Learn About Verbs In Norwegian Part 2

A verb tells something about what is happening or the action taken. Associated with a verb is the tense of the verb. Norwegian verbs can use one of four tenses: presens, preteritum, futurum and perfektum.

We have learnt about the infinitive form of the verb as well as the presens tense of the verb.

Let us continue learning about the tenses of Norwegian verbs continuing with the past tense.

Preteritum (Past Tense)

A Norwegian verb in the preteritum indicates something that has already happened.

Note that the preteritum form is created by adding a te to the infinitiv as below. Also note that it is necessary to specify the time when using preteritum (e.g. yesterday, one week ago, etc).

Infinitiv	Preteritum	Example	English
å lese	leste	Han leste i går.	He read yesterday.
å reise	reiste	Hun reiste i går.	She traveled yesterday.
å kjøpe	kjøpte	Jeg kjøpte is i går.	I bought ice cream yesterday.
å lage	laget	Han laget middag i går også.	He made dinner yesterday also.
å sparke	sparket	De sparket fotball i går også.	They kicked football yesterday also.
å gjøre	gjorde	Hun gjorde leksene sine før hun gikk.	She did her lessons before she went.
å gå	gikk	Vi gikk på ski før en uke siden.	We went to ski a week ago.

As you can see above, there are a few exceptions to the “rule” of adding te to the infinitiv. We will learn more about them in future posts.