Go to Hell!
In Norwegian culture, people wish ‘Good weekend’ on Friday. They say ‘God helg!’ to each other.
(Alert: God is not god , it means good and pronounced like ‘gu:’.)
Okay, lets come to the point. The first time an Ethiopian friend heard it, he thought the person said to him, “Go to hell.” You could imagine how hurt he was.
I think I should share my experience too. I thought it meant something like ‘Good health!’
Shit Morning!
When you meet someone in the morning, you say, ‘Good morning’. In Norwegian it is, ‘God morgen’.
(You already know how to pronounce ‘god’.)
So, it sounds like ‘gu morgen’. In my language (Bengali), ‘gu’ means shit. Yes, you read it right. SHIT. So, it stands like ‘Shit morning!
Imagine how it feels when you start a day with shit.
Norway – No Way
No, I don’t want to call Norway a country with ‘no way’. This is what one of my friends used to say immediately after he came to Norway. Yes, he would make fun. And the wide smile he would give every time he used the term was something noteworthy. I don’t know if my friend still uses this joke, but I know now that Norway has opened its open mind to his music. Yes, he is a musician and he is doing well now.
Okay, I don’t want to say either that Norway is a country with full of opportunities, but definitely there are many ways. And if you really have no way, there is NAV (Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration).
