Norwegian Grammar: get control with our Survival Guide
Are you overwhelmed by Norwegian grammar?
Are you afraid of speaking Norwegian because you might make a grammar mistake?
That’s why we published the Survival Guide to Basic Norwegian Grammar – a free eBook where you will learn the differences between …
- Red grammar: Things you MUST know. Otherwise nobody will understand you and/or you will sound like an idiot.
- Yellow grammar: Nice to have. You will sound more natural. Learn it if you have time. No big problem if you get it wrong though.
- Green grammar: If you want to be really good or pass an exam, learn that too. However, if you make mistakes with this in spoken Norwegian, native speakers will barely notice.
Me near Tromsø, Northern Norway, in December. Are you struggling with Norwegian
grammar as much as I was struggling with the dogs and the cold?
If you are afraid of speaking Norwegian because of grammar mistakes, then take some time and learn just the eight vitally important Norwegian grammar items from this Norwegian grammar PDF guide.
You can “fill up” with the rest later. After all, studying grammar is an important part of your Norwegian language learning process, but there are so many other things to focus on, like pronunciation, repeating words …
So this is the purpose of the guide: you’ll find a structure separating the really important grammar from the not-so-important stuff (fortunately, that’s most of grammar). This gives you time to focus on the other important parts of your Norwegian language learning, like proper pronunciation and building your vocabulary.
Red Norwegian grammar topics
- personal pronouns incl. object forms (jeg/meg, du/deg …)
- basic possessive pronouns (min/mitt …)
- plural (en bil – mange biler)
- numbers
- questions including question words like hva, hvem, hvor …
- belonging to someone (til)
- verbs: present tense, preteritum, most important irregular verbs
- comparing (mer enn … mindre enn …)
Yellow Norwegian grammar topics
- sentence order (verb at position 2, different structure of the subordinate clause)
- genders (Norwegian has 3 genders for nouns)
- two verbs in one sentence (where to put the second verb)
- articles (definite vs. non-definite)
- perfektum
- noe/n
- adjectives
- samsvarsbøyning (how to make sure articles, adjectives, pronouns, and nouns all have the correct endings)
- kjenne/vite
- man
- mange/mye
- future with vil/skal
- denne/dette/disse
- moving / not moving (der vs. dit)
- time with for … siden / om / i
- enn/som
- synes/tro
- adverbs
- ordinal numbers (første, andre …)
- annen
- linking sentences with som
- leddsetninger (subordinate clauses)
- langt/lenge
