Norwegain language
   -how do we speak?
Norwegian is a rather unformal language. Titles like Mr. Mrs and Miss is not commonly used. Letters usually use the full name, while in meatings people is called by their family name. It is also very commond to call people you know the name of by their first name. Even the previous prime minister were just called "Kjell Magne" in the media. The journalists would adress him like "prime minister" or "Bondevik" while talking to him, but quote him as "Kjell Magne" when they write the article.

Please!
The Norwegain word for "please" is not so frequently used as in English. The polite way of asking is in daily speech "Could you pass me the potatoes?", while the more rude or familiar way of saying it would be "Pass me the potatoes!". The posh way would be to include "please" after "you".
Norway has the pleasure of having two writing languages. These are pronounced equal, but as elsewhere, some are more equal than others.

At first glance they look fairly similar (true), but they have different origin. Bokm�l (Dano-Norwegian) is writing of the way the Oslo upper class were pronouncing Danish (without much luck), and is the dominant language in books, media, business and administration.

Nynorsk (New Norwegian) is based on local speech (dialects) collected from all areas of South-Norway up to Trondheim, with grammar based on these, Old Norwegain and compared to Danish and Swedish. This process made New Norwegian to a democratic writing language and is closer to nearly all the different dialects than Dano-Norwegian. Still, Dano-Norwegian rule.

Most foreigners speaking Norwegian (well the few that bodhers) do the mistake of speaking in the speed of their native language. Norwegian is a kind of slow language, but fairly easy regarding to grammar.
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