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Grønne ting Posted by on May 19, 2009 in Language

Green things.  I think it is time to focus on adjectives.  Today I will focus on the adjective -green- grønn.  La oss snakke om grønne ting- let’s talk about green things. 

Gress er grønt (grass is green).  Notice that I removed one ‘n’ and replaced it with a ‘t’ because gress is a neuter noun and thus when described, the adjective receives a ‘t.’  Since the word ends in a double consonant, we remove one of the consonants and add the ‘t.’  It’s kind of confusing.  Mange barn liker å plukke gress når de sitter og hører på trener.  Many kids like to pluck grass when they sit and listen to the coach.  I remember when I played soccer and we would have a half-time talk, all the kids would be sitting there and pulling grass out. 

Epler er også grønne.  Apples are also green.  Since we are talking about several apples, the adjective gets an ‘e’ at the end.  Lene brukte de grønne eplene fra treet i hagen.  Lene used the green apples from the tree in the yard.   We are still talking about several apples, so the adjective again gets an ‘e’ at the end, but also take note of the noun, eplene, the apples.  Nine times out of 10, a noun in the definite plural form ends in ‘ene.’�

Min ryggsekk er grønn.  My backpack is green.  Jeg har en grønn ryggsekk.  I have a green backpack.  Jeg hadde to grønne ryggsekker da jeg var ung.  I had two green backpacks when I was young.  Jeg tok de grønne ryggsekkene med på ferie.  I took the green backpacks with on vacation.  Again, ‘green’ gets an ‘e’ when the noun is plural and ‘backpacks’ gets an ‘ene‘ when it is definite plural.  You might have noticed by now that whether an adjective describes a noun in the indefinite plural form or the definite plural form, the adjective looks the same.  Add that ‘e,’ in the majority of cases that is…in a later post I will focus just on irregular adjectives.

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About the Author: kari

I attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, where I majored in Norwegian and History. During college, I spent almost a year living in Oslo, Norway, where I attended the University of Oslo and completed an internship at the United States Embassy. I have worked for Concordia Language Villages as a pre-K Norwegian teacher and have taught an adult Norwegian language class. Right now, I keep up by writing this Norwegian blog for Transparent Language. Please read and share your thoughts! I will be continuing this blog from my future residence in the Norwegian arctic!


Comments:

  1. Anna:

    Thank you for writing about this! I really enjoy your grammar posts.

  2. Erik Walker:

    Thanks for your web page. It is on my favorites since I am trying to learn Norwegian for a planned trip in two to three years. Keep up the good work. I will visit daily.

    I wish your comment window had Norwegian letters so I could try to reply in Norsk.