#42 "Connection" in Norwegian - a concept full of nuances [vokabular] [kultur]

“Connect” feels like a simple word until you try to say it in Norwegian and realise you’re actually talking about five different things. We unpack the real meanings hiding inside that one word, and we give you Norwegian options you can use immediately in real conversations. 

Subscribe for more Norwegian language tips, share this with a friend who’s learning, and let me know which word or expression you struggle to translate most.

Transcript

Folkens, I love that word, folkens, that has nothing to do with this podcast, but I just

love it.

I just have to say that, folkens, it's cute.

It's just a word that you can use when you talk to people and you want to say, hey, people,

you can say folkens, but you cannot say, ah, the people are here or something like that.

Anyway, people, we are connected more and more, we think, at least.

So connect can mean different things, right?

You can connect, you can connect your computer to the internet or to electricity.

You can meet someone and say hi to them.

You can bond with someone.

You can, you can get to know someone.

You can just talk to someone random.

You can get in touch with someone you already know and get in touch with someone new.

You can connect on a deeper level.

There are so many kinds of connection, both human and non-human connection.

So what different words can we use?

Let's start with a very simple connection, like you're connecting your computer.

You can use "å koble", å koble seg på, å koble seg til.

To connect to.

Jeg kobler meg på internett, og jeg kobler meg til internett.

It doesn't matter which one you use, koble meg på, koble meg til.

And then you have like connecting, like getting in touch with someone.

Imagine you need a lawyer, so you have to connect with a lawyer.

You have to get in touch with a lawyer.

Then you would say, jeg må komme i kontakt med.

To get in contact with, komme i kontakt med.

Jeg må komme i kontakt med en advokat.

And then when you are in touch, you can say, jeg er i kontakt med en advokat, for eksempel.

Or ta kontakt med, same thing, take contact with, which is, I guess, a more active version

of it, where you actually make an effort to get in touch, whereas komme i kontakt med

can sound a little bit more passive.

It can happen by itself.

No intention behind it.

And then the result is, å være i kontakt med, to be in touch with someone.

When the contact or the connection has been established, then you are in contact.

And if you want to stay in touch with someone, you want to keep the connection:

holde kontakt.

Vi må holde kontakt.

We have to keep contact or keep the connection.

But you can be in contact with people but not feel connected.

It's not necessarily the same, I would say.

But if you feel connected, if you feel that there is a friendship and you are emotionally

connected to that person or to a place or whatever, then you would use the verb "knytte".

Which means to tie, same way as you would use it for tying your shoelaces.

So, if I want to say that I feel connected to someone, that I feel that we have bonded,

then I could say: 

Jeg har knyttet meg til, and then the person. 

Jeg har knyttet meg til Maria.

I have created a bond with Maria.

I feel there is a bond, which basically means that I would get hurt if something happened.

And you can also do that with countries.

Jeg har knyttet mie til Norge.

I feel a connection, I feel a strong bond with Norway.

Or whatever you feel connection to.

But normally it's something that affects your values, I would say.

And now let's imagine that you meet someone you know.

You can just talk to that person, but think about other things.

For instance, you're not really present in the moment.

You're not really feeling what the other person feels or not observing that.

You're not really connected emotionally, even if it's a good friend.

So there is another way of talking about connecting with someone.

Which actually doesn't really have to be with someone you know.

It can also be with just some random person, and you can feel what they feel.

You can be really present in the moment.

And very often we don't really use a Norwegian word for that.

We would say:

(Å) CONNECTE.

Vi connecter med en person.

But another way to express that is to use the same expression as we use for the internet.

Connecting to the internet.

"Å koble seg på en annen person."

To connect to another person.

Which really just means being present.

Both people are present in the moment, and they are there for each other in that moment.

That means "koble seg på".

You can also just use it for yourself, which means basically to turn yourself on.

To be present.

So to connect yourself to the world or to the moment.

I don't know.

"Å koble seg på."

And the opposite would be "koble seg av".

When you're disengaging and not present, and maybe doing it on purpose or subconsciously, to not feel too much.

Å koble seg av.

To disconnect.

To take distance with whatever is happening.

In that moment.

Å koble seg av.

To disconnect oneself.

The reason why I made this episode, is because I get a lot of questions about how can you

say "connect" in Norwegian.

And it depends on what kind of connection you're talking about.

We also have the verb "å forbinde", which means to bind together.

It can mean to associate.

To connect something with something else.

Å forbinde noe med noe annet.

That's what it normally means.

Jeg forbinder vinter med snø.

I connect winter to snow or I associate winter with snow.

But we also use it for internet connection, for instance.

Jeg har en god internettforbindelse.

Forbindelse.

And here it's more about the quality of the connection, and not whether or not it is connected.

There is connection, but how is the quality?

En forbindelse.

En forbindelse can also be a connection, someone you know.

But that's normally used for professional connections, right?

 Han har mange forbindelser.

 Han har et stort nettverk, right?

 He has many connections or a big network.

So "forbinde" is normally not used for true human connection, if we can call it that.

 In that case, we would rather use the verbs å koble or å knytte.

 Koble, connect.

Knytte, to tie something.

 Yeah, in many cases, we would not even use the word connect.

We would just use the kind of connection, like how do we connect?

So if you want to say to someone that you want to have a deep conversation with, can we connect?

We would rather just say, can we have a chat?

Kan vi snakke sammen?

Or I need more connection.

I need us to have more connection.

Then maybe one could say,

Jeg vil at vi skal ha bedre kontakt.

Dypere kontakt.

Bedre kontakt.

Deeper contact, better contact.

Okay?

Hope that helps, as always!

And now that you know, you can go out and connect with other people.

Or at least you know how to talk about being connected.

And with that being said, if you have any questions, feel free to

Komme i kontakt med meg :)

Or feel free to

Ta kontakt med meg :)

Get in touch.

Ta kontakt.

Takk for i dag! Vi høres!