The Norwegian alphabet: all 29 letters, æ ø å and how to type them

There are 29 letters: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Ø Å. Knowing their names matters mostly for spelling out your name and address, which you will be asked to do on the phone, at the doctor’s or at the bank.

Æ sounds like the “a” in “cat” or the “ai” in “air”; ø is like the vowel in British “bird” said with rounded lips; and å sounds like the “aw” in British “law” or the “o” in “more”. They are separate vowels, not decorations: swap one for another and you get a different word.

• være

  to be

  æ: an open, long vowel.

• lære

  to learn, to teach

• øl

  beer

  ø: say “e” with your lips rounded.

• brød

  bread

  The final d is silent: “brø”.

• år

  year

  å: like “or” in British English.

• på

  on, at

The real trap is the ordinary o: in many words it sounds close to the “oo” in “food”. Bok (“book”) sounds almost like the English word “book” with a longer vowel, and sol (“sun”) like “sool”. So when you hear an “o” sound, the spelling is often å. Our guide to Norwegian pronunciation goes into more detail.

Most consonants are close to English, but a handful are worth getting right from the start:

• Y is always a vowel: an “ee” with rounded lips, like German ü. By (“town”), ny (“new”).
• U is further forward than English “oo”: hus (“house”), du (“you”).
• J sounds like English “y”: ja (“yes”), jobb (“job”) sounds like “yob”.
• R is a short tap in the east, like the “tt” in American “butter”; in the west and south it is often a throaty r. It is always pronounced, even at the end of a word.
• W is rare and pronounced like v.
• Vowels are pure: e in le (“laugh”) never glides into “ay” as in English “lay”.

The letters c, q, w, x and z appear almost only in names and loanwords. Many foreign words have been respelled the Norwegian way, and they look odd at first:

• sjokolade

  chocolate

  sj sounds like English “sh”.

• stasjon

  station

• sjåfør

  driver, chauffeur

• byrå

  agency, bureau

• kafé

  café

• pizza, zoo, taxi

  pizza, zoo, taxi

  Loanwords that keep z and x.

On a phone, just press and hold a letter: hold a for æ and å, and o for ø. On a computer the easiest option is to add the Norwegian keyboard layout, which has å next to P and ø and æ next to L.

• iPhone and Android: press and hold a or o, or add the “Norsk” keyboard in your language settings.
• Windows: add Norwegian (bokmål) in Settings, or use Alt + 0230 (æ), Alt + 0248 (ø) and Alt + 0229 (å) on the number pad.
• Mac (US or British layout): Option + ' gives æ, Option + o gives ø and Option + a gives å. Add Shift for capitals.
• If you can’t use them (email addresses, usernames), write ae, oe, aa: Bjørn → Bjoern.

Æ, Ø and Å come after Z, so in a dictionary or a list of names år appears at the very end, not next to arbeid. Many surnames keep the older spelling aa instead of å (Haaland, Aasen), and Norwegian lists often sort them as if they began with å.

• arbeid … zebra … ærlig … øye … åpen

  work … zebra … honest … eye … open

  Norwegian alphabetical order.