5 Grammar

5 Grammar

VERBS

Past tense (preterite)

We use past tense when we want to describe something that has already happened at a certain time in the past (e.g. i går - yesterday):

Anton kjøpte ei jakke i går.

A. The regular verbs are divided into four groups:
Group 1: The verbs add the ending -et.
In this group you will find many verbs with two consonants in front of the infinitive -e and some verbs with t, g, and d:

Infinitive: å snakke speak/talk å vaske wash å lage make
Past tense:  snakket vasket laget

Group 2: The verbs add the ending -te.
Many verbs with one consonant and some with a double consonant belong in this group:

Infinitive: å kjøpe buy å spise eat å begynne begin
Past tense:  kjøpte spiste begynte

Group 3: The verbs add the ending -de.
Some verbs with v and ei belong in this group:

Infinitive: å prøve try å greie manage å leie rent
Past tense:  prøvde greide leide

Group 4: The verbs add the ending -dde.
Many verbs ending in another vowel than -e belong in group 4:

Infinitive: å bety mean å bo live å nå reach
Past tense:  betydde bodde nådde

B. The irregular verbs have other forms. In most cases they change vowel in the past tense:

Infinitive: å dra go/travel å drikke drink å finne find
Past tense: dro drakk fant
Some other irregular verbs in chapter 5:
Infinitive   Past tense
å bli become ble
å fortelle  tell fortalte
å gå walk gikk
å hjelpe help hjalp
å møte meet møtte
å si say sa
å sitte sit satt
å spørre ask spurte
å stå stand sto(d)
å ta take tok
å treffe meet traff
å ville want/wish ville
å være be var

More irregular verbs: See Chapter 6.

ADJECTIVES

Other patterns

Adjectives ending in -el and -en, like gammel (old) and sulten (hungry) do not follow the main pattern for adjectives. One -e disappears when adding the plural -e. In addition, adjectives with a double consonant drop one consonant in the plural form:

Attributive form

Singular     Plural
Masc. Fem. Neut.  
en gammel bil 
an old car		 ei gammel veske
an old handbag		 et gammelt bord
an old table		 gamle biler/vesker/bord
old cars/handbags/tables
en sulten gutt
a hungry boy		 ei sulten jente
a hungry girl		 et sultent barn
a hungry child		 sultne gutter/jenter/barn
hungry boys/girls/children

Predicative form

Singular     Plural
Masc. Fem. Neut.  
Bilen er gammel
The car is
old		 Veska er gammel
The handbag is
old		 Bordet er gammelt
The table is
old		 Bilene/veskene/bordene er gamle
The cars/handbags/tables are
old
Gutten er sulten 
The boy is hungry		 Jenta er sulten
The girl is hungry		 Barnet er sultent
The child is hungry		 Guttene/jentene/barna er sultne
The boys/girls/children are hungry

Adjectives in combination with the verb to look

The expression to look + adjective (He looks old) is in Norwegian constructed by the verb å se + adjective + (the adverb) ut.
The adjectives follow the pattern described under Predicative form in Chapter 3, 4 and 5. Below this is demonstrated with the adjectives fin (here: nice) and ny (new).

Singular     Plural
Masc. Fem. Neut.  
Bilen ser fin ut
The car looks nice		 Boka ser fin ut
The book looks nice		 Huset ser fint ut
The house looks nice		 Bilene ser fine ut
The cars look nice
Bilen ser ny ut
The car looks new		 Boka ser ny ut
The book looks new		 Huset ser nytt ut
The house looks new		 Bilene ser nye ut
The cars look new

SOME CENTRAL TIME EXPRESSIONS

Past Present Future
i går yesterday i dag today i morgen tomorrow
(i) forrige uke last week nå now neste uke next week
i fjor last year   om in
for – siden ago    
Anton kom til Narvik for to måneder siden.
Nå bor han i Fjellveien.
Om to dager skal han reise til Tromsø.

WORDS FOR QUANTITIES

Mange (many) and noen (some) are used together with countable nouns:

Anton kjøpte mange CD-er.
Dai Wu og Anbo snakket med noen studenter.

Mye (much/a lot of) is used together with uncountable (mass) nouns:

Dai Wu drikker mye kaffe.