Introduction(no)

Jeg er glad du er glad.

bokmål: A heartfelt welcome

Norwegian is a language with simpler grammar than many other European languages, but it is still a gendered language with three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.

Grammatical Gender

Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
en mann	en/ei kvinne	et barn
en gutt	en/ei jente	et brev
en meny	en/ei hytte (cabin)	et smørbrød
en bok		et eple
en katt		et brød
en avis		et vann
en sykkel

All feminine gendered nouns can be classified as masculine gender as well. In theory, one could treat all feminine nouns as masculine ones, but most Norwegians still use the feminine form, especially for certain words.

The choice really is up to you! Both en kvinne and ei kvinne are grammatically correct, and the tendency to use the feminine gender depends on geography and dialect.

Pronouns & Conjugation

Norwegian pronouns are very straightforward and correspond well to English ones:

Singular		Plural
jeg	I	vi	we
du	you, singular	dere	you, plural
han, hun, det	he, she, it	de	they

As in English, the pronouns above only pertain to subjects. The pronouns at the receiving end of a verb, in other words the object pronouns, are as follows:

Singular		Plural
meg	me	oss	us
deg	you (singular)	dere	you (plural)
ham, henne, det/den	him, her, it	dem	them

Han is an alternative form of ham, but here we will use "han" exclusively as a subject ("he"), and "ham" for the object form ("him").

Conjugation couldn't be simpler. All conjugated verbs have an -r stem in the present, and verbs don't change according to the subject! How easy is that?

Singular		Plural
jeg er	I am	vi er	we are
du er	you are	dere er	you are
han, hun, det er	he, she, it is	de er	they are

eat	read	speak	see
spiser	leser	snakker	ser
drink	buy	sits	hear
drikker	kjøper	sitter	hører
viser	bor
show	live

Det & Den

Although not as common as det, den is used to mean it or that when referring to a masculine or feminine subject, and not a neuter one. Det is used to mean it or that when referring back to a neuter subject, and when introducing a brand new noun that has not yet been mentioned - regardless of the gender of that noun.

Den is for hankjønn [masculine] (article en) and hunkjønn [feminine] (article ei)

Det is for intetkjønn ["Ungendered"] (article et) or used when the gender of someone has not been introduced or is not known.

Definite Forms

The definite form, the man, the woman, et cetera, is formed by attaching the indefinite article onto the end of the noun. This ending is called a postfix or a suffix.

Indefinite	Definite
en mann	mannen
en gutt	gutten
et barn	barnet

Although the t is pronounced as such in the phrase et barn, it turns silent in the definite form, barnet, which is pronounced more like barneh. This is the case with all neuter nouns in the singular definite form.

Be sure to drop the t sound, otherwise you might sound rather Swedish.

For feminine-classified nouns, there is one irregularity in the definite form:

Indefinite	Definite
ei kvinne or en kvinne	kvinna or kvinnen
ei jente or en jente	jenta or jenten
ei øy oren øy	øya or øyen

Plurals

With few exceptions, most masculine or feminine nouns (most nouns) pluralize with -er or -r.

Norwegian	English
eple	apple
epler	apples
gutt	boy
gutter	boys
jente	girl
jenter	girls

Single-syllable neuter nouns, such as hus house and dyr animal, often do not change spelling in the indefinite plural.

Norwegian	English
hus	house or houses
dyr	animal or animals
barn	child or children
brev	letters

How then can you tell the difference between hus meaning house and hus meaning houses? That depends on context and adjective endings, which we will cover a bit later.

One exception to these rules is the Norwegian word for "man" which pluralizes in an irregular way that's almost identical to English:

Norwegian	English
mann	man
menn	men

Here are some additional common irregular plurals, a couple of which are also irregular in English.

Singular	Plural	English Translation
and	ender	duck - ducks
bok	bøker	book - books
fot	føtter	foot - feet
hånd	hender	hand - hands
natt	netter	night - nights
tann	tenner	tooth - teeth
tre	trær	tree - trees

Jeg leser flere aviser.

I read several newspapers.

Question Words

When you're just starting out learning a new language, few things are more useful than to be able to ask the questions that allow you to find what you need or further your learning.

Confused yet? We have just the word for you...

Hva is the word for what, and also happens to be just the right thing to exclaim when you feel like you've been hit in the head with one Norwegian grammar rule too many.

Norwegian	English
hvem	who
hva	what
hvor	where

Isn't it neat how they all resemble their English counterparts? You've probably noticed by now that English and Norwegian have many things in common, both when it comes to grammar and vocabulary. This is because they're closely related Germanic languages.

We've compiled a list of common phrases in the Norwegian language, for your reference.

Many of them are idiomatic, meaning that they don't translate word for word to English. You'll have to learn the entire phrase.

One example is "Ha detbra!", which literally means "Have it good!", but idiomatically translates to "Goodbye!"

Norwegian	English
Ha det(bra)!	Goodbye!
Hvordan har du det?	How are you?
Hvordan går det?	How is it going?
Bare bra, takk!	Just fine, thanks!
Bare hyggelig!	You are welcome
Tusen Takk!	Thank you very much!
Jeg har det bra.	I'm doing well.
Vi ses!	See you later!
unnskyld	sorry, excuse me, pardon
vær så snill	please, be so kind
Hva heter du?	What is your name?
Hva har hun?	What does she have?
Der er dere!	There you are!
God helg og god tur!	Have a nice weekend and a nice trip!
Ha en hyggelig dag!	Have a nice day

Hva: E=hv Hovordan:Jordan

Knowing

The verb å vite, to know, is an irregular verb in Norwegian. Its present tense, which you will familiarize yourself with in this skill, is vet. See that vowel change from the infinitive to the present? Cheeky!

There are actually several verbs for knowing, and you'll get to know them all in due time, but this particular one deals with factual knowledge. Some examples of that is knowing what or where something is, or knowing something about something or someone.

Vet du hvor det er? Do you know where it is?

Vet du hvem hun er? Do you know who she is?

Hva vet han?

What does he know?

Words

Vocabulary	Meaning in English
her/der	here/there	Her er jeg (Here I am).
and / eller	og / or
ja/nei	yes/no
flere	several, multiple, more
takk	thank you, thanks
liker/elsker	like/loves
en/ei natt	a night
en/ei helg	a weekend
noe	something
noen	some any
trenger	needs, requires
kanskje	maybe, perhaps	Kanskje her. (maybe here)
tusen	(a) thousand
bare	only, just
hyggelig	nice, pleasant
glad	happy
mange	many