Giving orders in Norwegian verbs

in the imperative
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This week well look at verbs and how they can work in Norwegian. Well give you a short
and sweet overview over all the ways in which you can conjugate verbs. But our main focus
is as the heading suggests how to make people do what you tell them, a.k.a. How to tell
people what to do? Read on !

ACTION !
Verbs words that describe an action are often regarded as the most important word
class in grammar.
Action happens in time, and so much of your work with verbs becomes learning and
practicing how to conjugate (bye) verbs in the different times you want to express:
I often say that conjugating verbs is like time travel; by adding endings to the verbs or
changing their nucleus, i.e. their basic, shortest form, we express different times or tempus
of the action.

COMMON TIMES OF THE VERB

Let us just quickly run through all the times of the verb that you ll ever encounter in
Norwegian :
Presens now, present tense, ex. Jeg spiser
1. Futurum ( presens futurum ) ex. Jeg skal spise, jeg vil sove
2. futurum (presens futurum perfektum) ex. Jeg har sikkert allerede spist nr du kommer
hjem.
Preteritum (link) past tense , descriptive ex. Jeg spiste middag alene.
Perfektum ( link) past tense , completed action ex. Jeg har spist.
Pluskvamperfektum ( more past than past ) ex.Jeg hadde spist.
1. Kondisjonalis ( also called preteritum futurum) ex. Jeg skulle spise, men s ringte
telefonen.
2. Kondisjonalis ( hypothetical ) ex. Jeg ville ha spist russisk kaviar hvis jeg hadde rd.

COMMON FORMS OF THE VERB

There are two more ways to express a verb which have nothing to do with time
They are the infinitive and the imperative forms of the verb:

INFINITIVE
This is the neutral, almost abstract way of presenting a verb. There is no time suggested,
simply the action itself: f.eks
Jeg har lyst til spise
Its the action of eating which is important, nothing else.
Note : = infinitivsmerke ( to in english) is the infinitive marker .
Note: In most cases, the verb in infinitive ends with an e .
 snakke
spise
lage
etc

IMPERATIV

The word imperativ comes from the Latin word imperare to order.
We create imperativ by deleting the ending of the infinitiv form.
Thus the imperativ form is identical with the nucleus of the verb.
Examples:
Kom her Come here
Sitt ned sit down
Vr s god Be so good
Gi meg den give me that
Kos deg ! have a great time !
Here are a couple of useful rules:
Source: Sprkradet.no
1.Nucleus ends in mm delete the last m in writing.
Kom her! ( komme to come)
Stem p Kystpartiet ! ( stemme to vote)
Glem ikke telefonen ! ( glemme to forget)
2. Nucleus ends in a stressed vowel, the imperative form = the infinitive.
Prv noe nytt! (from prve = to try)
Still opp og regn ut (from stille opp and regne)
Vr stille! (from vre) be quiet!
Kom heller i morgen (from komme)
G stille (from g = to walk )
3. When the nucleus ends in an unusual group of consonants, the imperative forms look
really weird and can be difficult to pronounce:
behandl, endr, forandr, forkludr, klatr, pensl, rdm, saktn, smadr, smuldr, stempl, sykl, trkl,
vegr, pn osv.
In such cases, we add an e to the imperative form.
The result is then an imperative form which looks identical to the infinitive.

Some other interesting verb facts

VERB or VERBAL?
The term Verb is used for the word class (ordklasse) Verbal for the function in a clause /
phrase (setningsledd)
Not sure about the difference? Check out this Norskblogg article for mor information.

STRONG AND WEAK verbs

Irregular verbs are called sterke verb (strong verbs) in Norwegian.
Regular verbs are called svake verb (weak verbs).
Learn more about weak and strong verbs in Norwegian here!
Hope you enjoyed this flash course in Norwegian verbs!
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