r/norsk • u/dwchandler • Apr 01 '18

Søndagsspørsmål #221 - Sunday Question Thread

This is a weekly post to ask any question that you may not have felt deserved its own post, or have been hesitating to ask for whatever reason. No question too small or silly!

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u/tomnorsk Apr 06 '18

What is the difference between 'å kjenne' and 'å føle' as a translate of 'to feel'?

I have a feeling it is something about feeling emotionally (å føle) or physically (å kjenne) but would like to double check.

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u/Doobie_Woobie Apr 07 '18 edited Apr 07 '18

That seems about right. When in doubt, I recommend checking out Bokmålsordboka | Nynorskordboka, available online at https://ordbok.uib.no/, or by just searching for bokmålsordbok/nynorskordbok.

Here's the link to å føle and å kjenne. It's good to have when you're in the sort of grey areas between emotions and physical feelings. For example, even though the reason you feel ill is physical (your body sending you direct signals that something's wrong with you), we still say "jeg føler meg ikke så bra" - "I don't feel so good", because it's a sense, suspicion, experience, etc. of there being something wrong.

As an added bonus you can also find the proper conjugations of nouns and verbs. For masculine (hankjønn) nouns there will be a blue 'm' you can click on, for feminine (hunkjønn) there will be an 'f', and for neutral nouns (nøytrum/intetkjønn) there will be an 'n'. For verbs there will either be a blue 'verb' or 'v', for adverbs there will be 'adv.' or 'adv', and so the list goes on.

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u/insertcsaki A2 Apr 07 '18

According to my knowledge (and bab.la dictionary's examples), å kjenne is something like... to be familiar with something, to relate to something. Citing an example:

Fordi jeg kjenner til denne følelsen -- jeg kan kjenne den selv.

Because I know the feeling -- I can feel it myself.

Å føle is the verb to actually feel something... feeling lazy, hungry, feeling good, bad...

But I'm just a beginner, and I'm reciting something I have learnt from sources may not be 100% precise. If anyone could confirm or contradict me, I would love to hear their feedback. :)