Pronouncing the Norwegian O

The standard pronunciation, and thus the name, of the letter o in Norwegian is different from that of most other languages. In English, the pronunciation of this letter varies, but it is [əʊ] when isolated, whereas in the Romance languages, the pronunciation is usually [o]. In Norwegian, however, the standard pronunciation of the letter o is [uː]. Listen to it here. Similar to the English /oo/ in tool. It retains this pronunciation ([uː]) in words such as stor, fot, bok, snok and kvote. (Listen to stor, fot and kvote)

A Norwegian vowel is most often (short) when in front of a double consonant. The letter o is usually pronounced [ɔ] when it is short. Examples include flott, lokk, sokker, hoppe, kort and norsk. (Listen to flott, lokk and norsk). There are exceptions to this rule, in which the o is pronounced [u] when short: fort, morsom [‘muʂɔm]. (Listen to morsom)

There are even a few words in which the o is pronounced [oː]! This long vowel phoneme is usually written with the Norwegian letter å, but in the words tog, sove, love and hoven the o is a long [o:]. (Listen to tog and sove)

Listen to these minimal pairs. Although they look similar when written they are pronounced differently.

Click the link to listen to the words:

bok - nok - amok
[uː] - [ɔ] - [u]

stor - for - hvor
[uː] - [ɔ] - [u]