r/norsk • u/dwchandler • Nov 25 '18

Søndagsspørsmål #255 - 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/Akihiko95 Nov 29 '18

I would like to ask a question about word order in sentences, specifically regarding adverbs order in subordinate clauses once again.

My understanding is that when a subordinate clause is introduce by the norwegian "at" for example, the adverb must follow the subject, placing itself between subject and verb (as in the norwegian phrase "ryktene sier at spill bare er tull" for example).

I would like to know how adverbs are placed in subordinate clauses were a modal verb is used. The general rule of adverbs placement in phrases with modal verbs is to place the adverb between the modal verb and the other verb (as in the norwegian phrase "jeg kan ikke gjøre det"). Would this placement change in a subordinate clause that starts with" at" for example, or som or any other subjunctive?

I'm asking because i wanted to say to my norwegian friends that i still can't speak their language with them cause my norwegian is bad and i wrote something like this : "æ e redd at æ kan ikke snakke på norsk med dokker fordi min norsk e ganske dårlig" and i dont really know if the word order is fine. I don't even know if my sentence sounds natural to a native so if anyone wants to lemme know that and/or rearrange the sentence in order to make it sound more natural i would appreciate that too

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u/RoomRocket Native Speaker Nov 29 '18 edited Nov 29 '18

They flip.

"æ e redd (førr) at æ ikke kan snakke på norsk med dokker fordi norsken min e ganske dårlig".

Men æ syns du ska prøve å snakke norsk med den norsken du har!

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u/Akihiko95 Nov 29 '18

Haha tusen takk for forklaringen. I think ill give it a try, as you can see they kind of influenced me with their Harstad dialect and im kind of curious to try to speak it. As far as pronunciation goes it seems easier compared to bokmål cause it shortens a lot of words and drops a lot of sounds. Difficult to get used to all those "a" ending words tough (rotat instead of rotete kind of baffled me when i first read it haha)

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u/RoomRocket Native Speaker Nov 29 '18

You will find most of the dialect features in nynorsk grammar, such as noun and strong verbs

Nouns:

Nynorsk

Ball - ballen - ballar - ballane

Jente - jenta - jenter - jentene

Harstad:

Ball - ballen - balla - ballan

Jente - jenta - jente - jenten

Strong verb example :

Nynorsk:

Bryte - bryt - braut - har brote

Harstad:

Bryte - bryt - brøyt - har brøtte

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u/Akihiko95 Nov 29 '18

How do they differentiate between the singular and plural version of jente since its the same? By context?

I noticed that some things in their dialect is quite confusing especially for a learner, like when using the present tense they drop the final r so the verb kinds of become similar to the infinitive form but without the å (I speak=æ snakke)

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u/RoomRocket Native Speaker Nov 29 '18 edited Nov 29 '18

Æ såg ei jente

Æ såg jente

Æ åt ei reke

Æ åt reke

And yeah

Æ snakke, æ spis, æ kaste, æ hoppe osv.

Edit: not uncommon to say -e ending feminine noun as -a, ex: ei jenta, ei rypa, ei klokka. So ei klokka, klokka, klokke, klokken

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u/Akihiko95 Nov 30 '18

That's interesting. I probably need a translation of the two phrases you used as an example tough, the ones with Anne and Lars.

The first one is particularly "weird" cause i dont know what "te" means and why ho (that should be the dialect version of henne) is there.

The second example i would probably translate it as "Lars I'm going home now" (altough I'm getting home would probably be a more literal translation), but I'm not totally sure. Your language is complicated, especially the spoken variants of it (all those dialects) haha

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u/RoomRocket Native Speaker Nov 30 '18

"te" is dialect of til (te, tell).

Ho is hun in nynorsk.

In quite a few dialects in Norwegian pronouns are used in front of names (and fellesnavn) when talking in third person.

"han Lars", "ho Anne", "han nissen":

"Æ og han Lars" Lars is not present in the conversation. "Æ og Lars" Lars is present in the conversation.

"Æ møtte ho Anne"

"Det va æ og han Fredrik"

The last phrase literally is, "Lars, I go homewards now". No pronoun as Lars is second person.

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u/Akihiko95 Nov 30 '18

Thank you, all of this was very insightful, ill remember it from now, I'm sure it will be useful when talking to my norwegian friends

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u/RoomRocket Native Speaker Nov 29 '18

Another thing is that third person has a pronoun, in names: "Æ sa te ho Anne at han Frank ..."

Not when speaking second person: "Lars, æ fær heimover no"