{"id":755,"date":"2010-12-29T06:37:03","date_gmt":"2010-12-29T06:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=755"},"modified":"2014-08-22T14:19:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T14:19:21","slug":"norwegian-weak-past-tense-verbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/norwegian-weak-past-tense-verbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Norwegian weak past tense verbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Now that jul<\/strong> is over and the end of 201o is very near, I find myself thinking about things that have happened this past year. \u00a0You can never have too much practice with the past tense when you are learning a new language. \u00a0If you are like me, learning verb tenses is not your favorite part of learning a foreign language. \u00a0There is always a lot of memorization involved and Norwegian is no exception. \u00a0There are weak <\/span>verbs and there are strong<\/span> verbs and unfortunately, there really isn’t any rhyme or reason as to which verbs are weak and which are strong. \u00a0There are far fewer strong verbs, so it’s best to memorize those and learn the easily recognizable pattern that the weak verbs follow. \u00a0There are 4 classes of weak verbs and they each have a different suffix that is added on to the root of the verb.<\/p>\n

The following is a chart that I used when I studied Norwegian at St. Olaf College\u00a0of the 4 classes of weak verbs. \u00a0If you memorize what the four classes look like and how they are treated in the past tense, you will be good to go. \u00a0I will write a separate post on the Present Perfect verb tense, so for now, concentrate on the past tense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Weak Verb Classes<\/td>\nInfinitive<\/td>\nPast Tense<\/td>\nPresent Perfect<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The root ends in\u00a0two consonants<\/strong>ex.) vask<\/strong>e, snakk<\/strong>e<\/p>\n

-et<\/strong> (past tense)
\n-et<\/strong> (present perfect tense)<\/td>\n

vaske<\/span><\/strong>
\n(wash)snakke<\/span><\/strong>
\n(talk)<\/td>\n		vasket<\/span><\/strong>
\n(washed)snakket<\/span><\/strong>
\n(talked)<\/td>\n		har vasket<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have washed)har snakket<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have talked)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The root ends in\u00a0one consonant<\/strong>, or in some specific two consonant combinations (ll, mm, nn, ng, nk<\/strong>)ex.) lik<\/strong>e, spis<\/strong>e
\nex.) spill<\/strong>e, sv\u00f8mm<\/strong>e, kjenn<\/strong>e, treng<\/strong>e, tenk<\/strong>e<\/p>\n

-te<\/strong> (past tense)
\n-t<\/strong> (present perfect tense)<\/td>\n

like<\/span><\/strong>
\n(like)spise<\/span><\/strong>
\n(eat)<\/p>\n

spille<\/span><\/strong>
\n(play)<\/td>\n

likte<\/span><\/strong>
\n(liked)spiste<\/span><\/strong>
\n(ate)<\/p>\n

spilte<\/span><\/strong>
\n(played)<\/td>\n

har likt<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have liked)har spist<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have eaten)<\/p>\n

har spilt<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have played)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

The root ends in\u00a0v<\/strong> or a\u00a0diphthong<\/strong>, such as “ei”.ex.) pr\u00f8v<\/strong>e, lei<\/strong>e, plei<\/strong>e<\/p>\n

-de<\/strong> (past tense)
\n-d<\/strong> (present perfect tense)<\/td>\n

pr\u00f8ve<\/span><\/strong>
\n(try)leie<\/span><\/strong>
\n(rent)<\/td>\n		pr\u00f8vde<\/span><\/strong>
\n(tried)leide<\/span><\/strong>
\n(rented)<\/td>\n		har pr\u00f8vd<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have tried)har leid<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have rented)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The root ends in a long vowel<\/strong>ex.) bo<\/strong>, kle<\/strong><\/p>\n

-dde<\/strong> (past tense)
\n-dd<\/strong> (present perfect tense)<\/td>\n

bo<\/span><\/strong>
\n(live)kle<\/span><\/strong>
\n(dress)<\/td>\n		bodde<\/span><\/strong>
\n(lived)kledde<\/span><\/strong>
\n(dressed)<\/td>\n		har bodd<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have lived)har kledd<\/span><\/strong>
\n(have dressed)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

As I said, there is no rhyme or reason in the way verbs are categorized, but I do find that after you have learned them and used them for a while, you realize that if some of them had the suffix of another category, the word would sound funny. \u00a0Does anyone else know what I’m talking about? \u00a0For example, the 4th class (bo, kle…<\/strong>) would sound just wrong if they received the suffix “et.” \u00a0The same goes for the verb \u00e5 snakke<\/em>-it would sound really strange if it was “snakkte” in the past tense. \u00a0In my opinion, Norwegian grammar in general is fairly simple and straightforward compared to many other languages. \u00a0That being said, it takes time to learn the classes of weak verbs and memorizing the strong verbs and their different forms. <\/span><\/p>\n

Study this chart and really try to understand it and you will be glad you took the time to do it. \u00a0Being able to make sense expressing yourself in a different language is far easier if you know verbs and their different tenses. \u00a0The subject and object of course are very important, but most important is being able to describe the actions of the subjects and objects. <\/span><\/p>\n

Happy studying! \u00a0Next wil be strong verbs in the past tense:)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Now that jul is over and the end of 201o is very near, I find myself thinking about things that have happened this past year. \u00a0You can never have too much practice with the past tense when you are learning a new language. \u00a0If you are like me, learning verb tenses is not your…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11463,13188],"class_list":["post-755","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-language","tag-norwegian-grammar","tag-weak-verbs-in-norwegian"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1791,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755\/revisions\/1791"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}