How I ended up learning Norwegian

I was learning Russian on Duolingo. Then Russia invaded Ukraine and I couldn’t open the app any more. Nothing dramatic happened, I just didn’t want to. The streak died some time in March and I didn’t miss it.

I had got used to doing a bit of a language every day though, so I went looking for another one.

A friend suggested Norwegian. Not for himself. His girlfriend wanted to read Norwegian authors in the original and was planning to start with Min Kamp, which is six volumes and not where I would begin. The three of us opened Duolingo and got going.

Two weeks in, she quit.

That left me and my friend learning Norwegian for no reason at all. Neither of us had Norwegian family, Norwegian work, or any plan to go to Norway. The one person with an actual motive was gone. We carried on anyway.

We carried on for six months. We bought books. We bought CDs, which in 2022 mostly meant working out what would still play them. We watched Norwegian films with Norwegian subtitles, badly at first and then less badly.

By the end I would put myself at about A1, but that’s my own guess and not a test result. What I can tell you is that I could put a film on and follow it. And at some point I spoke Norwegian with a colleague who is Norwegian, and he asked me whether I had lived in Oslo. I haven’t. I’ve never been.

I don’t have a clean explanation for why we kept going. My suspicion is that having a reason turns the thing into a means to an end, and a means to an end is exactly what you drop when the week gets busy. With no reason there’s nothing to weigh it against. It’s just a thing you do, like brushing your teeth, and nobody quits brushing their teeth because they’ve reconsidered the goal.

Not advice. Just what happened.