When you want to tell the world where you are, prepositions come handy: I’m in the garage; we’re on the mountain. (And so it is in Norwegian: Jeg er i garasjen; vi er på fjellet.) However, very often some kind of adverb can do the job as well: I’m home; we’re out. Jeg er hjemme; vi er ute.

You’ll notice that a lot of these locational adverbs end in -ein Norwegian. In addition to hjemme [YEMMeh] and ute [OOteh], you’ve got:

– inne (in, inside), as in Hun sitter inne i stua (she’s sitting in the living-room)

– oppe (up), as in Vi var oppe hele natta (We stayed up all night)

– nede (down), as in De traff hverandre nede i dalen (They met/hit each other down in the valley)

– borte (away), as in Hvorfor er du alltid borte når jeg er hjemme? (Why’re you always gone when I’m at home?)

– fremme (in front), as in Det er jeg som skal sitte fremme i bilen (It is I who’s supposed to sit in the front of the car) [this word can also be spelt framme]

But what if you wanted to say you were going home rather than being home? In Norwegian there’s a really nice trick you can use to tweak the meaning of the above words into something more directional: You just remove the final -e:

– Gå hjem! (Go home!)

– Nå må dere komme ut! (Now you must come out(side)!)

– Hun går inn i stua (She’s going into the living-room)

– Han står opp (He gets up)

– De går lenger ned i dalen (They go further down the valley)

– Han løp bort så fort han kunne (He ran away as fast as he could)

– Kom frem! (Come forth!)

Neat, huh? 🙂