{"id":1651,"date":"2013-12-22T14:14:29","date_gmt":"2013-12-22T14:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=1651"},"modified":"2014-08-22T18:58:38","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T18:58:38","slug":"lazy-phrases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/lazy-phrases\/","title":{"rendered":"Lazy phrases"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kan du snakke norsk?<\/strong> (\u201dCan you speak Norwegian?\u201d) Norwegian and English are related languages. As your study of Norwegian progresses, you\u2019ll see that there are a lot of things that you already \u201dkind of know\u201d when it comes to grammar and vocabulary. Nevertheless, the language does have at least one grammatical feature that does not exist in English: the passive verb form.<\/p>\n

Instead of saying Jeg drikker vannet<\/strong> (I\u2019m drinking the water), you could go for Vannet drikkes<\/strong> (the water is being drunk). As you can see, such passive forms are very easy to create \u2013 you simply take the -r<\/strong> of the present tense and replace it with an -s<\/strong>:
\nVi maler huset<\/strong> (We\u2019re painting the house) > Huset males<\/strong> (The house is being painted).
\nPostbudet leverer pakken p\u00e5 d\u00f8ren<\/strong> (The postman will deliver the parcel at your doorstep) > Pakken leveres p\u00e5 d\u00f8ren<\/strong> (The parcel will be delivered at your doorstep).<\/p>\n

The \u201dpassive -s\u201d is the ultimate way of obscuring the persons responsible for doing something. You CAN say Huset males av oss<\/span><\/strong> (The house is being painted by us<\/span>) \u2013 in most occasions, though, the active person is simply not being mentioned.<\/p>\n

\u201dPassive -s\u201d constructions are a bit formal and are mostly used in the written language. In the spoken language, there is a more common way of stealing the stage from the ones in charge of the action:
\n1. Pick your tense-of-choice of the verb \u00e5 bli<\/strong><\/a> (to become).
\n2. Combine it with the \u201dhave\u201d form (past perfect) of the verb you want to passivize.
\nSince past perfect of \u00e5 kj\u00f8re<\/strong> (to drive) is har kj\u00f8rt<\/strong> (have driven), Vi ble kj\u00f8rt hjem<\/strong> (av sj\u00e5f\u00f8ren)<\/strong> means \u201dWe were driven home (by the driver)\u201d. Spr\u00e5k blir l\u00e6rt<\/strong> (languages are [being] learnt). Problemer blir l\u00f8st<\/strong> (problems are [being] solved). Got it? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

You don\u2019t really need passive verbs to communicate. Ordinary, active phrases should do the job perfectly fine. Yet as you get acquainted with Norwegians, you\u2019re bound to notice a few of those -s\u2019s:<\/p>\n

N\u00e5r sees vi igjen?<\/strong> (When do we see each other again?)
\nVi m\u00f8tes klokka fire.<\/strong> (We\u2019ll meet [each other] at 4 o\u2019 clock.)<\/p>\n

In these cases, the job of the letter is not to passivize anything. Instead, it adds the notion of reciprocity (\u201deach other\u201d) to the verb.<\/p>\n

Vi snakkes!<\/strong> (Talk to you later!, literally: We\u2019ll talk with each other!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Kan du snakke norsk? (\u201dCan you speak Norwegian?\u201d) Norwegian and English are related languages. As your study of Norwegian progresses, you\u2019ll see that there are a lot of things that you already \u201dkind of know\u201d when it comes to grammar and vocabulary. Nevertheless, the language does have at least one grammatical feature that does not…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8305,293306,11828],"class_list":["post-1651","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-passive","tag-reciprocity","tag-s"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1651"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1970,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1651\/revisions\/1970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}