1 Grammar

1 Grammar

PRONOUNS

Personal pronouns - subject form

jeg I
du you (singular)
han he
hun she
det/den it
vi we
dere you (plural)
de they

VERBS

Verbs in the present tense
You add –r to the infinitive to form the present tense:

Infinitive Present tense
å komme to come → kommer
å reise to travel → reiser

It does not matter who is carrying out the verb. You add –r to the infinitive form of the verb after all pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, you and they:

Jeg kommer fra England.
I come from England
Hun kommer fra Bulgaria.
She comes from Bulgaria.
Vi kommer fra Norge.
We come from Norway.

Note that some verbs have irregular present tense forms:

å være to be → er
å gjøre to do → gjør

NOUNS

Norwegian nouns have three genders: masculine, feminine and
neuter. The indefinite articles are en (masculine), ei (feminine) and
et (neuter). The corresponding indefinite articles in English are a/an.

Masculine: en brus a soda
Feminine: ei jente a girl
Neuter: et kart a map

(Feminine nouns can have the article en instead of ei: ei/en jente.)

Leaving out en/ei/et

When stating certain situations you can leave out en/ei/et:

Anton reiser med tog.
Anton travels by train.

The same applies i.e. for occupations:

Jeg er student.
I am a student.

CONJUNCTIONS

The conjunctions og (and) and men (but) connect sentences:

Jeg heter Boyana, og jeg kommer fra Bulgaria.
My name is Boyana, and I come from Bulgaria.
Jeg snakker bulgarsk, men jeg snakker ikke tysk.
I speak Bulgarian, but I do not speak German.

QUESTION WORDS

The most common question words are:

hva what
hvem who
hvor where (how)
hvordan how
Hva heter du? What is your name?
Hvem er det? Who is it?
Hvor bor du? Where do you live?
Hvor gammel er du? How old are you?
Hvordan går det? How are you?

WORD ORDER

Main clauses (sentences)

In a main clause the verb is the second element:

Jeg snakker norsk.
I speak Norwegian.

Negation

In a narrative clause the negation ikke (not), which is an adverb, usually comes after the verb:

Jeg snakker ikke spansk.
I do not speak Spanish.

Other adverbs like også (also/too) come after the verb as well:
Jeg snakker også spansk.
I also speak Spanish.

Questions

In questions with question words the verb is also the second element:

Hva heter du?
What is your name?
Hvor kommer du fra?
Where do you come from?

In questions without a question word the sentence starts with the verb:

Snakker du norsk?
Do you speak Norwegian?

NATIONALITIES

Countries Nationalities (adjectives) Languages
Norge norsk norsk
Russland russisk russisk
Bulgaria bulgarsk bulgarsk
Nepal nepalsk nepalsk
USA amerikansk (amerikansk) engelsk
Kina kinesisk kinesisk
Spania spansk spansk