Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Jeg er vant til litt nervøsitet, men sterk eksamensangst gjør det vanskelig å konsentrere seg. - I am used to a bit of nervousness, but strong exam anxiety makes it hard to concentrate.

Vant is an adjective meaning used / accustomed, and til is the preposition to.
So jeg er vant til … literally means I am accustomed to ….

You should not say jeg er brukt til here.
Brukt means used (up) / second-hand or used as a tool, not accustomed.

Correct patterns:

Jeg er vant til litt nervøsitet. – I’m used to a bit of nervousness.
Jeg er vant til å stå opp tidlig. – I’m used to getting up early.

Using brukt in this sense would be wrong or sound very strange.

Why is it vant til and not vant med? I’ve sometimes seen med after vant.

Standard neutral Norwegian uses:

vant til noe / å gjøre noe – used to something / to doing something

Examples:

Jeg er vant til kaldt vær.
Jeg er vant til å jobbe sent.

You can hear vant med in some dialects and informal speech, e.g.:

Jeg er vant med det.

But if you want safe, standard Norwegian (Bokmål), especially in writing, use vant til.

Why is it litt nervøsitet (a noun) instead of litt nervøs (an adjective)? Could I say jeg er vant til å være litt nervøs?

Both versions are possible, but they are slightly different:

In the sentence:

Jeg er vant til litt nervøsitet …
- nervøsitet is a noun = nervousness
- litt nervøsitet = a bit of nervousness (as a thing / state in general)

If you say:

Jeg er vant til å være litt nervøs …
- that focuses more on me being a bit nervous (my state)

So:

Jeg er vant til litt nervøsitet – I’m used to some (amount of) nervousness.
Jeg er vant til å være litt nervøs – I’m used to being a bit nervous.

Both are correct; the original sounds slightly more abstract/general.

Why is there no article before sterk eksamensangst? Why not men en sterk eksamensangst?

In Norwegian, abstract or general conditions are often used without an article, especially when they are the subject and we mean them in a general way:

Sterk eksamensangst gjør det vanskelig …
= Severe exam anxiety makes it difficult … (exam anxiety in general, as a condition)

Saying en sterk eksamensangst would sound more like one specific strong case of exam anxiety, and is unusual here.

Compare:

Høy temperatur kan være farlig. – High temperature can be dangerous.
Stor sorg kan være lammende. – Great grief can be paralyzing.

Same pattern: adjective + abstract noun without an article.

How should I understand the word eksamensangst? Why is it written as one word?

Eksamensangst is a compound noun:

eksamen – exam
angst – anxiety, fear (often stronger than simple nervousness)

Norwegian (like German) often writes compounds as one word:

eksamensangst – exam anxiety
hjemmeeksamen – home exam
jobbsøknad – job application

So eksamensangst is simply exam anxiety, and sterk eksamensangst is severe exam anxiety.

What is the difference between nervøsitet and angst in Norwegian? They both look like nervousness and anxiety.

Broadly:

nervøsitet – nervousness, often milder, more everyday:
- Jeg kjenner litt nervøsitet før presentasjonen.
angst – anxiety / dread / fear, often stronger or more serious:
- Hun har sosial angst.
- Sterk eksamensangst suggests something more intense than just a bit nervous.

In the sentence, the contrast is:

litt nervøsitet – a manageable, normal level
sterk eksamensangst – a much stronger, more problematic condition

In sterk eksamensangst gjør det vanskelig å konsentrere seg, what does det refer to in gjør det vanskelig?

Here, det is a kind of dummy / placeholder pronoun, much like it in English makes it difficult.

The structure is:

Sterk eksamensangst – subject
gjør – verb (makes)
det – dummy object it
vanskelig – adjective (difficult)
å konsentrere seg – infinitive clause (to concentrate)

So it matches English very closely:

Sterk eksamensangst gjør det vanskelig å konsentrere seg.
– Severe exam anxiety makes it difficult to concentrate.

You normally keep det in this expression; you wouldn’t say gjør vanskelig å konsentrere seg.

Why do you say å konsentrere seg and not just å konsentrere?

In Norwegian, konsentrere seg is a reflexive verb, meaning to concentrate (oneself).

You almost always need the reflexive pronoun:

Jeg prøver å konsentrere meg. – I’m trying to concentrate.
Hun klarer ikke å konsentrere seg. – She can’t concentrate.

Forms:

jeg konsentrerer meg
du konsentrerer deg
han/hun konsentrerer seg
vi konsentrerer oss
dere konsentrerer dere
de konsentrerer seg

Without the reflexive pronoun, konsentrere usually means to concentrate something (e.g. a solution, forces), which is a different meaning and much less common in everyday speech.

In å konsentrere seg, why is it seg and not meg, since the sentence starts with jeg?

Good observation: the sentence starts with jeg, but ends with seg.

The reason is that the last part is general / impersonal: … gjør det vanskelig å konsentrere seg can be understood as:

… makes it difficult to concentrate (for a person / for people in general).

In such impersonal infinitive constructions, Norwegian often uses seg as a generic reflexive (like oneself in English):

Det er viktig å ta vare på seg. – It’s important to take care of yourself / oneself.
Det er vanskelig å konsentrere seg. – It is hard to concentrate.

If you want to be very explicit that it is specifically me, you could say:

… gjør det vanskelig for meg å konsentrere meg.

But the original sentence is perfectly natural and slightly more general in tone.

Could I say … gjør det vanskelig for meg å konsentrere meg instead? Is that more correct?

Yes, you can, and it is also correct:

Jeg er vant til litt nervøsitet, men sterk eksamensangst gjør det vanskelig for meg å konsentrere meg.

Difference in nuance:

… vanskelig å konsentrere seg.
– Slightly more general: this kind of anxiety makes it hard to concentrate (for a person).
… vanskelig for meg å konsentrere meg.
– Very clearly personal: for me it is hard to concentrate.

Both are grammatically fine. The original is a bit more impersonal and typical in written Norwegian.

Is the word order … men sterk eksamensangst gjør det vanskelig … normal? Could I move things around?

Yes, that word order is normal:

… men sterk eksamensangst gjør det vanskelig å konsentrere seg.

It is:

men – but
sterk eksamensangst – subject
gjør – verb
det vanskelig å konsentrere seg – the rest of the predicate

You could change the structure a bit for emphasis, but you cannot move the verb away from second position in its clause. For example:

Men det er vanskelig å konsentrere seg på grunn av sterk eksamensangst.
(Now det is the subject and sterk eksamensangst part of a på grunn av phrase.)

So there is some flexibility, but in a main clause the conjugated verb must be in the second position (V2 rule), which the original sentence obeys.