Recommended resources
The freely available resources this lesson will direct you to.
Hei! Last time, you listened for the difference between long and short stressed vowels in words such as tak and takk. Now you will keep that timing distinction while learning two vowel sounds that can be unfamiliar even when their letters are easy to recognize: y and ø.
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to shape both sounds deliberately and use them in everyday words such as ny (“new”), sykkel (“bicycle”), brød (“bread”), and grønn (“green”). Allow about 35–40 minutes, including listening, pauses, and speaking aloud.
Two vowels made at the front of the mouth
Norwegian y and ø are front rounded vowels. “Front” describes where your tongue shapes the sound; “rounded” describes what your lips do. The useful starting points are other Norwegian vowels: y is close to i with rounded lips, while ø is close to e with rounded lips. The challenge is to change the lips without pulling the tongue back.
First, hear the reference sounds in NTNU’s NoW 2 Pronunciation. The letter recordings give you clear, sustained vowels before you try them inside words.
Read NTNU’s introduction to Norwegian vowels to establish an audio reference for i, y, e, and ø.
In “2 Pronunciation,” find the subsection “Norwegian vowels.” Read the opening explanation, starting at the nine-vowel list and stopping after the sentence about long and short vowels. Play the recordings labeled I and Y, then E and Ø. Focus on how each rounded vowel differs from its unrounded starting point; you do not need to study the other vowels now.
You are not trying to make an i followed by another sound. Hold i steadily, then round your lips while keeping your tongue roughly where it was. The resulting sound should move toward y. Do the same from e to approach ø. Once you find each position, start again and try to produce the rounded vowel directly, without an audible transition.
Make y without turning it into i or u
For y, begin with a clear i sound, like the vowel in English see. Keep that high, forward tongue position and bring your lips into a small rounded opening. The sound may initially seem to sit between i and u, but it is not a sequence of the two. If it sounds like i, round your lips more; if it drifts toward a back u sound, restore the forward tongue position.
Watch Silje Moss demonstrate this change in How to pronounce Y in Norwegian. Her slow examples give you a sound to imitate, though the short demonstration words are less important to remember than the vowel itself.
How to pronounce Y in Norwegian
Watch “How to pronounce Y in Norwegian” by Silje Moss (Norsk med Silje) for a visible mouth-position demonstration and spoken examples.
In the mouth shift, watch her change from I by narrowing the lips. Then listen to the slow examples, especially the sustained vowel in fy, yr, and fyr. Pause after a model and imitate it while keeping the vowel steady rather than sliding toward another sound.
Now place y in words you are more likely to need:
| Word | Meaning | What to attend to |
|---|---|---|
| ny | new | Hold the rounded vowel; it is long. |
| by | town or city | Keep the same vowel shape after b. |
| dyr | expensive | Keep y distinct from i; you can add the r afterward. |
| sykkel | bicycle | The stressed y is short before kk. |
Say ny and by with a sustained, rounded vowel. Then say sykkel, reaching the kk sooner. As you learned last time, length can change with the following consonants; the short y may also differ somewhat in quality from the long one. Your immediate priority is that neither becomes an ordinary i.
Make ø without letting it become e or o
For ø, start with a clear front e sound and round your lips while keeping your tongue forward. You may need a little more space inside the mouth than you used for y: ø is formed with a lower tongue position. Resist two tempting substitutions. Unrounded e loses the feature that makes ø distinctive; moving the tongue back toward o changes the vowel in a different direction.
TheNorwegianSchool’s Norwegian Alphabet (Ø): how to pronounce the letter Ø shows the lip contrast alongside the tongue-position cue.
Norwegian Alphabet (Ø): how to pronounce the letter Ø
Watch “Norwegian Alphabet (Ø): how to pronounce the letter Ø” by TheNorwegianSchool to see how rounded lips change a front E-like vowel.
Watch the Ø demonstration. Pay particular attention when the speaker contrasts spread lips for E with rounded lips for Ø, then shows the tongue positioned forward. Replay the final sustained Ø and imitate it as one steady sound.
Use that sound in øl (“beer”), brød (“bread”), and søt (“sweet”). These have a long stressed vowel. In grønn (“green”), the ø is short before nn. Say søt slowly enough to hold its vowel, then say grønn without stretching the vowel to the same length. In both, keep the lips rounded and the tongue forward.
Do not let the written o inside the letter ø steer your pronunciation toward English oh. Treat ø as its own vowel letter and sound.
Carry the sounds into useful phrases
An isolated vowel gives you time to arrange your mouth; a phrase asks you to find the position quickly. Try these at a comfortable speaking pace:
- En ny sykkel. — “A new bicycle.” The y is long in ny and short in sykkel.
- Den er dyr. — “It is expensive.” Give dyr a clear rounded vowel rather than English “deer.”
- Et brød, takk. — “A loaf of bread, please.” Keep the vowel in brød forward and rounded.
- Den er grønn. — “It is green.” The ø in grønn is short.
For each phrase, first say the target word on its own, then say the whole phrase without changing its vowel into a more familiar English sound. A short phone recording can help: on playback, listen separately for lip rounding and vowel duration. You do not need perfect speed. A clearly formed vowel in a measured phrase is more useful at this stage than a fast phrase with a blurred one.
What to carry forward
Y and ø both require a front tongue position and rounded lips. Start from i for y, and from e for ø; then learn to make each rounded sound directly. Length still matters: compare long y in ny with short y in sykkel, or long ø in søt with short ø in grønn.
Next, you will turn from vowels to another contrast that matters in familiar Norwegian words: the kj and sj sounds.