#norwegian grammar

[an-american-in-norway]

Norwegian can modify expressions by using a wide selection of short adverbs with little or no stress, that can express doubt, politeness, irritation, etc. How you use these adverbs is one of the things that will indicate your degree of mastery/understanding in Norwegian.

The lady's marital status in the examples below doesn't actually change, the adverbs merely indicate what the speaker believes that status to be:

Hun er sikkert gift. I'm sure she's married. Hun er nok gift. She's probably married. Hun er vel gift. I'd guess she's married. Hun er visst gift. I've heard she's married. Hun er kanskje gift. Maybe she is married. Hun er neppe gift. I doubt she's married.

These unaccented adverbs have a fairly regular position in the sentence, they follow immediately after the verb. The same adverb can sometimes indicate slightly different nuances of meaning, depending on tone of voice and the context. Click the link for each one for more information.

From Exploring Norwegian Grammar by Kirsti Mac Donald and Marianne MacDonald.

[aromantisk-fagforening]

I just remembered languages exist.

I should probably find pronouns for all my languages, or at least English and Norwegian, the ones I'm actually fluent in. (I'm learning french).

Neopronouns are usuelly either based on he/him, they/them, she/her or english nouns or emoji's (which may be solely for writing or at least different in different languages).

Norwegian Pronouns

I'm assuming most people following me aren't Norwegian, so I can explain what the deal with Norwegian pronouns is, at least where I live:

TLDR for the readmore: han/ham/hans [he/him/his] and hun/henne/hennes [she/her/hers] are most commenly used as third person personal pronoun, (with "seg selv" as the himself/herself for everyone) and non-binary people often use de/dem/deres even though it isn't necessarily considered "correct" and doesn't have any history. hen/hens are gender neutral pronouns that have been taken from swedish (likely since we have super similar languages) and finnish (apperantly), but aren't really used by non-binary people, though they may get used about strangers. (språkrådet) (orbøkene)

[using "we" as Norwegians]

People most commenly use han/ham/hans [equivalent to he/him/his] and hun/henne/hennes [she/her/hers]. For himself and herself we use themself [seg selv].

When talking about a theoretical person we may use de/dem/deres (which is the same as second person plural, like in french only it doesn't depend on formality or get used about known people). But we also use he/him/his for theoretical people sometimes, and recently people are beginning to use hen/hens [gender neutral neopronouns] when talking about theoretical people. I've personally also used "den" which is a neuter pronoun, object form often used for nouns, it's for example used as "den som kommer sist" meaning "they who come last" or "the one who comes [here/there/in] last". (språkrådet - norwegian)

For strangers whose gender we don't know and can't or won't assume (e.g. someone far away) people often use de/dem/deres and han/ham/hans (likely varies a bit depending on area and specific people). (språkrådet - norwegian)

hen/hen/hens (not chickens lol) is a neopronoun set from swedish (1966/2015*) and finnish that came to dictionaries in june 2022 (språkrådet) and/or 2017 (store norske leksikon).

*språkrådet's source isn't available, and some sources say 2012, but basically it's semi-new in swedish too.

Derailing, but fun fact: There's a word that's written the same which means "where" or you can say "hvor hen?", "hen?", "hvor?", it specifies that you're asking for a place or direction and not asking what a mentioned place was afaik. (orbøkene has the word, but most of the use-cases I've never seen before, it's socially considered an old word).

Not really relevant, but since I started explaining Norwegian pronouns lol:

There are also the "fourth person" pronouns, or theoretical person pronouns I suppouse "man", "en" [one] and "du" [you].(språkrådet). I don't know exactly how to define "man", but I can say that it's only gramatically correct in bokmål (the most common version of written norwegian). An example is "hvordan blir man flinkere på guitar" [how does one get better at guitar], another is "man kan se at det regner" [you/I/they [everyone] can see that it's raining] (implying it's obvious). for "en" there are other uses (en hest [a horse], "mer enn en" [more than one]), but as a pronoun: "det er ens eget valg" [it's one's own choice], "de gir en valget" [they give you/them [everyone] the choice]. And you can use you like in english (excluding addressing groups outside audiences) afaik: "Du kan alltids lese mer" [You [audience] can always read more] (note if you're learning norwegian: alltid/alltids has different usage).

[littlesistersti]

Thank you, this was helpful

Update: Nervous glance at international distribution of “The Huldra” photobook

crashcourse in norwegian nouns using folklore beings (yay!)

Keep reading

[lowstakesvampires]

in which a language barrier has the new kid accidentally naming his new friends

[thesunmakesmetired]

Every month, I try to learn Mando'a and every month I remember why i gave up last time...

Me, everytime: oh this cant be that hard, im already bilingual and learned Aurebesh...

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It has GRAMMAR?!!

[studyscrasic]

It's interesting taking an actual German course and writing more things about myself in a highly gendered language (as opposed to when I was taking Norwegian, which only kind of sort of has genders, and you don't really change the forms of nouns so much), because even though I waffle a little on masculine terms in English, I'm finding I love talking about myself as male in German.

Like, ja, ich bin Student! Ich will Professor werden!

I don't know, it's just fascinating how even though I don't always want to be called a man (hashtag transmasc but also nonbinary feelings), I love how using masculine word endings makes me feel.

[notthatnebula]

if i change my phone's language to norwegian do you think id rememebr how to change it back in case of emergency

[rotzaprachim]

I’m not fluent in all of them so it’s just vibes but the syntax and feeling of vlaams remind me more of (klal sprakh) Yiddish than a lot of German dialects….

[ketrindoll]

Reading about the prizes each country assigns to its Olympic medalists

[fidgetspringer]

Hello! You speak a Germanic language that isn’t English. I was wondering three things. Does Norwegian have feminine and masculine forms of the word The like el and la in Spanish for example? Secondly, does Norwegian have it so that if you’re describing someone you can’t describe it as a noun so you’d say juice from apple instead of apple juice. Thirdly, what are your pronouns in Norwegian. I have no idea what any pronouns are in Norwegian. Are they similar to English? Thanks in advance!

Grammar isn't my strong suit but I will give this a try!

So norwegian doesn't have a word equivalent to 'the' instead, we add an ending to whatever it is we're referring to.

An example: Dog, A dog, The dog / Hund, En hund, Hunden.

And we do gender things. In the example above, the word 'En' and the ending '-en' would make 'dog' a masculine word. Meanwhile cow would be feminine: Ku, Ei ku, Kua. And a table would be neutral: Bord, Et bord, Bordet.

More examples plus what to add for multipes:

And no we do just say the equivalent to 'apple juice' i wish i knew my grammar terms well enough to be smart about explaining this, but me not smart. So yeah, we can 'bend' (???) The words to fit, instead of having to say 'Juice from apple'

In norwegian pronouns are 'Han/Ham' for masculine, 'Hun/Henne' for feminine and recently we've started using 'Hen' more for neutral pronouns.

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Language is the dress to thought

- Samuel Johnson

Among the Scandinavian languages, Swedish and Norwegian resemble each other the most. Swedish and Norwegian are siblings, and Danish… well, compared to Swedish and Norwegian, Danish is like a strange, loud cousin.   Swedish and Norwegian both stem from Old Norse, which is an extinct North Germanic language. In the beginning, the early versions of Swedish and Norwegian resembled each other greatly, but over time the two languages began to grow apart and display more distinct differences than before.   Norwegian is, however, divided into various dialects, and some of these dialects look and sound very much like Swedish. Naturally, there are also dialects that sound far from Swedish.

For centuries, Norway was part of the Danish Kingdom. In 1814, Norway left the union with Denmark, but without having its own national language. Norwegian and Danish have much in common, but there are also differences in grammar and pronunciation. In the 19th century, several approaches to how to create a national language were discussed. Ivar Aasen studied the dialects to create a new written language, now called Nynorsk. Others started the work to reform Danish, resulting in what we now call Bokmål. Hence, there are two official standards of Norwegian, although the vast majority uses Bokmål.

The lack of one clear standard is one of the reasons why people continued to speak dialect. But the position of the regional dialects has also been secured by the lawmakers. For more than a hundred years, it has been settled by law that teachers have to adapt their spoken language to the way the children speak.  School children learn the official way of reading and writing – however they speak their own local dialect in class. Throughout Norway, it is common for people to feel uncomfortable with talking the way they write; they prefer to express themselves in their real mother tongue.

Quite a few people ask me whether learning one of the Scandinavian languages is enough to communicate in all three countries. To put it simply, the answer to this question is both yes and no. It is true that as a native Norwegian, I am able to understand both Swedish and Danish. The similarities are evident, especially if you look at the vocabulary, the phrase structure and the grammar. However, there are many differences as well.

Most of these differences are small, but certainly not all of them. In a few cases, other words are used to express the same concept. One of the most famous tales by H.C. Andersen is called “Den grimme ælling” in the original Danish version. In Norwegian, the same tale is called “Den stygge andungen”, and in Swedish “Den fula ankungen”.

Being half-Norwegian I was already acquainted with music and pop culture from Sweden. At a young age, I realised that it was often easier to recognise Swedish words in writing if I read them out loud, also because they are often spelled in a way that comes close to the pronunciation.

The Swedes are usually the worst at understanding the other two languages. When I go to Sweden, I mix a number of Swedish words into my Norwegian to avoid misunderstandings. Music in Swedish language has also been successful in Norway and Denmark, but it has never been so in the other direction.

If I write an e-mail to Sweden or Denmark, I can write in Norwegian, and the person I write to answers me in his or her own language. A phone call works the same way, although we always have to be aware of differences in vocabulary and in pronunciation. So yes, across Scandinavia, we can communicate with each other, in our own languages. We can say that we speak Scandinavian, although we don’t say that we speak the same language.

[an-american-in-norway]

En norsk setning skal normalt ha et subjekt, og vi kan bruke det som et innholdstomt, formelt subjekt når det ikke er noe annet naturlig subjekt. Det har samme plassering som vanlige subjekter:

Det blåser på toppene. I dag er det mye å gjøre. Det kan bli mye stress her.

Ofte bruker vi det som subjekt selv om det er andre mulige subjekter:

Vi kan bruke det som formelt subjekt i setninger som har et egentlig subjekt. Det egentlige subjektet kan være et substantiv i ubestemt form, en infinitiv eller en leddsetning:

En kollega satt i kantina. -> Det satt en kollega i kantina. Å leve her i byen er dyrt. -> Det er dyrt å leve her i byen. At alle tar ansvar, er viktig. -> Det er viktig at alle tar ansvar.

Setningene inneholder mye informasjon, og vi foretrekker oftest å sette denne typen informasjon lenger bak i setningen of ha et formelt det på subjektplassen. At-setningene er i tillegg ganske tunge ledd, og tunge ledd velger vi gjerne å sette i slutten av setningen.

Uttrykk med med Her har vi også et subjekt i ubestemt form:

Erfaring er nyttig. -> Det er nyttig med erfaring. Regler i arbeidslivet er viktig. -> Det er viktig med regler i arbeidslivet.

*Source: Her på berget

[prisonhannibal]

most relaxing shift ever but something funny is my new coworker doesn’t understand my accent she’s the sweetest she was like “please don’t be offended I’m not trying to be rude but sometimes I don’t understand you when you talk” and I was like huh why. and she said my accent is kinda strong. and I’m not offended but I feel a little bit bad for her because we are going to be working together for a while. moving across the country is crazy I literally talk normal what are you talking about

[joetamy]

Norwegian AU be like ✨

[elnotwoods]

me, studying korean for a year and a half now: can barely speak it

me, watching young royal 4 times in a row: can speak casual everyday swedish

[johnsspacesuittight]

so once again I’m letting y’all know I am such a big fan of the melodfestivalen tumblr audience like idk what y’all are talking about really but I go to look every single time and I’m always entertained