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4.5
Werner Skalla’s The Mystery of Nils is a brilliant and engaging introduction to the study of the Norwegian language. The book assumes no prior knowledge of Norwegian. Essential vocabulary and grammar are carefully explained step by step, and the book makes extensive use of nicely-drawn illustrations and pictures to help the student understand the material more clearly. Exercises are also included, to reinforce the student’s comprehension of the lessons. A charming narrative about a nisse (a Norwegian doll that resembles an elf) called Nils, who is alive, and his relationship with a Norwegian family that has a difficult secret from its past, runs throughout the book and is one of the book’s most attractive features. Each chapter begins with a part of the Nils story, and as the narrative successively unfolds these parts become increasingly more complex Norwegian texts, corresponding to the student’s greater knowledge and understanding of Norwegian that builds from each of the chapter’s lessons.Learning Norwegian solely from a textbook presents a number of problems, chief of which is that the student has no real idea of what the language sounds like. However the publisher of The Mystery of Nils, Skapago Publishing, provides a number of ways to overcome this problem. For example free audio versions of the Nils stories are available at the publisher’s website, www.skapago.eu, together with other helpful free material such as Norwegian pronunciation guides.One word of warning. The friendly and engaging nature of The Mystery of Nils can give its readers, especially those who are just starting the book, the false and misleading impression that learning Norwegian is going to be easy. Unfortunately that is not the case. Underneath the surface of the delightful page-turning Nils story, the chatty and friendly grammar lessons, and the fun illustrations is a lot of hard work. Effective memorization of the book’s vocabulary and grammar for example requires often lengthy daily practice, and there is no practicable alternative to this essential but tedious work if a student really wants to learn the Norwegian language. Learning another language to a good level of proficiency is like running a marathon: hard and exhausting, but also an incredibly rewarding and exhilarating accomplishment when one reaches the end. Werner Skalla’s Mystery of Nils provides the student of Norwegian with a friendly, encouraging, and highly skillful and effective coach, one who does everything possible to get the student to the finishing line.
