This video is about my Norwegian learning experience and how I passed the Bergenstest / How to pass Bergenstesten (the Norwegian B2 exam) after 6 months of dedicated practice. I also tell you a bit about my story, why I decided to learn Norwegian in the first place.

When I was learning Norwegian I always found it really motivating to see other people who had learned the language (especially when those people were American, because we kind of have a reputation for not being good at learning languages.) I had planned to talk in detail about what I did to learn Norwegian, but it ended up being a story about why I learned Norwegian, which honestly might be more interesting and motivating anyway.

Also, I wasn't super clear about it in the video, but the title isn't really clickbait: I basically I learned a bit of Norwegian in 2015 and then didn't really practice at all until 2018 when I decided to schedule the Norwegian B2 exam for 6 months out. I then studied every single day using Memrise, Duolingo, iTalki, and I also read a grammar book called Norwegian Verbs and Essentials of Grammar. Other than that book I didn't use any other textbooks, but I did order an example test from a prior year from Folkeuniversitetet. To this day I kind of feel like someone made a mistake when they said I passed the test. Big time impostor syndrome? Or maybe I'm just good at taking tests.

There are a few simple grammar and word choice/word order mistakes in this video but I tried to film it in one take. There are some cuts from when I cut out long periods of me not knowing what to say next, but I tried to make it flow/coherent. I also still make errors with tonefall / Norwegian pitch accent. Just goes to show: B2 is not C2! I’ve spent just over 2 weeks in Norway so hopefully with more time and exposure to the dialect in a certain area these issues will go away. Whenever Norway opens their borders up, I’ll be on my way 😎