Learn about using irregular verbs and slang
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina:Hi, I am Gina. |
| Nora:Hallo, and I am Nora. |
| Gina:And welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 4 - Arguing About the Housework in Norwegian. |
| Nora:In this lesson, you’ll learn about...Kan’kke, Vi’kke, Ha’kke, Få’kke. |
| Gina:(laughs) Alright. So you might not have understood those words entirely. That’s because it’s slang. Norwegian slang. |
| Nora:We are not specifically learning slang in this lesson. But we’re throwing some common slang in for good measure. |
| Gina:Our focus in this lesson are irregular verbs, and an introduction to a final past tense. |
| Nora:More past tense might seem like overkill, but chances are you are using it already! |
| Gina:Right. The conversation is between Espen and Kjersti, who are having a heated debate about cleaning. |
| Nora:And that’s where slang enters the picture. |
| Gina:Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Nora:You wouldn’t imagine that housekeeping chores in Norway are that different from any other country, and that is true. |
| Gina:But there are some things you should watch out for that might differ from your own culture. |
| Nora:Definitely. What did you notice? |
| Gina:Well, when entering a Norwegian house or apartment, it is common to always take your shoes off. |
| Nora:Yeah, and that’s because using shoes inside is in reality very unhygienic. |
| Gina:Also, it’s not common to help out with the washing up after dinner when you’re a guest, but it is polite to help clean the table. |
| Nora:Indeed. In general, Norwegians who live in houses tend to value cleanliness, and most clean their house quite often. |
| Gina: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. In our dialogue we had a phrase that might be confusing. |
| Nora:It’s å vaske opp. |
| Gina:“To wash up”. |
| Nora:Now, there is a distinct difference between “å vaske” and “å vaske opp” in Norwegian. |
| Gina:Right. The former means “to wash” as in general washing clothes and house. The latter, however, only refers to “washing the dishes”. |
| Nora:In Norwegian this distinction often makes it easy to understand what someone is “washing”, just by hearing the verb. |
| Gina:But let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:“Jeg går og vasker opp” |
| Gina:“I’ll go wash/do (the dishes)” So it’s implied that the dishes are what he is going to wash. What’s next, Nora? |
| Nora:Jeg går og vasker jeg. |
| Gina:“I’ll go wash”. Now, this implies that whatever that person is washing is already understood between the two speakers. |
| Nora:Indeed, it’s common to omit the nouns or pronouns if possible. |
| Gina:Finally, we have a funny little letter that often comes up as slang in Norwegian. |
| Nora:“A”. |
| Gina:It isn’t really possible to translate it to English, but it’s quite similar to how “huh” is used in English. |
| Nora:So it implies that the sentence is a question... |
| Gina:Meaning it always comes at the end of a sentence. |
| Nora:These next examples are translated to be similar to the mood expressed when you use “a” at the end of the sentence. |
| Gina:Let’s have a listen. |
| Nora:“Hva driver du med a?” |
| Gina:“So, what’cha doin’?” Like we said this expresses the mood or slang. What’s next? |
| Nora:“Hvorfor kommer ikke hu a?” |
| Gina:“(What’s wrong?) Why isn’t she coming?” |
| Nora:Also note that “hu” is slang for “hun” meaning... |
| Gina:“She”. Okay, now let’s move onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Gina:The grammar point of this lesson is somewhat irregular, in many ways. |
| Nora:We’ll be dealing with the irregular verbs, and believe me, there are many of them. |
| Gina:In fact as we have said in earlier lessons, you need to learn each verb individually because you’ll have a hard time guessing what category they fall in otherwise. |
| Nora:That said, what we’re trying to do here is help make sense of what exactly is happening in the world of Norwegian verbs. |
| Gina:If you understand how the verbs work and start to get a certain feel for the language, you can use the knowledge and the feel for the language to accurately conjugate verbs you haven’t heard before. |
| Nora:Ok, let’s get back to irregular verbs. |
| Gina:The definition of irregular in Norwegian is that they don’t conform to the common present tense form for verbs.. |
| Nora:Which is adding “r” or “er” to the end of the verb. |
| Gina:The irregular verbs usually change shape when conjugating to present tense. This means they are quite easy to spot. |
| Nora:And they are usually some of the most common verbs used in Norwegian, so you’ll quickly get used to using and conjugating them. |
| Gina:Before we start looking at the most common irregular verbs however, let’s break down the sentence we had in our dialogue. |
| Nora:Jeg ha’kke tid, sa jeg. |
| Gina:In English “I don’t have time, I said.” |
| Nora:The first word here is as always the pronoun jeg or “I” in English. |
| Gina:Next we have quite a funny word. |
| Nora:In our lesson notes we wrote this word with an apostrophe. It is used solely in this lesson to make a distinction in the slang used. |
| Gina:However, apostrophes doesn’t exist in the Norwegian written language. So when you’re writing Norwegian, never use an apostrophe, even when you’re in doubt. |
| Nora:So, back to our funny word ha’kke. This is a conjunction of har... |
| Gina:...meaning “Have/has”... |
| Nora:And ikke |
| Gina:Meaning “Not”. In other words, this is slang for “have not/has not” or as it used in English “haven’t/hasn’t”. |
| Nora:We’ll look more at this slang later. Next we have the word tid... |
| Gina:Which means “time”. |
| Nora:After that we have sa |
| Gina:Which means “Said”, another verb. |
| Nora:And finally the pronoun jeg meaning “I” again. |
| Gina:So what’s up with the irregular verbs? Let’s list some of them and take a look. We’ll do this like in our previous lessons. I mention the English verb and Nora says them first in infinitive, then in present tense. |
| Nora:Alright, let’s begin! |
| Gina:“to have” |
| Nora:Å ha (Pause) har |
| Gina:“Going to” |
| Nora:Å skulle (pause) skal |
| Gina:“To be” |
| Nora:Å være (pause) er |
| Gina:“To want” |
| Nora:Å ville (pause) vil |
| Gina:“To be able to” |
| Nora:Å kunne (pause) kan |
| Gina:As you heard here, all the verbs change to some degree in present tense. |
| Nora:The verb å ha does seem to be a regular verb because in present tense it becomes har. However, in simple past tense, it is hadde and in perfect present tense it becomes har hatt. |
| Gina:Like we said earlier, there is no way to distinguish an irregular verb from a regular verb, when they are in the infinitive. |
| Nora:That’s right. This is something that has to be learned gradually. |
| Gina:Now finally, let’s look at the slang we were talking about. |
| Nora:When some irregular verbs are coupled with the negative ikke meaning “not”, you can contract the verb and the negative by removing the last consonant of the verb and the “i” in ikke. |
| Gina:Let’s look at some of the examples of this. Nora will say the word, and I’ll translate. |
| Nora:Hakke from Har ikke |
| Gina:"Haven’t" |
| Nora:Vikke from Vil ikke |
| Gina:“Won’t” |
| Nora:Kanke from Kan ikke |
| Gina:“Can’t” Here the “n” isn’t removed |
| Nora:Skakke from Skal ikke |
| Gina:“Aren’t supposed” |
| Nora:Ekke from er ikke |
| Gina:“Isn’t” |
| Nora:Great! Did you get all of them, listeners!? |
Outro |
| Gina:Good! Well, that’s all for this lesson. Remember, to check the lesson notes, and leave a comment in our comment section! |
| Nora:See you next time! Ha det |
| Gina:Thanks for listening, bye! |
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