Learn Norwegian (Beginners)

The app shows some annoying ads.

3 stars for being free, offline, and Norwegian. Some vocabulary not found in Duo. Loses 2 stars for occasional incorrect translation (ex. calls fingernail [negl] the word for nails hit by hammers [spiker], square (shape) [kvadrat] by word for town square [torg] and orange (fruit) appelsin by the color orange (oransje). Verb forms are also not quite right (or at least inconsistent). The interface is clunky (font sizes, can only hear some things 1x, always starts at top of lesson list, etc). Overall, not my first choice but it does do some thing Duo doesn’t. An OK tool to have in the box.

I like the simple user experience on this app; though, as someone who knows an intermediate level of Norwegian, I’ve noticed some of the translations on this app are not correct. I.e. “back” (as in the body part) translating to “tilbake” (which implies a more directional use of the word “back” I.e. “I’m coming back”). This should translate to “rygg”. In the “verbs” sections, they only translate some of the words to represent the verbs as “to <verb>” I.e. “å like” whereas some of the words are translated to their imperative/present forms without mentioning it, which can be very misleading for beginners especially without context. It feels like the developers just Google translated every vocab word and threw them in carelessly. BNR needs to have a native speaker validate these translations.