Norwegian grammar

Every grammar guide of Lingora’s Norwegian A1 course, with examples you can listen to.

01Verbs: Present TenseThe present tense describes what is happening now, what happens regularly, and very often what is going to happen soon. Norwegian builds it in the…
02Verbs: Past TenseThe past tense tells what happened at a definite time that is over: yesterday, last year, when you were young. Like the present tense, it has a single…
03Verbs: Perfect and PluperfectThe perfect tense links a past event to the present moment: something has happened, and it matters now. Norwegian forms it just as English does, with har…
04The Infinitive and the Marker 'å'The infinitive is the basic form of a verb, the one a dictionary lists: spise (to eat), gå (to go), lese (to read). Most infinitives end in -e; a group…
05Modal VerbsModal verbs add a shade of meaning to another verb: ability, necessity, wish, plan or advice. Norwegian has five of them, and they behave differently…
06Talking About the FutureNorwegian has no special verb ending for the future. Instead it uses the present tense with a time word, or one of three helper constructions, each with…
07Verbs: ImperativeThe imperative gives an instruction, an invitation or a piece of advice: "Eat!", "Come in!", "Don't worry!". Norwegian uses the same form whether you…
08Reflexive Verbs and PronounsA reflexive verb turns the action back on the person doing it. Norwegian uses this construction more often than English, and several common verbs always…
09Particle VerbsMany Norwegian verbs combine with a short word such as ut (out), på (on), med (with) or av (off). Together they form a new verb with a meaning of its…
10Passive Voice and Verbs Ending in -sA passive sentence puts the focus on what happens rather than on who does it: "The house was sold" instead of "Somebody sold the house". Norwegian has…
11Conditions and HypotheticalsA condition says that one thing depends on another: "If it rains, we stay inside". A hypothetical goes further and imagines something that is not true:…
12Ongoing ActionsNorwegian has no "-ing" form for actions in progress. The plain present tense covers both "I eat" and "I am eating". When it matters that an action is…
13The Many Uses of 'bli'bli is one of the busiest verbs in Norwegian. Its basic meaning is "become", but it also means "stay", it describes future conditions, and it forms the…
14Three Verbs for 'Know': vite, kjenne, kunneEnglish uses "know" for facts, for people and for skills. Norwegian splits these into three different verbs, and choosing the wrong one changes the…
15Word Order: The Verb in Second PlaceIn a Norwegian main clause the verb that carries the tense always stands in second place. Anything can come first: the subject, a time, a place, an…
16Negation with 'ikke'ikke (not) is the everyday word for negation. Its position follows a few fixed rules, which depend mainly on where the verb is.
17Asking QuestionsNorwegian forms questions in two ways: by putting the verb first, or by starting with a question word. Neither needs a helper like the English "do".
18Subordinate ClausesA subordinate clause is a clause that cannot stand on its own: it explains the reason, the time or the condition of the main clause. It starts with a…
19'når' or 'da': Two Words for 'When'English has one word, "when", where Norwegian has two. The choice depends on time: is the clause about a single occasion in the past, or about the…
20Relative Clauses with 'som'A relative clause adds information about a noun: "the man who lives next door", "the shoes that you like". Norwegian uses one word for who, which and…
21The Many Uses of 'det'det is one of the most frequent words in Norwegian. It means "it", "that" and "there", and it fills the subject slot in sentences about weather and time,…
22Nouns: GenderEvery Norwegian noun has a grammatical gender: masculine, feminine or neuter. The gender is not a fact about the thing itself. It is a property of the…
23Nouns: The Definite FormEnglish puts "the" in front of a noun. Norwegian attaches it to the end, as an ending. en bil is "a car" and bilen is "the car".
24Nouns: PluralNorwegian nouns have two plural forms: an indefinite one, "cars", and a definite one, "the cars". Most nouns follow a small set of patterns.
25Double DefinitenessOn its own, a noun shows "the" with an ending: huset, "the house". As soon as an adjective comes in front of it, Norwegian adds a separate word for "the"…
26Possession with '-s' and 'til'Norwegian has two ways of saying that something belongs to someone: an -s on the owner, close to English "'s", and a phrase with til, literally "the car…
27Adjectives: AgreementA Norwegian adjective changes its ending to match the noun it describes. It shows whether the noun is neuter, whether it is plural, and whether it is…
28Adjectives: ComparisonTo compare things, Norwegian adds -ere for "-er/more" and -est for "-est/most", much like English: billig, billigere, billigst - cheap, cheaper, cheapest.
29Adverbs from AdjectivesAn adverb describes how something is done: "she sings beautifully", "drive slowly". English usually adds "-ly" to an adjective. Norwegian uses the neuter…
30Place and Direction: 'hjem' or 'hjemme'English uses "home", "here" and "in" both for where something is and for where it is going: "I am at home", "I am going home". Norwegian has two…
31Personal PronounsPersonal pronouns stand in for people and things: I, you, she, it, they. Norwegian has a subject form, for the one who does something, and an object…
32Possessives: Forms and PlacementPossessives say who something belongs to: my, your, his, our. In Norwegian most of them change form to match the thing that is owned, and they usually…
33The Reflexive Possessive 'sin'English "his dog" can mean the dog of the man in the sentence or of somebody else. Norwegian keeps the two apart. sin means "his own, her own, their…
34Demonstratives: This and ThatDemonstratives point at something: "this book", "that man", "these shoes". Norwegian has one set for "this/these" and one for "that/those", and both are…
35Quantifiers: mye, mange, noen, alleQuantifiers tell how much or how many: much, many, some, all, none. Several of them come in pairs, and the choice depends on whether the noun can be…
36Prepositions of Place: 'i' and 'på'English uses "in", "on" and "at" for place. Norwegian mostly uses two prepositions, i and på, and they divide the work differently. i is roughly "in",…
37Time ExpressionsSaying when something happens takes small words that differ from English in ways worth learning early. Each preposition belongs to a kind of time…
38Telling the Time and DatesNorwegian tells the time with the word klokka (the clock): "the clock is seven". The half hour works differently from English and needs special attention.
39Polite RequestsNorwegian has no single word that is used as often as English "please". Politeness comes from the way a request is phrased: a question instead of an…