First Year Norwegian 1 (NORW101): Autumn Quarter 2026

Instructor: Lianna Torres (she/her)

Contact me: stewli03@uw.edu or message me on Canvas

Office: RAI 305 S

Office Hours: Fridays, 10:30 – 11:30 or by appointment

Our class can take new directions along the way, we can speed up, slow down, find better ways to manage class together, or find new activities! So, remember that this syllabus is subject to change.

Course Description / Beskrivelse av emnet

Velkommen til NORW101: First Year Norwegian! This class is the first in a series of three introductory courses at the University of Washington for Norwegian, a North Germanic language which is the first language of over 5 million speakers and the second of more than 1 million. Norwegian is descended from the Old Norse and is closely related to Danish and Swedish, enjoying a high degree of mutual intelligibility with those languages.

The class will be taught in the target language as much as possible and will draw upon materials from both inside and outside of our textbook. Learning any language requires learning about culture of the speakers. Therefore, our textbook will be complemented resources pertaining to contemporary Norwegian film, music, news articles, podcasts, social media etc. The course will encourage you to explore on your own and to experiment with using your growing language skills through speaking, writing, listening, and reading.

Course Meetings / Forelesninger

This course will meet in person M/T/W/Th/F from 9:30 - 10:20 in CMU 243. Class may also be held online via Zoom on a temporary basis.

Prerequisites / Obligatoriske forkunnskaper

This course has no prerequisites and is open to any undergraduate student at UW. First year language courses at the University of Washington are not open to UW ACCESS students or auditors.

Required Materials / Pensum

The required textbook for this class is Sett i gang 1 (3^rd edition), which can be found online (NOT in the bookstore). Please order the print version and not the e-book.

Optional: The textbook has online materials on the Sett i Gang online portal. This costs $10 for two years of access.

Additional Resources / Støtteressurser

1. Ordbøkene, a free online Norwegian dictionary for both bokmål and nynorsk supported by Språkrådet (The Language Council of Norway).
2. NAOB (Det norske akademis ordbok), a free online Norwegian bokmål dictionary (Norwegian Academy Dictionary). This dictionary provides additional pronunciation tools.
3. LEXIN, a reliable bokmål to English dictionary supported by OsloMet University.
4. Wikipedia, can help with translation as an alternative to Google Translate

Credit and Advising / Studiepoeng og veiledning

This course may be counted towards the foreign language requirement of many UW undergraduate degree programs. Per UW undergraduate graduation policy, first-year language courses (taken as a whole year, i.e., 3 quarters, of study) can ONLY count as A&H credits if the foreign language requirement has already been satisfied.

Specific language program questions can be directed toward Olivia Noble Gunn (ogunn@uw.edu).

You may also contact the Scandinavian Studies department’s de facto undergraduate program coordinator, Andy Meyer (meyera@uw.edu), or HAS with any additional questions about degree planning, exploring majors and minors in Norwegian or Scandinavian Studies, discussing double majors/degrees, getting credit for study abroad, filing for graduation, departmental Honors options, and connecting to other UW resources.

Course Objectives / Læringsmål

The course will be structured around the first 3 sections (9 chapters) of Sett i gang. This includes Language & Identity, Schools & Education, and Food & Meals. By the end of the quarter, students should be able to confidently use and discuss key language skills, including greetings, self-introductions, and relevant chapter discussion topics and vocabulary. They should also demonstrate understanding of essential grammar concepts such as word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), sentence structures, question formation, and the use of subject and object pronouns.

Language Use / Språkbruk

Your textbook supports your Norwegian learning with English as the text was made for American English learners. In the classroom, I will provide all the necessary tools to keep our learning process in Norwegian.

Grades / Karakterer

Daily Participation / Daglig deltakelse: 20%

Spoken languages are best learned through consistent practice and interaction. You aren’t just learning and regurgitating grammar for exams; you are learning to use Norwegian and spontaneously generate real language in real time with real people. Coming to class and building a community in which you and your classmates feel comfortable experimenting in the target language is imperative to your language learning and requires regular in-class participation.

Participation is assessed daily, with up to 5 points possible each week, which will appear in the gradebook weekly. To earn your daily point, come ready to participate, try your best, and stay engaged with the class. If you are absent, off-topic, spending class time on your phone, or generally not participating, you won’t earn the point that day.

Have fun, participate, make mistakes, and give it your best! If you’re sick or have a planned absence, just let me know, life happens!

Workbook and other homework / Lekser: 30%

Expect homework most days, primarily from the textbook. Homework is graded for completion, not perfection! (language learning isn’t perfect!) You should attempt all parts of the assigned exercises and show a reasonable effort to work with the material and to correct your work.

Your workbook homework will be checked three times during the quarter, during our three exams. Bring your textbook to each exam, and I will check that the assigned work is complete and that you have checked your answers using the answer key and corrected your mistakes. When making corrections, please leave evidence of your original answer rather than erasing it. Your corrections should show your learning!

If a homework assignment includes a writing activity, attach it on the appropriate page in your textbook so that everything stays together and easy to find.

Homework Quizzes / Quizer

Every other Friday, you will complete a short quiz in Canvas as part of your homework. These will help you (and me!) track your progress with Norwegian grammar and vocabulary. These quizzes are meant to be practice and support. You will have unlimited attempts and unlimited time, so use them as an opportunity to practice, review, and figure out what you still need to work on. The quizzes will also help you prepare for our in-class exams.

Cultural Exercises / Kulturelle oppgaver: 20%

The study of language is also the study of culture. Students will have opportunities to engage with authentic cultural content produced in Norway all year (music, film, television, advertisements, websites, etc.) and are expected to post short responses to open-ended questions in the form of online discussion posts (approx. 150 words, plus a short response to a group member’s post). For the first quarter, these responses will be in English. There will be 3 cultural exercises throughout the quarter.

Exams / Prøver: 20%

There will be three exams in this course, which will be administered in class and cover the content of the most recently completed section. The tentative exam schedule is as follows:

1st exam: Week 4

2nd exam: Week 7

3rd exam: Week 10

There is no final exam for this course.

If you earn below 70% on an exam, you will have an opportunity to complete corrections and improve your understanding of the material.

Oral Exam / Muntlig eksamen: 10%

There will be one oral exam to accompany the three written exams during the final week of instruction. The oral assessment is designed to reflect and reinforce the work you've done in class. More information to come!

Course Plan / Timeplan