Gratulerer med dagen!
If you’re in Norway today, you already know what’s coming: flags in every window, brass bands warming up at 7 in the morning, children with little paper flagg, and at some point, an ice cream that costs more than it should.
The 17th of May is a great day to try out your Norwegian. People are in a good mood, strangers will talk to you, and almost everyone will appreciate the effort if you greet them in the language. So here’s a small phrasebook for the day, with a few cultural notes mixed in.
The phrase you’ll use a hundred times
If you only remember one thing today, remember this:
Gratulerer med dagen!
It literally means “congratulations on the day”. You say it to neighbours, to people walking past you in bunad, to the woman selling waffles, to your colleagues if you bump into them. There is no awkwardness — it’s just what people say to each other on the 17th of May.
You can also hear:
God nasjonaldag! — Happy National Day.
Either one works. Gratulerer med dagen is the more traditional choice.
A small vocabulary list
| Norwegian | English |
|---|---|
| Grunnlovsdagen | Constitution Day (literally “Basic Law Day”) |
| Nasjonaldagen | The National Day |
| Syttende mai | The 17th of May |
| Flagget | The flag |
| Toget | The parade |
| Barnetoget | The children’s parade |
| Bunad | Traditional folk costume |
| Russ | Graduating high school seniors |
| Is | Ice cream |
| Pølse | Hot dog |
Things to say during the day
If you want to learn Norwegian online, take a look at our Norwegian courses here but for today, here are a few phrases that will come in handy:
- Jeg skal se på toget. — I’m going to watch the parade.
- Vi feirer nasjonaldagen i dag. — We’re celebrating the National Day today.
- Har du bunad? — Do you have a bunad?
- Vi spiser frokost ute. — We’re having breakfast outside.
- Barna går i toget. — The kids are walking in the parade.
Don’t worry about getting the grammar perfect. People will understand you, and most will switch into “helpful Norwegian” mode the moment they hear you trying.
Ja, vi elsker — the national anthem
You’ll hear Ja, vi elsker dette landet — “Yes, we love this country” — many times today. It was written by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in the 1860s, and the first verse is what most people actually sing:
Ja, vi elsker dette landet som det stiger frem furet, værbitt over vannet med de tusen hjem
Roughly: “Yes, we love this country, as it rises up, furrowed and weather-beaten above the water, with its thousand homes.”
It’s a beautiful old text. Learning even the first line is a nice party trick.
On the bunad
The bunad isn’t a costume in the dress-up sense. It’s a regional folk outfit, and which one a person wears tells you where their family is from. The embroidery, colours, and the silver jewellery — sølje — change from valley to valley. A lot of people inherit theirs, and they’re not cheap to buy new, so they get worn and cared for over a lifetime.
If you want to say something nice:
Hvilken flott bunad! — What a lovely bunad.
Or just:
Du ser fin ut! — You look nice.
Both are normal things to say and will be received well.
Why the day feels the way it does
The 17th of May isn’t a military parade or a political event. The main act is the barnetoget — the children’s parade — and that pretty much sets the tone. Schools march together, kids wave their little flags, parents take photos, grandparents cry a little, and everyone shouts “hurra!” at the right moments.
If you’ve come from a country where the national day is a fly-past and a speech, it can feel surprisingly small and homemade. That’s the point. The day belongs to ordinary people.
A small numbers tip
Norwegian numbers in the teens are useful to know, and syttende (seventeenth) sits right in the middle of them:
- femten — fifteen
- seksten — sixteen
- sytten — seventeen
- atten — eighteen
- nitten — nineteen
So syttende mai literally just means “the seventeenth of May”. Nothing exotic about it — but knowing the number makes the name finally click for a lot of learners.
Are you celebrating syttende mai today, whether in Norway or somewhere else in the world? Have you tried any of these phrases on real Norwegians? Let us know in the comments — we’d love to hear how it went.
Gratulerer med dagen — fra oss på Norwegian Academy!