Is English Language Spoken In Norway?

English is not an official language in Norway, but you might think it is based on how many people speak it. Travelling to the major cities of Norway, you’ll find that most people speak English fluently. In fact, 90% of Norwegians can say that they speak English.

The amount of English speakers vary depending on where in Norway you find yourself. For instance, in big cities like Oslo, Bergen or Trondheim, you’ll find that most people you stop on the street will be able to converse in English without a problem. However, if you travel to more rural areas, English can still be understood, but it might be harder finding someone who is able to carry on a conversation with you problem free.

If we compare Norway’s English speaking proficiency with the rest of Europe, we find only two countries rating higher on the EF English Proficiency Index (Netherlands and Austria). Norway has a solid position in the “Very High Proficiency” bracket of this group, rating higher than our neighbouring countries of Sweden and Denmark. In fact, most of Europe don’t qualify for this grouping, either landing themselves in the “High Proficiency” group or lower.

So it’s a safe bet that travelling to Norway as an English speaker will not cause you many problems, at least not when it comes to communication.

So why is English proficiency so high in Norway? We’ll, for starters, Norwegian and English are both Germanic languages. This means that they have a common ancestor way back. So the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax all come from the same place. Over centuries of linguistic evolution, the ancient Germanic language developed into multiple different languages, but there are still plenty of similarities today. You’ll find a similar sentence structure, vocabulary and grammatical rules. So learning English as a Norwegian is far easier than learning another language with different roots.

On top of this, Norwegian school kids are taught English from a very young age. Add to this the fact that we don’t dub movies or TV, the prevalence of American/English music, and the overall high amount of English speaking content we consume from an early age, English is a language we are immersed in from an early age.

While it is widely spoken, English is still a foreign language in Norway. Norwegians grow up speaking Norwegian, and speak it for most of their everyday life. So while you can converse with just about anyone in English, it will still be their second language.

The Norwegian government does not recognize English as one of its three main languages (Norwegian bokmål, Norwegian nynorsk, and Sami). Even so, you might think it might as well be. According to the EF English Proficiency Index, Norway lands at a respectable number four in the global rankings of English proficiency, only being beaten by the Netherlands, Singapore and Austria.

With this in mind, you might ask yourself, “Can I live in Norway only speaking English?”. 

The answer to this, for the most part, is yes. Most people you’ll meet, especially the younger generations, all speak English close to fluently. So you can get by both socially and professionally with English. But it is worth noting that most Norwegians are more comfortable speaking Norwegian, so learning the language will definitely help you achieve deeper and more meaningful relationships, both in your personal life and your work life.

With the high level of English proficiency found in Norway, you can ask how the country has achieved this. English is taught from the start of a child’s scholastic career and all the way through high school (depending on the high school curriculum). The government places a great deal of focus on the English language subject, as it is seen as an essential language for Norwegians to know. 

From the 1st. to the 7th grade, otherwise known as Barneskolen (Grade school), the official curriculum mandates at least 1 hour of English per school week. This number increases to 2 hours per week from 8th through 10th grade, known as Ungdomsskolen (Grade school).

When a student reaches high school in Norway, they begin to choose the direction they want to take their education. So if a child dreams of being an electrician, they may not require any additional English lessons in school. But, generally, we can say that students receive 1 hour of English per school week during the last three years of their high school years. 

All in all, this means that from the age of 6, children in Norway are exposed to the English language on a weekly basis. This is not that different from other countries, where English is also taught in school, but given Norwegian’s common roots with English (they are both Germanic languages), and the fact that Norwegians are deeply immersed in the English language through music, TV, Movies, Video Games, Podcasts etc. there is plenty of extramural English going on outside the classroom. 

But things are not all peaches and cream though. Plenty of criticism has been lobbied towards the English educational practices in Norway. They range widely from not having high enough ambitions for their students, too little focus on speaking English and too much on writing, and teachers not having strong enough credentials to teach the language.

As it stands though, many Norwegians will say that though they learned plenty of English in school, their main teacher was the content they consumed outside of school.

If English is not an official language in Norway, are there any benefits of being able to speak English with a high proficiency as a Norwegian, besides being able to help give tourists directions? As a matter of fact, yes! They boil down to career benefits and cultural influence. Let’s take a look.

Alright, so we’ve established that Norwegian and Norwegian are close when it comes to their linguistic features. But it’s not like you can intuitively understand Norwegian just by speaking English right? So just how close are they? Let’s take a look at pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary to answer this question.

If you’re looking for a nice and effective way to learn Norwegian, you can check out our online conversation classes, that will make you fluent in no time at all!

Looking at the major cities of Norway, we turn our gaze to Oslo and Bergen. Just how common is the use of English in these cities?