One of you requested that I address words that have multiple meaning.  Da is one of these words.  Da can be used in many different ways.  In general, it means either “then” or “when,” but even so, these two words can be used in different contexts.  In my opinion, words with multiple meanings are some of the coolest words.  Da, one of these words is short, flexible, and serves many purposes.  In English, ‘da’ is only used in songs as a filler.  Norwegians really uses da to the best of its ability.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of da when the word is used to mean “when:”

Da jeg var ung, likte jeg å spille fotball. When I was young, I liked to play soccer.

Han kokte da jeg vasket golvet. He cooked while I washed the floor.

Da de kom hjem, var de trøtte. When they came home, they were tired.

I think you get the picture about using da for ‘when.’  There is one thing you must remember about translating ‘when’ into Norwegian.  In English, there is really only one word for ‘when.’  In Norwegian, there are two: da and når. You use da when you want to describe something in the past and når when you want to describe a situation in the future.  It’s really pretty simple.

Når  går du på skole? When do you go to school?

Når jeg vokser opp, vil jeg bli advokat. When I grow up, I want to be a lawyer.

Vi skal spise når de er ferdige med å sykle. We are going to eat when they are done biking.

Ok, back to the great word da.  Da can also be used to say ‘then.’  Following are several examples:

Dere må gjøre hjemmelekser og da kan dere spille. You (pl) must do homework and then you (pl) can play.

Kan Ellen ta med fyrverkeri?  Da blir det moro. Can Ellen bring fireworks!  Then it will be fun!

Nå og da. Now and then.

The fact that da must be used to describe something that happened in the past just made logical sense to me.  When we use da to mean ‘then,’ we use it in the present tense to describe something in the future that would not be possible if not for the previous statement or idea.  In the first example about homework, the kids cannot play until they have fulfilled the request of doing their homework.  In the second example, the subject is suggesting ‘it’ won’t be fun without fireworks.  It’s nice to discover little connections between rules, isn’t it?

Now, there are a few other ways to use the word da and they are not easy to translate.  Ja da means ‘yes certainly’ or ‘yes indeed’ or the famous midwestern ‘yup’ or ‘oh yeah’ as in ‘of course.’  Here’s another example: God natt da means ‘Good night then’ or ‘alright, good night.’  Finally, Det var da godt du kunne komme.  ‘It was good that you could come then’ or ‘Then it was good that you could come.’

Da is an useful word, isn’t it?  And so short….

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In Norwegian, sentence structure is fairly painless.  Normally, the parts of speech follow the same pattern as they do in English.  Subject, verb, object. Han går til butikken (he goes to the store.  Jeg spiser frokost når jeg våkner (I eat breakfast when I wake up).  Notice that the til (to) and når (when) fall after the verb in the sentence.  The placement of prepositions and adverbs, as well as prepositional phrases decides where the verb in the sentence will be. 

For example, If I say, Det er en kopp i skapet (There is a cup in the cupboard), the verb is in the second place between the subject and object, like normal.  But if I place the preposition first and say I skapet er det en kopp, you will notice that the verb is still in second place, but it preceeds the subject.   This rule is called inversion.  Here is another example of inversion with a preposition:  Under treet sover en katt (Under the tree a cat is sleeping).  Since under (under-a great cognate) is a preposition, sover (present tense of ‘to sleep’) comes in second place (under treet is ‘under the tree’) and the subject last (en katt - a cat).

Let’s look a few examples with adverbs. I morgen kommer det en storm (Tomorrow a storm is coming).  Since I morgen, (tomorrow) is an adverb, we use inversion and place the verb second in the sentence before the subject (det-in this case stands for ‘there’ as in ‘there is a storm coming’).  I dag regner det (It is raining today). Again, since i dag (today) is an adverb, the rule of inversion says to place regner (present tense of ‘to rain’) second and det (in this case ‘it’). 

 There are a couple more examples of times when you would want to use inversion, but I will go over those in a later post.  This is a fairly simple rule that just requires flopping some sentence parts around.