‘94 Winter Olympic Games / Lillehammer : DATELINE / LILLEHAMMER : Getting It Right

You only have to be exposed to it for a little while to realize that Norwegian is not an easy language to pick up.

It is full of sounds and inflections that trip enchantingly off the tongues of those who grew up with it, but merely trip up the unwary foreigner trying to make a good impression.

Actually, foreigners here are spoiled, because most Norwegians speak English and many speak another language as well, often German. Still, there are place names that really can’t be said in other tongues, so when you’re asking directions, it pays to say them right.

And for those of you watching the Games at home, eager to impress your friends by dropping the names of the various venues into your Olympic conversations, here’s a little pronunciation guide:

--Lillehammer: It’s LIL-uh-hom-mer, not Lily-hammer. It means little crag , to distinguish it from another similar sounding place nearby.

--Hamar: This is the similar sounding place nearby. The speedskating and figure skating will be held in HOM-ar, which used to be Storhamar/Hamar, or big crag . The differences in spelling and pronunciation of the two craggy places are not explained, simply accepted.

--Hunderfossen: The luge-bobsled run is at Hunderfossen, which sounds pretty much the way it looks, HOON-der-faw-sen.

--Hafjell: The thing to remember is that in Norwegian, J sounds like Y. Thus, the site of some of the Alpine skiing is HOF-yell.

--Kvitfjell: The F in the middle is merely there to confuse and there apparently is local option on the V. Some say it like a W, some like a V, so the site of the rest of the Alpine skiing is either KWEET-yell or Ka-VEET-yell.

--Gjovik: Now here is an interesting word. The G-J combination is common in Norwegian but does not translate well, since the G is hinted at, rather than pronounced. And this particular O isn’t really an O, since in Norwegian it has a slash through it, which gives it kind of an uhr sound. So if you say--if you can say--YEE-uhr-vik, people will probably know you’re talking about one of the hockey sites.

--Lysgardsbakkene: There is no way most Americans are going to do justice to the name of the ski-jumping arena, but it sounds like Liss-gorsh-BAH-kuh-neh.

The Norwegians also say, Adjo, which means, See you later.