Norwegian Language Basics: Verbs, Pronouns, and Plurals, Lecture notes of Organic Chemistry

Download Norwegian Language Basics: Verbs, Pronouns, and Plurals and more Lecture notes Organic Chemistry in PDF only on Docsity! UniLang Community Norwegian for Beginners Introduction Welcome to the Norwegian Course for Beginners. In five lessons we'll try to teach you the basics of the Norwegian language. Norwegian is spoken by over 4 million people in Norway. It is a Germanic language, and it is quite close to Swedish and Danish. This course will not cover Norwegian pronunciation. We plan to add a Norwegian pronunciation tutorial and also a complete course in the future, we have not done so yet due to the lack of native speakers at Unilang which could record us sound files for these two resources. If you are a native Norwegian speaker or you know any who could help us, send a message to webmaster@unilang.org . Lesson 1: To Be The verb to be in Norwegian is easy, just like any other verb in Norwegian: it has only one single form for all persons, either plural or singular! Whether it is I, you or they who is performing an action, the verb form will always be the same for that verbal tense, and this is valid for any verb, at any tense! A great incentive for learning Norwegian... As for the verb "to be", its name in Norwegian is å være, and its present tense form is er (å is the infinitive marker for the Norwegian verb, just like the English to is. It doesn't work as a preposition like the English to, though). When we refer to the verb itself, without the å/to, we call it bare infinitive. Now let's start by teaching you how to introduce yourself: Jeg er Morten. I am Morten. That is your very first Norwegian sentence, where you introduce yourself as Morten. That's a person; of course you should replace it with your own name. Although the sentence consists of only three words, we are going to carefully examine each word. The first word jeg is the equivalent of the English word I, also referred to as the personal pronoun of the first person singular. The second word er is a verb. It's the present form of the verb å være, which is the equivalent of to be, and as we told above it can be used for all persons. Now we've seen how to introduce yourself using jeg er, but we can also introduce other people. Take a look at the following examples: 1 Jeg er Morten. I am Morten. Du er Morten. You are Morten. Han er Morten. He is Morten. Hun er Anne. She is Anne. Det er Morten. It is/This is Morten. Vi er Morten og Anne. We are Morten and Anne. Dere er Morten og Anne. You are Morten and Anne. De er Morten og Anne. They are Morten and Anne. That's a lot of new words! But it's all very easy. Now you've seen all personal pronouns in Norwegian, you know how to refer to people. Besides, you've also learned your first Norwegian verb, the irregular verb å være, in English to be. There is another small word that appeared in this lesson: og, which means and. Det is usually employed for things, meaning it. It can also be used for this, and there are other pronouns with similar usage. You can use it in contexts like Someone has come in. Who is it? It's Morten. VOCABULARY In each lesson, we'll ask you to learn a number of new words. This time, we'll give you a couple of very easy words. Learn them in both directions, English-Norwegian and Norwegian-English. far father mor mother bestefar grandfather bestemor grandmother EXERCISES Each lesson will come with some exercises, so you can practice the grammar and vocabulary of the lesson. Exercise A: Translate to English 1) Hun er Hilde. 2) Det er far. 3) De er Per og Jan. 4) Hun er mor. 5) Du er bestemor. 6) Du er bestefar. 7) Vi er Marit og Bjørn. Exercise B: Translate to Norwegian 1) We are Anne and Ole. 2) You are father. 3) I am mother. 4) She is grandmother. 5) They are Lars and Kristin. 6) You are Camilla and Anders. 7) You are grandfather. 2 VOCABULARY Learn the following words. The words of the previous lesson are mentioned again, but this time we also show what article(s) to use (remember that the definite feminine article is -a, and not ei.. far (en) father mor (en/ei) mother bestefar (en) grandfather bestemor (en/ei) grandmother hus (et) house hund (en) dog katt (en) cat barn (et) child dyr (et) animal bord (et) table bok (en/ei) book lekse (en/ei) homework avis (en/ei) newspaper har have (present tense) leser read (present tense) på on, at hjemme at home EXERCISES Exercise A: Translate to English: 1) En katt er et dyr. 2) Det er et hus. 3) Moren har en hund. 4) Boken er på bordet. 5) Barnet har en lekse. 6) Bestemoren og bestefaren leser avisa. 7) Faren er hjemme. Exercise B: Translate to Norwegian: 1) The grandmother has a cat. 2) A dog is an animal. 3) The table has a book. 4) The grandmother and the grandfather have a dog. 5) The mother has a dog and the father has a cat. 6) We have a table. 7) They have the house. 5 SOLUTIONS Exercise A: 1) A cat is an animal. 2) This is a house. 3) The mother has a dog. 4) The book is on the table. 5) The children have homework. 6) The grandmother and the grandfather read the newspaper. 7) The father is at home. Exercise B: 1) Bestemoren har en katt. 2) En hund er et dyr. 3) Bordet har en bok. 4) Bestemoren og bestefaren har en hund. 5) Moren har en hund og faren har en katt. 6) Vi har et bord. 7) De har huset. 6 Lesson 3: The Present of the Verbs So far you have met three verbal forms in Norwegian: er, har and leser. All of them end in r. Coincidence?! Absolutely not! This is the ending for the present tense of the Norwegian verbs! The verb er, to be, is irregular: its infinitive is å være. But the other two verbs are regular. Based on this, what would be the rule for making the present tense of a regular Norwegian verb? You got it right if you said: just add an r to its bare infinitive. So, ha becomes har, and lese becomes leser. And these forms can be used for all persons! It couldn't be easier, could it? In fact, most of the Norwegian verbs end in e (kjenne, bade, sove) and make the present form by adding r (kjenner, bader, sover). Norwegian doesn't have continuous tenses like English (I am doing, I am working), so the Norwegian present tense works for both simple present and present continuous tenses in English. Of course there are irregular verbs. The verb to be is irregular in most languages, and Norwegian is no exception, as we saw above. But these regular verbs are no menace at all! Below are the most important irregular verbs: være (be) er gjøre (do) gjør vite (know) vet si (say) sier spørre (ask) spør Some modal verbs, like kunne (can), ville (will, want), måtte (must, have to) and some very few verbs which end in s, like finnes (exist) and synes (think) are irregular as well. VOCABULARY å skrive to write å prøve to try å snakke to speak å spise to eat å hjelpe to help å se to see å like to like engelsk English tysk German brev (et) letter tomat (en/ei) tomato bror (en) brother søster (en/ei) sister sønn (en) son datter (en/ei) daughter is (en) ice, ice-cream språk (et) language 7 EXERCISES Exercise A: Translate to English: 1) Barna snakker mange språk. 2) Hundene spiser tomater. 3) Han besøker aldri foreldrene. 4) De liker å kjøpe bøker. 5) En datter skriver brevene. 6) Bestemødre hjelper barna. 7) Brødrene ser alltid dyr. Exercise B: Translate to Norwegian: 1) Mothers like children. 2) The dogs see the table. 3) He has many ideas. 4) The grandfathers are buying two cats. 5) A boy is seeing three girls. 6) The sons and the daughters likes the father. 7) The boy visits the parents. SOLUTIONS Exercise A: 1) The children speak many languages. 2) The dogs eat tomatoes. 3) He never visits the parents. 4) They like to buy books. 5) A daughter writes the letters. 6) Grandmothers help the children. 7) The brothers always see animals. Exercise B: 1) Mødre liker barn. 2) Hundene ser bordet. 3) Han har mange idéer. 4) Bestefedrene kjøper to katter. 5) En gutt ser tre jenter. 6) Sønnene og døtrene liker faren. 7) Gutten besøker foreldrene. 10 Lesson 5: Personal Object Pronouns So far you've used the personal pronouns I, you, he, they etc. in Norwegian only as the subject of a sentence. It is time to learn how to use them as the object of a sentence. In other words, it's time to learn how to say me, him, her and them in Norwegian. The Norwegian object pronouns are very easy. Their form resembles the English equivalents a lot, and, as in English, they can be used both as direct and indirect objects, even when preceded by a preposition. There's no special form for the indirect object as it does in German, for example. Below we have the Norwegian object pronouns: meg (me) deg (you) ham (him) henne (her) det/den (it)* oss (us) dere (you) dem (them) • Den is another word which can mean it, and may also be translated as that. VOCABULARY å vente to wait å gi to give å glemme to forget å treffe to meet venn (en, er) friend med with EXERCISES Exercise A: Translate to English: 1) Hundene hjelper ham. 2) Hun venter på deg! 3) Moren gir meg en bok. 4) Jeg besøker dem alltid. 5) Bestemoren liker oss. 6) Vi glemmer den aldri. 7) Kan jeg hjelpe deg?. Exercise B: Translate to Norwegian: 1) The cats are seeing us. 2) The grandmothers like him. 3) He likes it. 4) The friends never visit her. 5) Morten and Anne, can I help you? 6) The sons and the daughters always forget it. 7) The grandfather is reading with them. 11 SOLUTIONS Exercise A: 1) The dogs help him. 2) She is waiting for you! 3) The mother gives me a book. 4) I always visit them. 5) The grandmother likes us. 6) We never forget it. 7) Can I help you? Exercise B: 1) Kattene ser oss. 2) Bestemødrene liker ham. 3) Han liker det. 4) Vennene besøker henne aldri. 5) Morten og Anne, kan jeg hjelpe dere? 6) Sønnene og døtrene glemmer den alltid. 7) Bestefaren leser med dem. 12