Norwegian Language/Lesson I

Foreword
This page is a lesson on Bokmål, the more commonly spoken of the two forms of norwegian. This page covers basic use of pronouns and conjugation of verbs in the present, the use of modal auxiliaries, and how to hold a basic conversation.

Pronouns
Personal Pronouns are as follows for their English equivalents.

Nouns
Nouns describe a person, place, or thing.

Basics
In the norwegian language, there are three genders for nouns: masculine, feminine, and neuter. The indefinite singular (unconjugated) forms of the nouns are represented similarly the way they are represented in english.
 * En stol. Masculine, a chair.
 * Ei jente. Feminine, a girl.
 * Et bilde. Neuter, a picture.

Cases
Cases for each verb differs, but they follow the same rules.
 * Indefinite singular: Article before the noun.
 * Definite singular: Article is attached to the end of the noun.
 * Indefinite plural: A modified form of the article (see below) is attached to the end of the noun.
 * Definite plural: The suffix -ene is attached to the end of the noun.

Below is a table of the different noun cases in norwegian, with the english equivalents in parentheses.

Exceptions
Depending on the speaker, the feminine article may be replaced with the masculine article. For example in the definite singular case, one might say jenten instead of jenta.

In the case of a neuter noun, in which the noun itself has only one syllable, for instance 'house'; et hus. The indefinite plural is simply drops the article. Houses would be 'hus', planes (et fly) would become 'fly', and so forth.

Verbs
The infinitive form of verbs will typically follow this form (å)+(verb)+(letter e) å is one of the many ways to say 'to' in norwegian for example: the infinitive of the verb, 'to play' is 'å spille' The e is simply a platform for conjugation.

Conjugation
Simple conjugation in the present tense does not change for the pronoun it is used in conjunction with. The strong and weak verbs which will be covered in lesson are conjugated the same way for the present tense. Conjugation for the present tense is adding the letter -r to the word and dropping the å at the beginning of the infinitive.

Irregular
As in nearly all languages there are irregular verbs, verbs that are conjugated differently from the rest of the verbs in the language. Some of the more common ones in Norwegian are. Their present tense forms are as follows
 * Å Være, to be
 * Å Vite, to know
 * Å Gjøre, to do

Modal Auxiliaries
Modal auxiliaries, or modal verbs, are words that appear before verbs in order to change the mood of necessity or probability. Some common examples in english include; can, shall, will, must, and may. The sentence structure of these is also similar to the english equivalent. Jeg kan spise mat. I can eat food. The sentence is formed by the subject, the modal verb, the infinitive form of the verb dropping the -å stem, and then the object. Negation is achieved by adding ikke directly after the modal verb. For example: Jeg kan ikke spise mat. I cannot eat food. Other modal auxileries and their english counterparts are as follows:

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