How do you pronounce ø in Norwegian?

It depends on the accent, and on the speaker. The closest approximation in English would be [ɜ]: the vowel in British English bird, herb, ''lerve''... or American English bud, hub, love... In unstressed positions, it is a schwa [ə], more often than not.


Gjert Kristoffersen, the author of ''The Phonology of Norwegian '', made an acoustic analysis of Norwegian vowels and was surprised when he found (out):

That [œ] and [ə] have identical values is somewhat unexpected...[ ]...
Tromsø ~ homse ‘homosexual (coll.)’. This pair would not normally be considered as rhyming, but this may be due to convention and spelling.

Just make sure you don't pronounce it as a German ö.

In Tromsø, they pronounce ø the same way Swedish people pronounce their ö, ø gets an E-like sound, so the name of the city itself may sound like this: [trumse].