Learn where to place "ikke" in a sentence
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Intro |
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| Hi everybody! Anette here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Norwegian questions. |
| The Question |
| The question for this lesson is…Where do you place ikke in a sentence? |
| Explanation |
| Norwegian and English are similar in many ways, but when it comes to ikke meaning “not” the rules are very different and a little challenging to learn. |
| Let’s do some examples so you can learn how to use ikke correctly. |
| In basic sentences, ikke comes after the verb. Here’s an example, Jeg spiser ikke fisk, meaning, “I don’t eat fish.” |
| If the object of the sentence is a pronoun, like “I” or “you,” then ikke will come after the pronoun, not the verb. Let’s change fisk, “fish” in the previous sentence to the pronoun den meaning, “it.” Jeg spiser den ikke, “I don't eat it.” |
| When there’s more than one verb in a sentence, ikke is placed after the first verb. Here’s an example-- Han vil ikke spise fisk, meaning, “He doesn’t want to eat fish.” In this example, we have the modal verb vil, “ to want,” and the verb å spise, “to eat.” So, we have to put ikke after vil, which is the first verb in this sentence. |
| When we use expressions like “when” and “if,” ikke is placed in front of the verb. For example Når jeg ikke spiser frokost, blir jeg lett sint, which literally means, “When I don’t eat breakfast, I easily get angry.” Another example would be, Hvis du ikke kan delta, send meg en melding. This means “If you can't participate, send me a message.” Here, ikke comes before the verbs å delta "to participate" and å spise “to eat.'" |
| Ikke is also placed after a reflexive pronoun such as “myself” or “yourself.” Here’s an example, Jeg kuttet meg da jeg hakket løk, meaning, “I cut myself while I chopped onions.” or Hun legger seg ikke senere enn klokka 11. Literally, this means “She doesn’t lie herself later than eleven o’clock.” However, the more natural translation is, “She doesn’t go to bed later that eleven o’clock.” |
| Lastly, if you use ikke as a command, you need to put ikke in front of the verb. Here’s an example, Ikke løp! meaning, “Don’t run!” |
Outro |
| How was this lesson? Pretty interesting, right? |
| Do you have any more questions? Leave them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them! |
| Hade. Vi sees snart! “Bye. See you soon!” |
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