Norwegian is spoken by more than 6 million people worldwide, so if you’re attempting to learn Norwegian, you certainly won’t be alone. While the Germanic language shares a lot of similarities with English, that won’t necessarily make it an easy language for you to learn immediately. Learning any language takes a good degree of patience and practice. Thankfully, there are quite a few language-learning resources available to help you in your endeavor. One such resource is podcasts.
Language-learning podcasts are a nice complement to a more formalized language-learning course, as they’re easy to listen to anywhere, any time, and they’re often either free or very budget-friendly.
Want to check out some Norwegian language podcasts? Consider one of these nine. (And if you’re looking for other resources, from apps and courses to books and moves, check out How to Learn Norwegian: A Straightforward Guide.)
Podcasts for Beginners
If you don’t know even a letter of Norwegian, you’ll want to start with these podcasts for beginners. At this level, language podcasts are often entirely in English, go over basics such as the alphabet and basic vocabulary and prepare you to move on to a more intermediate stage.
NorwegianClass101
The NorwegianClass101 podcast offers lots of episodes across a range of skill levels, but among these episodes are quite a few catered to beginners. You can follow along with the episodes at your own pace and review them as many times as you feel you need in order to grasp the presented concepts. While a lot of the NorwegianClass101 content is free, some is only accessible via paid subscriptions. To find out if a subscription is a good choice for you, read our full review of NorwegianClass101.
One Minute Norwegian
If you’re just visiting Norway for a short trip, either business or leisure, you might want to approach your learning of Norwegian differently. If this is the case, you might be content to just learn some Norwegian phrases. If that’s the case, One Minute Norwegian could be a good beginner podcast for you. The podcasts are very short (though not exactly one-minute short, they hover around three to four minutes) and cover basic phrases for travelers.
Norsk Chat
Whether you’re traveling to Norway for work or fun, or you’re just interested in learning more about the Norwegian culture and language, you can benefit from listening to a few episodes of Norsk Chat. The podcast looks at Norwegian culture and is fully in English. It’s created with an international audience in mind, and caters to those who have never visited Norway before. It also offers U.S. perspectives on some of Norway’s more unusual cultural aspects, so that you have a full idea of what to expect when in Norway, or just a better grasp of the culture as a whole.
Norwegian Dictionary
For picking up some easy vocabulary words, tune in to the Norwegian Dictionary. While there are only a few episodes, it will allow you to add some words to your expanding vocabulary that you might not currently have.
Intermediate
Are you starting to get the hang of this Norwegian thing? Then challenge yourself a little bit further with these intermediate podcasts.
Practice Norwegian
Start expanding your Norwegian vocabulary with these podcast episodes from Norwegian Language Lessons, hosted by a traveling tutor. There are 36 episodes to listen to and most cover basic grammar concepts, such as sub-clauses, specific nouns and sentence structure. Other episodes move on into advanced readings. Each episode is relatively short, under half an hour in length.
Norskpodden
This weekly podcast is still active and taught by a real Norwegian instructor. The podcast helps you train your listening skills, improve your reading skills and then practice your speaking skills, if you follow its recommendations. Since the podcast is relatively new, there are currently only nine episodes, with each episode, on average, being about 15 minutes long.
NUPI Podcast
One thing that intermediate language learners often find helpful is listening to a full foreign-language podcast, but with the English version handy. This allows them to listen to the new language without interruption, but ensures they’re not completely lost, because they have an English version to refer to. This is the experience NUPI Podcast offers. From the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, the podcast covers international happenings in both Norwegian and English.
Advanced
If you’ve gotten to the point where you understand Norwegian pretty well and you don’t really need an English translation, you may want to move on to full Norwegian broadcasts. These allow you to truly understand what you did and did not comprehend from the previous levels of podcasts, so you can review what’s needed, but still enjoy comprehending what you can.
SBS Norwegian
The SBS Norwegian podcast is produced by the Special Broadcasting Service. The all-Norwegian program features international and national news stories and human interest features, as well as features on sports, so you can listen along to news that you likely are already familiar with, just all in Norwegian.
Relax with Slow Norwegian
This ASMR podcast is entirely in Norwegian. The language is spoken slowly, for easy following, and quietly. Like all ASMR podcasts, its main goal is to relax the listener, so you definitely won’t feel stressed or rushed, even if you are stumbling over some of the vocabulary words. The content includes short stories and fairytales.
Final Thoughts
Again, a Norwegian language podcast can be an excellent complement to your other modes of study, no matter what level you’re currently at.
Do you have a favorite Norwegian language-learning podcast that we forgot to mention above? Let us know!
Learning Norwegian? Take a look at our article titled How to Learn Norwegian: A Straightforward Guide.