Learn the difference between two Norwegian words which both translate as "if" in English
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina:Hi, I am Gina. |
| Nora:And I am Nora. |
| Gina:And welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Beginner season 1, Lesson 12 - Getting Some Groceries in Norway. |
| Lesson Details |
| Nora:In our previous lesson, we talked about how “if” has several equivalent words in Norwegian. |
| Gina:It all depends on the sentence they are used in, but they often overlap. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to use “om”. |
| Nora:The conversation is between Kjersti and Nora. Kjersti asks Nora if she wants to come grocery shopping at the nearby supermarket. |
| Gina:Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina:It seems like Norwegians tend to take their children everywhere they go. |
| Nora:Yes, having housemaids or nannies is quite uncommon. |
| Gina:If the parents can’t take the children, they either ask the neighbor to watch them for a bit, or leave the children alone if they think they’re able to take care of themselves. |
| Nora:A lot of Norwegian children grow up spending a few days a month being entirely alone in the house, or with their siblings. |
| Gina:Hmm, I can see how people might think that’s a bit weird. |
| Nora:(laughs) Another practice some find strange is how Norwegians - and Scandinavians generally - like to leave their infants outside in the stroller during winter. |
| Gina:Oh yeah. I’ve noticed that. The infant can be left sleeping in below zero degrees for an hour or two every day as a routine, right? |
| Nora:Yes. Many mothers say it is to keep the baby healthy. |
| Gina:I wonder if it works! Okay, now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina:Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Nora:First is “å ha lyst.” |
| Gina:It means “to want”, but we already have another verb that means the same thing, which is... |
| Nora:“å ville”. And “å ville” is a helping verb, but “å ha lyst” is not. |
| Gina:In the first instance, this is because it’s a phrase, but more importantly because it already contains a helping verb. |
| Nora:“Lyst” is a noun that means “desire”. |
| Gina:So the phrase translates as “to have desire.” That sounds dramatic! Now let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:“Har du lyst til å kjøre?” |
| Gina:“Do you want to drive?” And... |
| Nora:“Jeg har veldig lyst på iskrem” |
| Gina:“I really want ice cream”. Alright, so none of them were especially dramatic, but that’s because it doesn’t have the same connotation it has in English. |
| Nora:Next we have the adverb “bare” |
| Gina:Which means “just” or “only”. |
| Nora:So in Norwegian we have one word that functions as both those words in English. |
| Gina:In English, these are semi-interchangeable, meaning that in some sentences you can switch between them, but in others you can’t. |
| Nora:In Norwegian you’ll notice that “bare” can have different positions in a sentence. |
| Gina:This is a bit confusing, especially when different positions gives different meanings to the sentence. Let’s listen to two examples. |
| Nora:“Jeg må bare spise litt iskrem” |
| Gina:“I only have to eat a bit of ice cream” Notice that the “have” is soft. |
| Nora:“Jeg bare må spise litt iskrem!” |
| Gina:“I just have to have some ice cream!” Here notice the heavy stress on “have” as in “I am craving for some ice cream!” |
| Nora:Quite a difference, just by changing the order. |
| Gina:That’s right. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina:In this lesson, we’re going to continue from our previous lesson’s discussion about hvis. |
| Nora:And we’ll introduce om, which is another word that means “if”. |
| Gina:We’ll also be discussing what the differences are. First off let’s break down the two sentences in our dialogue. |
| Nora:Hvis du har lyst kan du bli med til butikken, Nora. |
| Gina:This roughly translates as “If you want we can go to the shop together, Nora.” But let’s go through each part of the sentence bit by bit. |
| Nora:First we have the infamous hvis |
| Gina:Which is “If”, as you should know by now. |
| Nora:Next we have the pronoun du |
| Gina:“You” in English. |
| Nora:Then the present tense of the phrase å ha lyst |
| Gina:Which you might remember means “to want/to desire”. |
| Nora:Next we have another present tense verb kan from å kunne |
| Gina:Or “to be able to” in English. |
| Nora:After that we have the pronoun du |
| Gina:“You” again. |
| Nora:Then the infinitive of the phrase å bli med |
| Gina:Which means “to join” in English. |
| Nora:Then the preposition til |
| Gina:Which means “to”. |
| Nora:This is followed by the definite noun butikken |
| Gina:Which means “the shop”. And finally after the comma, comes the name Nora. Then we have our next sentence. |
| Nora:Bare om du er en snill jente. |
| Gina:This sentence translates as “Only if you’re a good girl.” |
| Nora:Here we start with the adverb bare |
| Gina:Or “only” in English. |
| Nora:Then we have the conjunction om |
| Gina:Which we know as “if”. |
| Nora:Next comes the pronoun du |
| Gina:Which means “you”. |
| Nora:Then we have the present tense er of the verb å være |
| Gina:This should be familiar, it means “to be”. |
| Nora:After that comes the article en which means “a”. And then the adverb snill |
| Gina:Or “good” in English. |
| Nora:And finally, the indefinite noun jente which means “girl”. |
| Gina:Now that we’ve mastered the two sentences let’s go on to explain om. As you may know by now, it also means “if”. |
| Nora:However, if you see om in a sentence, it’s not necessarily certain that it will mean “if”. |
| Gina:Let’s look at an example. |
| Nora:Jeg er der om en time |
| Gina:"I’ll be there in an hour" |
| Nora:Here om is used to signify time. You’ll often see om in such scenarios, where it is meant to signify “in” a certain amount of time. |
| Gina:Secondly, om can also be used in sentences where it would translate as “about”. |
| Nora:Han snakket om deg |
| Gina:“He spoke about you” |
| Nora:Finally om is also used like “if” in certain scenarios. Now for the difference between hvis and om. Here’s the thing. In most cases hvis can always replace om in situations where om would signify “if”. |
| Gina:Again, let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:Om du har tid så kom hit da. |
| Gina:“If you have time come over” |
| Nora:Hvis du har tid så kom hit da. |
| Gina:“If you have time come over” |
| Nora:Here you can see, both works. |
| Gina:So essentially, you could say that whenever you want to use “if”, you can always use hvis. But here’s the catch - this isn’t always possible. There are a few instances where hvis doesn’t work and here’s one. |
| Nora:Jeg vet ikke om det er mulig |
| Gina:“I don’t know if it is possible” |
| Nora:The reason is because hvis simply doesn’t fit in here. It sounds unnatural. |
| Gina:But don’t worry because you’ll rarely find situations where this is the case. |
| Nora:Usually using hvis for “if”s should be enough. |
Outro |
| Gina:Well, that’s enough for this lesson. |
| Nora:If you feel like that went by fast, always feel free to listen to the lesson again. |
| Gina:And take time to read the lesson notes and leave a comment on our page! |
| Nora:And we’ll see you next time! |
| Gina:Thanks for listening, bye! |
| Nora:Ha det |
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