Degree Adverbs: veldig, ganske, altfor, litt | Norwegian Grammar

Degree adverbs turn the volume up or down. They sit in front of an adjective or another adverb and tell you how much — very big, quite good, far too expensive, a little tired. English maps this scale with words like very, quite, rather, fairly, too, completely, almost, and Norwegian has a near-perfect parallel set. The two places English speakers stumble are both about picking the wrong word: reaching for mye (much) to mean very, and missing that for/altfor specifically mark excess ("too much"), not just a high degree. Get the scale below into your ear and these adverbs become automatic.

The intensity scale

Here is the everyday ladder, from weak to strong:

Norwegian	English	Strength
litt	a little / a bit	weak
ganske / nokså / temmelig	quite / fairly / rather	moderate
ikke særlig	not particularly	low (negated)
så	so	strong
veldig	very	strong
kjempe- / utrolig / ekstremt	super- / incredibly / extremely	very strong
helt	completely	absolute (with gradable-to-the-limit words)
altfor / for	far too / too	excess (beyond the acceptable point)

Huset er veldig stort.

The house is very big.

Kaffen er litt for sterk for meg.

The coffee is a little too strong for me.

Jeg er helt enig.

I completely agree.

veldig is "very" — not mye

The most reliable error English speakers make: using mye for very. The reasoning is understandable — English much and Norwegian mye line up everywhere else. But mye modifies verbs and nouns (much money, works a lot), not adjectives. To intensify an adjective, the word is veldig.

Det er veldig kaldt i dag.

It's very cold today.

Han jobber mye.

He works a lot.

Det er mye snø ute.

There's a lot of snow outside.

See the division of labour: veldig kaldt (very + adjective), jobber mye (verb + a lot), mye snø (a lot of + noun). They are not interchangeable. Veldig snø and mye kaldt are both wrong.

💡

Anchor it like this: veldig stands in front of a describing word (veldig fin, veldig fort); mye stands with an action or a quantity (spiser mye, mye folk). If the next word is an adjective or adverb, you almost always want veldig, never mye.

ganske: the ambiguous one

ganske is the trickiest degree adverb because it is genuinely two-faced. Depending on tone, context, and what is being described, it can mean a modest fairly/quite or a much warmer really quite a lot. This ambiguity is real and native speakers exploit it.

Det er ganske bra.

It's quite good. (could be 'fairly good' or 'really pretty good')

Det var ganske dyrt.

It was rather expensive.

In a flat, neutral tone, ganske bra often means "good but not amazing" — like English fairly. With warmth or emphasis, the same ganske bra can mean "actually really good." There is no rule that resolves this; you read it from the situation, exactly as with English quite (compare British quite good = lukewarm vs. quite right = emphatic). Near-synonyms nokså and temmelig lean toward the neutral fairly/rather reading and carry less of the warm sense.

Hun er temmelig sikker på at hun har rett.

She's fairly certain she's right.

for and altfor: the excess words

This is the conceptual point that English speakers most often miss. for and altfor do not just mean "a high degree" — they mean too much, past the acceptable point. They carry a built-in negative judgement: the thing has exceeded what is wanted or right.

Maten var altfor salt.

The food was far too salty.

Det er for dyrt — jeg kjøper det ikke.

It's too expensive — I'm not buying it.

Veldig dyrt means very expensive (a fact, maybe still worth it). For dyrt means too expensive (a problem — beyond what I'll pay). That gap is the whole point: veldig describes degree, for/altfor describes excess. altfor is simply a stronger for — far too, way too — and is usually written as one word.

Det er veldig varmt, men ikke altfor varmt.

It's very warm, but not too warm.

That single sentence shows the contrast cleanly: veldig varmt (very, fine) standing against altfor varmt (too much, a problem). Note that this degree-adverb for is a different animal from the preposition for (for/because) and the conjunction for — see prepositions/for for the full disambiguation. The excess sense extends naturally to quantities with mye: for mye = too much, for mange = too many.

Du jobber for mye.

You work too much.

helt and nesten: the endpoints

helt (completely) and nesten (almost) sit at the extremes of the scale. helt pushes to the absolute limit and pairs best with adjectives that can be "maxed out" — enig (in agreement), ferdig (finished), tom (empty), sikker (certain).

Jeg er helt enig med deg.

I completely agree with you.

Flaska er nesten tom.

The bottle is almost empty.

Vi er nesten ferdige.

We're almost finished.

helt also commonly intensifies in a more colloquial way — helt utrolig (completely incredible), helt feil (completely wrong) — where it just means "totally."

Common Mistakes

❌ Det er mye stor.

Incorrect — mye does not intensify adjectives; use veldig.

✅ Det er veldig stort.

It's very big.

The flagship error. Mye goes with verbs and nouns; to intensify an adjective, use veldig. (Note also stort — the neuter adjective form, since det is neuter.)

❌ Maten var veldig salt — jeg kunne ikke spise den.

Imprecise — if it's a problem, you mean 'too', which is for/altfor, not 'very'.

✅ Maten var altfor salt — jeg kunne ikke spise den.

The food was far too salty — I couldn't eat it.

Veldig salt (very salty) is a neutral fact; if the saltiness is the problem that stops you eating, you need the excess word for/altfor. English too maps to for/altfor, never to veldig.

❌ Jeg er enig veldig.

Incorrect — the degree adverb goes before the word it modifies, not after.

✅ Jeg er veldig enig.

I very much agree.

Degree adverbs stand in front of the adjective or adverb they scale. (For very much agree the idiomatic phrasing is helt enig — completely agree.)

❌ Det er for stor til å være sant.

Wrong word — 'too good to be true' uses an idiom; and watch the agreement.

✅ Det er for godt til å være sant.

It's too good to be true.

This is the fixed expression for godt til å være sant. The point to absorb: for + adjective = too + adjective (the excess sense), and the adjective still takes its correct neuter form (godt).

❌ Jeg er ganske helt enig.

Incorrect — you cannot stack a moderate degree word onto an absolute one.

✅ Jeg er helt enig.

I completely agree.

helt (completely) is already an absolute; you cannot soften it with ganske (fairly). Pick one degree word.

Key Takeaways

veldig = very, and intensifies adjectives/adverbs. mye = much/a lot, and goes with verbs and nouns — they are not interchangeable.
ganske is genuinely ambiguous (fairly vs. really quite), read from tone; nokså/temmelig lean neutral.
for and altfor mark excess — too (much), beyond the acceptable point — distinct from veldig (very). for mye = too much.
helt (completely) and nesten (almost) are the scale's endpoints; helt pairs with "max-out" adjectives.
Degree adverbs always sit in front of the word they modify.

Now practice Norwegian

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Norwegian→