Language/Norwegian-bokmal/Grammar/Past-Tense
In this lesson, you will learn how to conjugate regular and irregular verbs in the past tense in Norwegian Bokmål. Understanding Norwegian Bokmål grammar is essential for building your language skills and taking your fluency to the next level.
After mastering this lesson, these related pages might interest you: Plurals & Comparatives and Superlatives.
Regular Verbs
Regular verbs in Norwegian Bokmål follow a common pattern in the past tense. To form the past tense, add the suffix "-et" to the stem of the present tense verb if the verb ends in a consonant or "-te" if the verb ends in a vowel. Here are some examples:
| Norwegian Bokmål | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| Å snakke | /ɔ ˈsnɑkːə/ | To speak |
| Snakket | /ˈsnɑkːət/ | Spoke |
| Å gjøre | /ɔ ˈjøːɾə/ | To do |
| Gjorde | /ˈjøːɾət/ | Did |
| Å lese | /ɔ ˈleːsə/ | To read |
| Leste | /ˈleːsət/ | Read |
As you can see, the past tense of regular verbs is relatively easy to form. However, there are some verbs that don't follow this pattern, because of spelling changes during the formation of the past tense. These are called Irregular verbs.
Irregular Verbs
Irregular verbs in Norwegian Bokmål are not difficult to understand, but they don't follow the same pattern as regular verbs. Therefore, it's important to memorize them because you can't guess their past tense form based on the present tense form. Here are some examples:
| Norwegian Bokmål | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| Å være | /ɔ ˈvæːɾə/ | To be |
| Var | /vɑr/ | Was/were |
| Å ha | /ɔ hɑ/ | To have |
| Hadde | /ˈhɑdːə/ | Had |
| Å se | /ɔ se/ | To see |
| Så | /so/ | Saw |
| Å vite | /ɔ ˈviːtə/ | To know |
| Visste | /ˈvɪsːtə/ | Knew |
You can see that the past tense forms of irregular verbs are quite different from their present tense forms. The list of irregular verbs is not very long, so memorizing them will be pretty easy.
Application
Here are some sentences in the present tense and their corresponding past tense forms:
- Jeg spiser middag nå (I am eating dinner now) → Jeg spiste middag i går (I ate dinner yesterday).
- Du snakker norsk veldig bra (You speak Norwegian very well) → Du snakket norsk veldig bra i går (You spoke Norwegian very well yesterday).
- Han leser boken hver kveld (He reads the book every night) → Han leste boken i går kveld (He read the book last night).
- Vi går på skolen hver dag (We go to school every day) → Vi gikk på skolen i går (We went to school yesterday).
- Dere spiller fotball på søndager (You play football on Sundays) → Dere spilte fotball på søndag (You played football last Sunday).
As you can see, the past tense form of the verb is used to indicate that the action happened in the past. You can use time phrases such as "i går" (yesterday), "i forrige uke" (last week), or "i fjor" (last year) to be more specific about the time of the action.
Exercises
- Conjugate the following regular verbs in the past tense: "Å lære" (to learn), "Å spørre" (to ask), and "Å drikke" (to drink).
- Conjugate the following irregular verbs in the past tense: "Å gjøre" (to do), "Å se" (to see), and "Å være" (to be).
- Write three sentences in the present tense and three sentences in the past tense using different verbs.
Conclusion
In this lesson, you have learned how to conjugate regular and irregular verbs in the past tense in Norwegian Bokmål. Remember that regular verbs follow a simple pattern, while irregular verbs require memorization. Practice makes perfect, so make sure to do lots of exercises and speak with native speakers to improve your fluency.
Upon wrapping up this lesson, take a look at these related pages: Questions & How to Use Have.
Other Lessons
- Definite and indefinite forms of nouns
- Questions
- Past tense verbs
- Plurals
- Pronouns
- Comparatives and Superlatives
- Infinitive and present participle forms
- Negation
- Future tense verbs