Yesterday evening, husband and I went to the end of year party (avslutningen på norsk) for our Norwegian language class. We are only seven students but a lively, happy bunch, and heartily complimented by our lively, happy teacher. We met at a popular local seaside restaurant/bar and planted ourselves at an excellent table out in the sun. Even before drinks, one of the Portuguese students asked if we couldn’t just please speak English so we might all relax and have a good time. I know exactly what she meant, and she had my sympathy, but no one was having it. We were there to celebrate our achievement at making it through the first part of intermediate Norwegian and the celebration would be done på norsk. Besides, the Germans in our class don’t speak English and it would be tragic to exclude them, as they are friendly, nice, and speak the best Norwegian amongst us (teacher excepted, of course).

The evening was a spectacular success. We all got to know each other a bit more, indulged the chance to moan to each other about various immigrant hardships, exchanged some phone numbers, and made warm, beer-fueled promises to practice our Norwegian throughout the summer before returning to class at the end of August. It was still light out at midnight as husband and I peddled home, prattling on to each other in Norwegian about how much we like our new friends.

As an aside, I made the most exciting discovery that my ability to speak and even tell amusing stories in Norwegian improves in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol I consume. I believe that keeping my promise to practice my language skills over the summer will not be difficult at all.

Speaking of speaking Norwegian, I am still (very slowly) working on my hope to earn a bit of cash doing some Norwegian-to-English translation. As I waste time sort out my business plan, I make the effort to research the competition, meaning I do a lot of Googling to see who else offers this same service. I have found a lot of good information this way, and some weird information, too. Check out this snippet from a language translation company’s website:

Information about Norwegian Translation
Is your company thinking about translating your business or technical documents from English into Norwegian?
Here are some useful facts to remember when working with Norwegian translators.
Norway has two official written languages. Most business documents are written in 'Bokmal', which has developed from Danish (Norway was part of Denmark for 500 years). The Norwegian government and its agencies are mandated to produce 25% of the documents in 'Nynorsk', which is based on Norwegian rural dialects.
The Norwegian financial markets are quite limited, especially when it comes to derivatives. Many English financial terms are used in absence of Norwegian-language equivalents (e.g. warrant, futures, etc.). Names of the mutual funds (e.g. Fidelity Far East Growth Fund) and indices (e.g. FTSE World) also appear in English in the Norwegian language documents.
Experienced Norwegian translators are cognizant of the fact that there is a differentiation in the Norwegian language between the stock shares of public companies and the mutual funds shares. Shares of stocks are translated as 'aksjer', whereas mutual funds shares, or units, are translated as 'andeler'.
Norwegian women are among the most beautiful women in the world. They grew up in a special Norwegian circumstances which makes Norwegian women very special in Norway. Also, Norwegian language makes Norwegian woman very attractive as well.

I’m not making this up, I swear. Other than that last bizarre paragraph, this website is extremely professional and well-written. What the hell does it mean? More important, I wonder if the Norwegian language makes other women more attractive as well? If so, I was hot, hot, HOT last night. Awesome.