Learn how to make questions and question tags in Norwegian
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Intro |
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| Michael: How are questions made in Norwegian? |
| Inger: And what about question tags? |
| Michael: At NorwegianClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Trine Tvedt is asking her neighbors whether they'll join her party. Mark Lee wants to join but seeks confirmation from his wife: "Are you coming to our party?" |
| Trine: Kommer du til festen vår? |
| Dialogue |
| Trine: Kommer du til festen vår? |
| Mark: Vi skal, ikke sant? |
| Karen: Ja, vi kommer. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Trine: Kommer du til festen vår? |
| Michael: "Are you coming to our party?" |
| Mark: Vi skal, ikke sant? |
| Michael: "We are going, aren't we?" |
| Karen: Ja, vi kommer. |
| Michael: "Yes, we're coming." |
| Michael: In this lesson, you will be learning how to form questions in Norwegian. The easiest questions to form are those where the only required response is a "yes" or a "no." Questions that use the usual question words such as "what," "where," "when," and so on are a little more difficult to learn, but they are still relatively easy because they don’t differ that much from the way questions are formed in English. We’ll also have a brief look at question tags in Norwegian. |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let's take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Trine asks "Are you coming to our party?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Inger as Trine: Kommer du til festen vår? |
| Michael: Here, Trine is asking "Are you coming to our party?" and the other person is only required to reply with "yes" or "no." As I mentioned previously, understanding how to form these questions in Norwegian is pretty easy. In English, one might need an auxiliary verb like "do" in order to form a "yes" or "no" question, but not in Norwegian. In Norwegian, all you have to do is put the verb at the beginning of the sentence. It really is that simple. Let’s take a simple statement like "It is raining," or |
| Inger: Det regner |
| Michael: and then put the verb at the beginning of the sentence. Now, it sounds like this: |
| Inger: Regner det? |
| Michael: and it has become the question: "Is it raining?" So simple. As a further example, let’s break down the question in our dialogue in the same way. First, we’ll look at it as a statement: |
| Inger: Du kommer til festen vår. |
| Michael: This means "You are coming to our party." Next, we take the verb, which is "coming" or |
| Inger: kommer |
| Michael: and put it at the front of the sentence. |
| Inger: Kommer du til festen vår? |
| Michael: And there you have it, now it means: "Are you coming to our party?" So, again, a simple "yes" or "no" question has been constructed simply by starting the sentence with the verb. It would be a good idea to practice doing this on your own with a few easy sentences. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let's take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Mark asks "We're going, aren't we?" |
| (pause 4 seconds) |
| Inger as Mark Lee: Vi skal, ikke sant? |
| Michael: Here, Mark Lee is asking "We’re going, aren’t we?" The words "aren’t we" at the end of the sentence comprise what is called a question tag. |
| Michael: A question tag is a word or phrase that is added, usually at the end of a declarative sentence, in order to convert that sentence into a question. Norwegian people don’t make as frequent use of question tags as English speakers do. There are Norwegian words that one can insert into a sentence to perform a function similar to question tags in English, but understanding how these work would require a lesson on its own. For now, let’s stick to the tag you heard in the dialogue. It was |
| Inger: ikke sant? |
| Michael: Translated directly into English, this means "not true?" but the meaning is more akin to the English "right?," as in "We’re going, right?," That’s because this Norwegian question tag usually converts a statement into a question that is more or less rhetorical. The person is asking for confirmation, but they are pretty sure you are going to agree with them. They might be so sure that you would not even have to answer. For instance, in the dialogue, Mark is asking his wife if they are going to the party, but he is already pretty sure that they are. He is simply seeking confirmation. |
| Another way in which one can use part of this tag is to place it after a question. For instance, if Mark had asked, |
| Inger: Kommer vi, eller? |
| Michael: he would have been less sure of the answer. Norwegian people use |
| Inger: eller? |
| Michael: after a question when they are not one hundred percent sure about something. In this case, the tag means something akin to "or" in English. One can almost imagine an ellipsis, or three dots, at the end of the sentence. In other words, the person asking the question is leaving it open, waiting for the other person to confirm. Imagine you approach a line of people waiting outside the bank and are unsure if the last person is in the queue or not. This would be the kind of situation in which you could use this tag. For instance, you could ask: |
| Inger: Står du i køen, eller ...? |
| Michael: which translates to "Are you in the queue, or…?" As I mentioned earlier, using |
| Inger: eller? |
| Michael: is not the only way to form a question through the means of a question tag in Norwegian, but it is by far the simplest. For now, if you are not sure how to use question tags, this is the best one to use. |
| Now that you have learned a bit about "yes" or "no" questions, as well as question tags in Norwegian, it’s time to get down to learning how to form questions with question words. As I mentioned earlier, these are words like "what," "where," "when," and so on. |
| In order to give you a quick overview of these, I am going to list ten of them and Inger will repeat the Norwegian form of each. We will pause briefly after each one in case you’d like to repeat them. The first one is "what" or |
| Inger: hva |
| Michael: [pause] The next one is "which," |
| Inger: hvilken |
| Michael: [pause] and following that is "where" or |
| Inger: hvor |
| Michael: [pause] We also have "when," |
| Inger: når |
| Michael: [pause] and "who," |
| Inger: hvem |
| Michael: [pause] This next one sounds a lot like the last one, so it should be easy to remember. It means "whose": |
| Inger: hvem sin or hvem sitt |
| Michael: [pause] We can’t forget about "why" of course. It sounds like this: |
| Inger: hvorfor |
| Michael: [pause] I’m sure you will remember this next and final one from our discussion of question tags. It is "how" or |
| Inger: hvordan |
| Michael: [Pause] And, when you’re counting, you are going to use "how many" |
| Inger: hvor mange |
| Michael: [Pause] and "how much" |
| Inger: hvor mye |
| Michael: [Pause] Naturally, you won't be able to memorize all of these at once, so we will discuss a few of the more important ones. They are the ones you are more likely to use if you meet a Norwegian person for the first time, for instance. A common question in which you will find this question word is: |
| Inger: Hvor kommer du fra? |
| Michael: As you can hear, the question word has been broken into two, and the part that translates to "where" has been placed at the beginning of the sentence, while the part that translates to "from" has been placed at the end. Translated directly into English, this sentence would be "Where come you from?" Hopefully, the way that this question word is broken up will help you to remember that Norwegian question words always come at or near the beginning of the sentence. What I mean to emphasize is that "where" is a question word, while "from" is not. |
| Speaking of "where," let’s use that as our next example of a useful question word. We can use it to ask "Where do you live?" or |
| Inger: hvor bor du? |
| Michael: The word |
| Inger: hvor, |
| Michael: as I'm sure you know by now, means "where." You can hear that, just as in the previous example, it was placed at the beginning of the sentence. |
| And while we’re on the subject of beginnings, next we have one of the first questions one usually asks when meeting someone for the first time. |
| Inger: Hvordan har du det? |
| Michael: Did you recognize that first word? It means "how" of course and the sentence means "How are you?" You can use it during an introduction, or with someone you already know. Another one of these introductory questions is |
| Inger: Hva heter du? |
| Michael: The first word in that sentence was |
| Inger: hva |
| Michael: Did you recognize it too? It means "what" and the sentence means "What is your name?" Obviously, this is a question that, hopefully, you will only have to ask when meeting someone for the first time. |
| Let’s conclude our exploration of question words here. With the words you have learned thus far, as well as the questions you learned, you should now be able to navigate your way through introductions to Norwegian strangers with relative ease. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned how to form questions in Norwegian. This included learning how to form "yes" or "no" questions by simply putting the verb first in the sentence. It also included learning about the question tags, |
| Inger: ikke sant? and eller? |
| Michael: which are used like the English for "right?" They are two of the only question tags in Norwegian that are used in more or less the same way that question tags are used in English. |
| You also learned how to form questions with question words such as "where," "when," and "what." Remember to always put the question word at the beginning of the question, just as in English. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Another thing we focused on was that, with question word questions, the question word always comes first in the sentence. What you might find useful to know is that the rest of the sentence is also structured in a uniform way. When a question word is used to form a question, it is always first, and then it is followed by the verb, which, in turn, is followed by the subject. Listen to this example: |
| Inger: Hva spiser hun? |
| Michael: This means, "What does she eat?" Let’s assume we are talking about what someone has for a snack every day. If you were listening carefully, you will have noticed how the question word was followed by the verb |
| Inger: spise |
| Michael: or "eat" and that this was then followed by the subject |
| Inger: hun |
| Michael: or "she." The direct translation of the sentence would be "What eats she?" Listen to another example, this time using the Norwegian word for "when": |
| Inger: Når spiser hun? |
| Michael: This means, "When does she eat?" I’m sure you heard that the word order was exactly the same as in the previous question. There is an exception to this rule which you should probably take note of, but it is not one that is difficult to remember or understand. It happens when there is no subject because the subject is implied by the question word. Consider this example: |
| Inger: Hva skjedde? |
| Michael: It means "What happened?" The order is actually still the same as in other questions with question words; the only difference is that the subject is omitted. If you can remember the rule about word order in question word questions, and this exception to that rule, then you will be able to form just about any Norwegian question word question that you need to. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Inger: Ha det! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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