Posts under "Grammar"

Norwegian strong past tense verbs

Posted by kari 1 Comment
Dec 31 2010

Yes, another verb post.  Boring as it may be, verbs are very important!  Strong verbs are a bit trickier than weak verbs because they do not follow a pattern-strict memorization is key;)  They are especially tricky because some of them involve a vowel change.

Some examples:


English Infinitve Past tense
to see å se så
to receive å få fikk
to sleep å sove sov
to drink å drikke drakk
to become å bli ble
to partipate in or to do å drive drev
to go å dra dro
to understand å forstå forsto
to give å gi gav
to do å gjøre gjorde
to come å komme kom
to say å si sa
to write å skrive skrev
to stand å stå sto
to sing å synge sang
to take å ta tok
to meet å treffe traff
to be å være var

Note that most of these involve a vowel change.  If you can manage to memorize the 4 classes of weak verbs first, you will be much better off because then when you see a strong verb, you will pretty much know it because you will know that it doesn´t fit into the pattern of weak verbs:)

Try to use them in a sentence:

Jeg gav broren min en plakat til jul. I gave my brother a poster for Christmas.

Familien min dro til Florida tidlig i desember for å besøke tanta mi.  My family went to Florida in early December to visit my aunt.

Han så en orm da vi var på parken. He saw a snake when we were at the park.

Jeg traff mora mi på kafe for å spise lunsj.  I met my mom at a cafe to eat lunch.

Mange drakk vin på festen.  Many drank wine at the party.

Vennina mi kom til Minnesota for å være med på nyttårsfesten.  My friend came to Minnesota to come to the New Year´s party.

Jeg forsto at han ville sove. I understood that he wanted to sleep.

Hun sang i dusjen. She sang in the shower.

Jeg skrev julekort i år. I wrote Christmas cards this year.

De ble sur da han sølte golvet.  They became (got) upset when he soiled (spilled on) the floor.

Vi gjorde alt vi kunne sånn at alle hadde det bra i går.  We did all we could so that everyone had a good time yesterday.

Han sto rett i veien. He stood right in the way.

I often wonder how these strong past tense verbs were formed in the first place.  It´s interesting for me to think about these kinds of things.  Why change the vowel?  Unfortunately, I have no clue.  Do you?

Norwegian weak past tense verbs

Posted by kari No Comments
Dec 29 2010

Now that jul is over and the end of 201o is very near, I find myself thinking about things that have happened this past year.  You can never have too much practice with the past tense when you are learning a new language.  If you are like me, learning verb tenses is not your favorite part of learning a foreign language.  There is always a lot of memorization involved and Norwegian is no exception.  There are weak verbs and there are strong verbs and unfortunately, there really isn’t any rhyme or reason as to which verbs are weak and which are strong.  There are far fewer strong verbs, so it’s best to memorize those and learn the easily recognizable pattern that the weak verbs follow.  There are 4 classes of weak verbs and they each have a different suffix that is added on to the root of the verb.

The following is a chart that I used when I studied Norwegian at St. Olaf College of the 4 classes of weak verbs.  If you memorize what the four classes look like and how they are treated in the past tense, you will be good to go.  I will write a separate post on the Present Perfect verb tense, so for now, concentrate on the past tense.

Weak Verb Classes Infinitive Past Tense Present Perfect
The root ends in two consonants

ex.) vaske, snakke

-et (past tense)
-et (present perfect tense)

 vaske
(wash)

snakke
(talk)

 vasket
(washed)

snakket
(talked)

 har vasket
(have washed)

har snakket
(have talked)
The root ends in one consonant, or in some specific two consonant combinations (ll, mm, nn, ng, nk)

ex.) like, spise
ex.) spille, svømme, kjenne, trenge, tenke

-te (past tense)
-t (present perfect tense)

 like
(like)

spise
(eat)

spille
(play)

 likte
(liked)

spiste
(ate)

spilte
(played)

 har likt
(have liked)

har spist
(have eaten)

har spilt
(have played)
The root ends in v or a diphthong, such as “ei”.

ex.) prøve, leie, pleie

-de (past tense)
-d (present perfect tense)

 prøve
(try)

leie
(rent)

 prøvde
(tried)

leide
(rented)

 har prøvd
(have tried)

har leid
(have rented)
The root ends in a long vowel

ex.) bo, kle

-dde (past tense)
-dd (present perfect tense)

 bo
(live)

kle
(dress)

 bodde
(lived)

kledde
(dressed)

 har bodd
(have lived)

har kledd
(have dressed)

As I said, there is no rhyme or reason in the way verbs are categorized, but I do find that after you have learned them and used them for a while, you realize that if some of them had the suffix of another category, the word would sound funny.  Does anyone else know what I’m talking about?  For example, the 4th class (bo, kle…) would sound just wrong if they received the suffix “et.”  The same goes for the verb å snakke-it would sound really strange if it was “snakkte” in the past tense.  In my opinion, Norwegian grammar in general is fairly simple and straightforward compared to many other languages.  That being said, it takes time to learn the classes of weak verbs and memorizing the strong verbs and their different forms.

Study this chart and really try to understand it and you will be glad you took the time to do it.  Being able to make sense expressing yourself in a different language is far easier if you know verbs and their different tenses.  The subject and object of course are very important, but most important is being able to describe the actions of the subjects and objects.

Happy studying!  Next wil be strong verbs in the past tense:)

´hos´a Norwegian word with many meanings

Posted by kari 3 Comments
Sep 20 2010

I find the word hos quite interesting.  Until recently I didn´t know it had so many betydninger( meanings).  The other day a Norwegian was asking me if I thought Norwegian was a hard language to learn.  I explained that although French and Spanish are the only other languages of which I have some comprehension, I have found Norwegian to be quite an easy language to learn.  We discussed the simplicity of Norwegian grammar and verb conjugation (or lack thereof rather) and the size of the Norwegian vocabulary: very small.  He said that he didn´t think English was very hard to learn, but the English vocabulary is so much larger.  He said, ´I don´t understand why you need so many different words.  We have much fewer words.  Many words have multiple betydninger, but as long as you can follow the context, it´s no problem.´ He is absolutely right-we certainly don´t need so many words to express ourselves.

Back to hos, a word that has many betydninger.  It can mean at, from, of, with, by, and among.   I can´t think of a word in English that has so many betydninger .  It works so well though, because everyone understands which meaning hos has in a sentence based on what else is said.  Now that you know the different betydninger of the word hos, I´ll show you examples of the word in sentences, all of which have slightly different betydninger.

Hvordan står det til hos dem? How is it going with them?

Skal du sove hos Børge i kveld? Are you going to sleep at Børge´s tonight?

Jeg brukte masse penger hos dyrelegen i år. I spent a lot of money at the vet this year.

Boka ligger inne hos meg. The book is in my room.

Tålmodighet er et godt egenskap hos henne. Patience is a good quality of her´s.

Wibeke søker råd hos psykolog. Wibeke seeks advice from a psychologist.

Jeg skal spise middag hos Tove i kveld.  I´m going to eat dinner at Tove´s tonight.

Hos, it´s a great word!  Simple but has so many betydninger!

Norwegian language is logical

Posted by kari 10 Comments
Jun 10 2010

It is my personal belief that the Norwegian language is more logical than English-it just makes more sense to me.  I’ve said before that I had a native Norwegian professor in college who said that the Norwegian language is barbaric, it’s simple.  She is absolutely right.  I would like to share a list of words with you that I think exemplify this opinion.

-flyplass (airport) literally translates to “plane place”

-tannlege (dentist) literally translates to “tooth doctor”

-skrivebord (desk) literally translates to “write table”

-

(improve) literally translates to “for better”

-sommerfugl (butterly) literally translates to “summer bird”–ok this one isn’t so obvious, but “summer bird” makes more sense than “butterfly”

-høsttakkfest (Thanksgiving) literally translates to “fall thanks fest”

-lovbrudd (offense) literally translates to “law break”

-lastebil (truck) literally translates to “load car”

-frokostblanding (cereal) literally translates to “breakfast mixture”

-avreise (departure) literally translates to “off travel” or “from travel”

-helligdag (holiday) means “holy day,” and while all holidays aren’t religious, it makes more sense to me to combine two actual words  (holy and day)

-ordbok (dictionary) literally translates to “word book”

-datamaskin (computer) literally translates to “data machine” (as is fairly obvious…)

-gressklipper (lawn mower) literally translates to “grass cutter.”  Why create more words, such as mow?  And you don’t really cut the whole lawn, just the grass.

-førskole (nursery school) literally translates to “before school”

-medhjelper (assistant) literally translates to “with helper”

-tresko (clog) literally translates to “wooden shoe”

-nålevende (contemporary) literally translates to “now living”

-etterkommer (descendant) literally translates to “after comer”

What do you think?  It sure seems like we have created a lot more words than we really need.  How come we didn’t combine more words to form compound words like Norwegian?

Norwegian verb ‘to do’

Posted by kari 3 Comments
Apr 22 2010

Once in a while, I need to throw a post in hear that really focuses on a specific part of the language.  It’s fun to focus on verbs because they allow you to say so much, especially the verb å gjøre (to do)!  Vår er her (spring is here) and all I can think about is all the things som jeg vil gjøre (that I want to do)! 

Let’s begin with the different forms of the verb:

infinitive– å gjøre (to do)    

present–gjør (do/does)     

 past–gjorde (did)        

 past perfect–har gjort (has/have done)

jeg gjør                                                                   vi gjør

du gjør                                                                   dere gjør

hun/han gjør                                                     de gjør

Now this is an important distinction between the use of the verb å gjøre på norsk and ‘to do’ in English–think about how we use the verb in English.  Many of the questions we pose include the word ‘do’ or ‘does,’ for example, ”Do you like chicken?” or ”Does Paul want to go swimming?”  På norsk, leave out the verb ‘do.’   Instead, you would ask ”Liker du kylling?”  (literally- like you chicken?) or ”Vil Pål svømme?” (literally-want Paul swim?)  This can be slightly confusing because on the flip side, if someone askes you ”Liker du fisk?”  (Do you like fish?) if you want to say ”Yes, I do” or ”no I don’t” you would say ”ja, det gjør jeg” or ”nei, det gjør jeg ikke.”  Just remember how you ask questions and how you answer the questions use the verb å gjøre diffferntly.

Let’s take a look at some questions you might ask using the different forms of the verb å gjøre and then how you might answer them.

–Hva gjorde du om vinteren?  (What did you do during the winter?)

Jeg så på mange filmer.  (I watched many movies).

Jeg gjorde ikke så mye.  (I didn’t do too much).

–Hva har du gjort denne uken?  (What have you done this week?)

Jeg har syklet mye.  (I have biked a lot).

Jeg har ikke vasket klær.  (I have not washed clothes).

–Hva gjør du hver dag?  (What do you do every day?)

Hver dag spiser jeg frokost.  (Every day I eat breakfast)

Jeg ser ikke på tv hver dag. (I don’t watch tv every day).

–Hva vil du gjøre til sommeren?  (What do you want to do this summer?)

Jeg vil reise til Norge.  (I want to travel to Norway).

Jeg vil ikke arbeide/jobbe til sommeren.  (I do not want to work this summer). 

Think about what you like to do, have done, will do, etc!

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