Learn about the most common conjunctions and how to use them
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina:Hi everyone, I am Gina. |
| Nora:And I am Nora. |
| Gina:And welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Beginner season 1, Lesson 19 - Connecting the Dots in Norway. In this lesson you’ll learn about conjunctions. |
| Nora:We’ll look at how they work in different parts of a sentence, and how they bind sentences together. |
| Nora:This is continuing on from our last two lessons, where we started to look at longer sentences. |
| Gina:The conversation is between Lars and Kjersti. |
| Nora:Kjersti has arrived in Oslo and is going around doing her chores. |
| Gina:They are discussing what Kjersti is planning to do while in Oslo. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina:Something Norwegians seem quite preoccupied with around Christmas time, is Christmas shopping. |
| Nora:Definitely. Christmas is a major holiday in Norway. Even though the Norwegian state and church officially parted ways quite recently, and now Norway is a secular country, much of our tradition lies in Christianity. |
| Gina:In the U.S. people are usually wary of mentioning Christmas without mentioning Hanukkah, or Id-al-Adha maybe, or even Winter Solstice. |
| Nora:Right. In Norway Christmas is the reigning holiday, and few people say anything other than ‘merry christmas’. Even atheists and to some extent people from other religions celebrate Norwegian Christmas. |
| Gina:True, and the tradition has recently become quite secular, hasn’t it. It has more of a focus on Santa and on giving gifts. |
| Nora:Ah, gift giving...in Norway many people start to panic during the advent season, as they worry what they should give their friends and family for Christmas. |
| Gina:And it seems the Christmas sales start earlier and earlier every year! |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina:Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Nora:In this lesson we’ll look at the word greie. |
| Gina:It literally translates as “thing”. It’s an ambiguous, abstract noun that denotes anything that the speaker isn’t able to put a name to. |
| Nora:However in Norwegian, there is not just one word for “a thing”, there is another word that is used as the same abstract noun. It’s ting. |
| Gina:It is more similar to the English word, and probably easier to point out. |
| Nora:There is a difference between the two words, though. |
| Gina:Yes, and it’s not easy to learn this nuance. |
| Nora:In fact in most cases the words are entirely interchangeable. In some cases though, only one of the words sounds natural. |
| Gina:Let’s see some examples where only the word used is the one that sounds natural. |
| Nora:Jeg har noen ting hjemme. |
| Gina:“I have some stuff at home.” |
| Nora:Hva er greia liksom? |
| Gina:“What’s the problem?” |
| Nora:Now, let’s also explain the word først as well. |
| Gina:It means “first” but it has two forms depending on usage in Norway. |
| Nora:The one we saw in this lesson’s vocab is først as in jeg var først! |
| Gina:Which translates as “I was first!” |
| Nora:The other common form is as an ordinal number, første. |
| Gina:This is a defined form and will always need the article den or det preceding the number. |
| Nora:By ordinal numbers we mean “first”, “second”, “third”, and so on. |
| Gina:The thing about Norwegian ordinal numbers is that they are always in defined form. So “the first”, “the second”, “the third”, etc. In Norwegian the numbers following første would be: |
| Nora:Andre |
| Gina:“Second” |
| Nora:Tredje |
| Gina:“Third” |
| Nora:Fjerde |
| Gina:“Fourth” |
| Nora:Femte |
| Gina:“Fifth” |
| Nora:Sjette |
| Gina:“Sixth” |
| Nora:Syvende |
| Gina:“Seventh” |
| Nora:Åttende |
| Gina:“Eighth” |
| Nora:Niende |
| Gina:“Ninth” |
| Nora:Tiende |
| Gina:“Tenth” Let’s look at some examples in context too. |
| Nora:Han var alltid den første til å kjøpe de nyeste gadgetene. |
| Gina:“He was always the first one to buy the newest gadgets.” |
| Nora:Hun var først ut med nyhetene. |
| Gina:“She was the first out with the news.” Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina:In this lesson, you’ll learn about conjunctions |
| Nora:We’ll look at how conjunctions in Norwegian help bind together longer sentences. |
| Gina:While this is largely just like English... |
| Nora:...It’s better to have it explained, so there is no confusion on how the longer sentences work in Norwegian as well. |
| Gina:First off, in our dialogue we had a fairly long sentence. Let’s look at that one and break it down. |
| Nora:Jeg trenger å kjøpe noen gaver for jul, og samtidig fikse noen greier ved universitetet. |
| Gina:This sentence translates roughly as: “I need to buy some presents for Christmas, and at the same time fix some stuff at the University” That’s quite a long one. Thinking back to our last two lessons, you might see that this sentence is mostly built up of adverbs and pronouns or prepositions. Now let’s break it down to see what we are talking about. |
| Nora:First we have the familiar pronoun jeg |
| Gina:As you should know by now, this means “I”. |
| Nora:This is followed by the verb in present tense, trenger, from å trenge |
| Gina:Which means “need”. Then we have a verb again, this time in infinitive. |
| Nora:Å kjøpe or “to buy”. The reason is because å trenge can work as a modular verb, where you attach other verbs at the end to form the verb “need to (verb)...” |
| Gina:Now after the verb comes the object of the sentence. |
| Nora:Noen gaver. Noen is an adverb. |
| Gina:And it means “some”. |
| Nora:And gaver is the noun. |
| Gina:And it translates as “gifts” or “presents”. |
| Nora:And finally we have the Indirect Object, or “time modifier” as we learned in the previous lesson; for jul. The preposition for means “for”. |
| Gina:And then the noun jul which translates as “Christmas”. We then have a comma which is followed by the conjunction... |
| Nora:Og, which means “and”. And then there’s another conjunction samtidig. |
| Gina:A slightly tricky one in English. It means “At the same time”. Then we do the whole Subject Verb Object over again. Though notice there is no Subject mentioned. |
| Nora:This is because we already know it, jeg, from the beginning of the sentence. That’s why we move directly to the verb in infinitive, å fikse |
| Gina:Which means “to fix”. |
| Nora:Then comes the Object noen greier. It consists of the adverb noen. |
| Gina:Meaning “some”, and the noun... |
| Nora:Greier. |
| Gina:Meaning “things”. |
| Nora:And finally the Indirect Object again. Ved universitetet. |
| Gina:The preposition ved means “by” and the noun... |
| Nora:Universitetet. |
| Gina:Which is obviously “university”. |
| Nora:Altogether, it’s: Jeg trenger å kjøpe noen gaver for jul, og samtidig fikse noen greier ved universitetet. |
| Gina:This translates to something like: “I need to buy some presents for Christmas, and at the same time fix some stuff at the University” |
| Nora:So what about the conjunctions? |
| Gina:Well, in our dialogue we saw 3 conjunctions. Let’s look at these and have some examples. First we have. |
| Nora:Og. |
| Gina:It means “and”, and it is the most common conjunction. It’s used to tie two sentences that cannot be tied together using other conjunctions. It is basically just a “concatenator”. But dont worry too much about this term listeners! An example please. |
| Nora:Har du tid til å lage middag og gå tur med hundene? |
| Gina:“Do you have time to make dinner, and take the dogs for a walk?” Ok, next we have... |
| Nora:Samtidig. |
| Gina:It means “At the same time”. It’s commonly used to tie actions together through a time expression. Let’s look at an example. |
| Nora:Jeg er en stor fan av videospill, samtidig liker jeg ikke å spille for lenge. |
| Gina:“I am a big fan of video games, at the same time I don’t like to play for too long.” Great! Now let’s look at the next one. |
| Nora:Mens. |
| Gina:This means “While” or “meanwhile”. It also ties sentences together in a time frame. Let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:Jeg var hjemme og spiste, mens barna var pa skolen. |
| Gina:“I was at home eating - meanwhile the children were at school.” |
| Nora:There are also a few others that aren’t in the dialogue, but are important nonetheless. |
| Gina:Let’s take a look at those. First we have. |
| Nora:Også. |
| Gina:It means “as well”. It’s used to concatenate sentences or words that have a contextual relation. That might sound complicated, so let’s look at an example. |
| Nora:Han hadde trent mye de siste to månedene. Han hadde vært på diett også. |
| Gina:“He had exercised a lot the past two months. He had been on a diet as well.” Now for the final one. |
| Nora:Desto |
| Gina:It’s a brace yourselves, “comparative conjunction”. Needless to say, this one is a bit tricky. It’s an adverb as well as a conjunction. And is quite common. It works as a comparative similar to “the more...” in English. Let’s see a few examples. |
| Nora:Sover man lite blir man fort sliten, desto fortere mister man konsentrasjonen også. |
| Gina:This means something like “If one doesn’t sleep sufficiently one will quickly get tired, the quicker one loses one’s concentration as well.” |
| Nora:Jo bedre man sover, desto mer uthvilt blir man. |
| Gina:“The better one sleeps, the more rested one feels.” |
Outro |
| Gina:Well, we’ve covered a lot in this lesson, so let’s leave it there. |
| Nora:Listeners, we hope you learned something valuable about all those conjunctions. |
| Gina:Make sure to read the accompanying PDF lesson notes too! Thanks for listening, bye! |
| Nora:Sees neste gang! |
Comments
HideHello Listeners! Can you use the word greie in a sentence? Let's practice here.
Hei Appiah Benjamin,
We are sorry to hear that! Unfortunately, at the moment it is not possible to change the voice.
I will forward your feedback to our team for consideration!
Best regards,
Levente
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Hi is there a way i can change the mans voice. Because i think even a native norwegian will find it hard to understand him.😞
Hei Alec,
Bra forsøk! Jeg skal rette litt på setningen din.
Det riktige å si vil være: "Jo mer konsentrert han er, desto mer greier han å fullføre."
Vi snakkes!
Hilsen,
Mai
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Jo konsentrert han arbeider, desto mer greier fullføre han.
(The more concentrated he works, the more things he is able to complete)
Hei Joanna!
Kjempebra! Ingen feil i setningene dine!:thumbsup:
Ida
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Ah! Jeg glemte det! Norsk er forskjellig fra engelsk i dette!
Hei Joanna!
Kjempebra!:smile:
Husk at norsk skrives med liten n, med mindre du ikke starter setningen med norsk.
Ha en fin helg!
Ida
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Den er mange spennende greier å lære mens man studerer Norsk.
There are many exciting things to learn while one studies Norwegian.:smile:
Hei, Daniela!
Yes, Norwegian has a lot of irregular verbs, nouns and so on! Do your best, and if you make mistakes, then you´ll just learn from them, right?
Let me know whenever you need help with something.
Best,
Ida
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Oh my, there are so many things I need to learn by heart, haha.
Thank you so much for your help! :grin:
Hello, Daniela!
Good question! Norwegian actually have some irregular nouns, and ting is one of them.
En ting - tingen - ting - tingene. So ting is basically the indefinite plural form.
This noun follows no rule, and you have to learn it by heart!:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
Best,
Ida
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Hi Ida! Tusen takk!
I have a question about the word "ting". Does it have a plural form? Because I've heard it and seen it written just as "ting", even if people are talking about "many things", so I'm not quite sure about that.
Like in the case of "greie", which in my sentence you corrected it to "greier", so I assume that this word does have a plural form. I'm a little confused there, haha.
Can you explain this to me, please ? :smile:
Hei, Daniela!
Kjempebra! Nesten alle setningene dine var korrekte. La meg rette på noen av dem.
Jeg må sjekke ut noen greier.
(I have to check out some stuff.)
Desto mer jeg vet, desto mer sier jeg. (desto mer jeg sier)
(The more I know, the more I say.)
Ha en flott helg!:smile:
Ida
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Jeg må sjekke ut noen greie.
(I have to check out some stuff.)
Hun sa det først.
(She said it first.)
Mora mi vasker opp mens jeg jobber på kontoret.
(My mom washes the dishes while I work at the office).
Jeg vil spise middag med deg og danse litt etterpå.
(I want to eat dinner with you and dance a little afterwards.)
Det hadde vært bra om du kunne fikse dette også.
(I would be good if you could fix this as well.)
Jeg er veldig glad i deg, samtidig, liker jeg å være sammen med andre mennesker.
(I'm very fond of you, at the same time I like to be with other people.)
Desto mer jeg vet, desto mer jeg si.
(The more I know, the more I say.)
;)
Bare hyggelig!
Bryce
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Det var mye arbeid! Tusen takk Bryce.
Hei, Patricia!
Wow, så mange setninger!
Den først ting, løper ikke i huset!
- For den første, ikke løp i huset!
- "For den første", "For den andre", etc, is a special phrase for laying out lists of things.
- We're giving a command, so the verb needs to be in command form: "løp"
Denne høytiden, jeg skal studere nork og leser en bok om nazism.
- Denne høytiden skal jeg studere norsk og lese en bok om nasisme.
- We've put "denne høytiden" at the beginning of the sentence, so we need to put the verb "skal" right afterwards since the verb has to come in the second position.
- "lese" is conected to "skal", so we don't conjugate "lese", only the first verb, "skal", is conjugated.
Jeg liker store hundene men jeg liker små hundene også.
- Jeg liker store hunder, men jeg liker små hunder også.
- en hund, flere hunder, hunden, de flere hundene
Mens bakke i det virkelige liv…
- Mens tilbake i virkeligheta
- "bakke" means "ground" or the side of a small hill. Here we use "tilbake".
Jeg liker å bake samtidig jeg liker ikke å lage mat.
- Jeg liker å bake samtidig liker jeg ikke å lage mat.
- Here we've moved "samtidig" to the beginning of the clause, so we need to put the verb "liker" right afterwards in the second position.
Desto jeg spiser sjokoladen, desto jeg vil gjerne spise sjokoladen.
- Desto mer jeg spiser sjokolade, desto mer jeg vil gjerne spise sjokolade.
- We have to include the degree (mer, mindre, lengre, kortere, etc)
Bryce
Team NorwegianClass101.com
Den først ting, løper ikke i huset!
(The first thing, no running in the house)
Greier er ikke godt med oss.
(Things are not good with us.)
Denne høytiden, jeg skal studere nork og leser en bok om nazism.
(This holiday, I will study Norwegian and read a book about Nazism.)
Jeg liker store hundene men jeg liker små hundene også.
(I like big dogs but I like small dogs as well.)
Mens bakke i det virkelige liv...
(Meanwhile, back in real life....)
Jeg liker å bake samtidig jeg liker ikke å lage mat.
(I like to bake, at the same time, I don't like to cook.)
Desto jeg spiser sjokoladen, desto jeg vil gjerne spise sjokoladen.
(The more I eat chocolate, the more I want to eat chocolate.)