The Best Way to Learn Nynorsk in 2026

The best way to learn Nynorsk starts with your reason, because a newcomer in western Norway and a Norwegian who writes Bokmål need different parts of the same mix. Most of that mix is Nynorsk you can follow, which is called comprehensible input, plus review and some real conversation. Here is what each way of learning builds, and the mix for eight common goals.

Bubblegum covers the reading and listening part. Poppy, your AI tutor, writes Nynorsk lessons at your level about things you like, with audio, a dictionary, and grammar topics on the same page. Regenerative Review™ brings the words you save back in new lessons. Add a Norwegian course or a tutor for speaking and feedback.

Build your study mix around Nynorsk you can follow, then add the practice your goal needs.

Use about one unfamiliar word per sentence as a practical starting guide, while still following the meaning. Beginners need short sentences with mostly familiar words, and advanced readers can use longer sentences where the context helps them guess. Switch to easier texts if you lose the thread.

Input is the base of the mix: a 2016 review of 49 studies in Reading in a Foreign Language, a University of Hawaii journal, found that reading a lot of easy material improves reading in a new language.

For every goal, the best way is the same base of reading and listening, with the rest of your time on the skill that goal needs most.

• 🏠Live in Western NorwayRead the local news and the letters from your municipality, since towns like Voss, Volda and Sogndal have chosen Nynorsk. Ask your Norwegian course which written standard it teaches.
• 🏫Pass Sidemål at SchoolRead Nynorsk stories next to the Bokmål version of the same text, then write short texts of your own. Norwegian pupils get a separate grade in written sidemål after grade 10.
• 📝Pass NorskprøvenSpend most of your time reading and listening at your level, and write your test answers in Nynorsk or Bokmål, whichever you practice more.
• 💬Talk With Family or FriendsRead and listen to plenty of everyday Nynorsk, and listen to how your friends speak, since each person speaks their own dialect.
• 🎒Help Kids With HomeworkIn a school where pupils write Nynorsk as their main form, the school books are in Nynorsk. Read their school texts together, and look up the words you don't know in Nynorskordboka.
• 📚Read Books and PoetryStart with picture stories, then pick books from the lists on Nynorskbok.no or from Samlaget, a Nynorsk publisher. Jon Fosse, who won the 2023 Nobel Prize in Literature, writes in Nynorsk.
• 💼Work in NynorskPractice with the forms, letters and web pages that offices and municipalities in a Nynorsk area use, and keep the Nynorskordboka open.
• 🎓Study at a Norwegian UniversityFinish a general Norwegian course to about level B1, then take a Nynorsk course such as the University of Bergen's, which has about 36 teaching hours.

To see how many hours each stage takes, read how long it takes to learn Nynorsk.

Most parts of the mix have a good free option, such as the 50LANGUAGES course or the stories on Duostories, and an app or service for when you want more.

Avoid anything that keeps you from reading real Nynorsk sentences you can follow.

• 🔀Switching Forms Mid-TextThe norm allows both å kaste and å kasta, so pick one and keep it through a whole text, as Nynorsksenteret advises.
• 🗂️Lists With No SentencesA list of the 500 most common words can teach meanings, but it does not show how to use them or catch them in a conversation. Read and hear useful words in sentences instead.
• 🔎Guessing From BokmålMany words look alike, but endings differ, as in hestar and hester. Check an ending you are unsure of in Nynorskordboka.