pacing is friendly. Netflix-approved.
Side om Side – Sitcom style. Slow dialogue, simple sentences. Free on NRK TV.
SKAM – Teen drama. Dialogue is modern but enunciated enough to catch most words. NRK P3 streaming.
Lilyhammer – Crime comedy. Mix of English and Norwegian; perfect if you like mafia accents and culture clash.
Wisting – Crime thriller. Clear Norwegian, story-driven, English-speaking characters sprinkled in. BBC iPlayer.
I actually watched Lillyhammer when it first came out - in English, not norsk - so knowing the story already might be a bonus, but I found the humor a bit mean-spirited so maybe I’ll try the others first. Whatever happens, I’ll post updates here to fill you in. Stay tuned…
The first episode was great. Challenging but accessible norsk for my level, and quite funny. I think I’m noticing a consistent thread of cringe in Norwegian humor. A sort of “Can you imagine if people were this obnoxious/oblivious/foolish in real life?” vibe.
I’ve watched the entire first season now, and though I can’t say I understood it well, I at least got the gist of what was happening. I’ll come back to this from time to time, as a way of measuring my progress, but it’s a bit outside my comfort zone right now.
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.
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…
Join me for another installment of my “Conversations with Robots” series.