Comparison is not just an adjective ending. The forms eldre ("older"), raskere ("faster"), mer interessant ("more interesting") are covered on the adjective comparison page; this page is about what comes after them — the clause that says what you are comparing to. Norwegian builds these second members as small subordinate structures introduced by enn ("than"), som ("as"), or the correlative jo … desto ("the … the …"). Each has its own grammar, its own pitfalls for English speakers, and one structure — jo … desto — that, once mastered, sounds impressively native.
enn + a noun phrase: the basic comparative
The plain comparative pairs a comparative form with enn ("than") plus a noun or pronoun:
Han er høyere enn broren sin.
He is taller than his brother.
Denne kofferten er tyngre enn jeg trodde.
This suitcase is heavier than I thought.
Two orthographic and lexical warnings before anything else. enn ("than") is spelled with a double n. The word en (single n) means "a/one." They are pronounced almost alike, so it is purely a spelling discipline: høyere enn deg ("taller than you") versus en venn ("a friend"). Mixing them up is one of the most common written slips even among Norwegians.
enn + meg vs enn jeg: the case question
Here is the single thorniest point. When the thing after enn is a pronoun, which form do you use — the object form (meg, deg, ham, henne, oss, dem) or the subject form (jeg, du, han, hun, vi, de)?
Everyday spoken Norwegian uses the object form:
Hun er eldre enn meg.
She is older than me. (everyday, object form — the natural spoken choice)
De løper fortere enn oss.
They run faster than us.
This is exactly like colloquial English, which says "taller than me," not "taller than I." So an English speaker's instinct here is right — and yet English speakers are the ones most likely to get it wrong, by hypercorrection. Schooled to "fix" than me into than I, they carry that fix into Norwegian and produce enn jeg, which sounds stiff and over-formal in speech. In Norwegian, enn meg is not a mistake to be corrected — it is the normal form.
The subject form is only natural when you make the comparison into a full clause, supplying a verb. Then the pronoun is the genuine subject of that verb, and the subject form is required:
Hun er eldre enn jeg er.
She is older than I am. (full clause — verb 'er' present, so subject form)
Han spiser mer enn jeg gjør.
He eats more than I do. (with the verb 'gjør', the subject form is correct)
So there are two clean options, and the careful writer picks one and finishes it:
- enn + object pronoun, no verb: eldre enn meg (natural, everyday).
- enn + subject pronoun + verb (a full clause): eldre enn jeg er (careful, complete).
What you should not do is the half-and-half enn jeg with no following verb — a bare subject pronoun hanging after enn. It is the written hypercorrection trap, and while you will see it in over-edited prose, it sounds awkward to most native ears.
enn + a full clause: comparing against what someone thought
Beyond pronouns, enn very often introduces a whole subordinate clause — you compare reality against an expectation, a belief, a prediction. The clause keeps normal subordinate word order (subject before verb, no inversion):
Filmen var bedre enn jeg hadde forventet.
The film was better than I had expected.
Det tok lengre tid enn vi hadde regnet med.
It took longer than we had reckoned with.
Han kom tidligere enn avtalt.
He arrived earlier than agreed.
Notice in the last example that the clause can be reduced to almost nothing — enn avtalt ("than agreed") — the most extreme form of the ellipsis we turn to below.
Equatives: like … som and så … som
To say two things are the same degree, not more or less, Norwegian uses an equative frame with som ("as"). There are two main patterns:
like + adjective + som = "as … as" (equal degree):
Hun er like flink som broren.
She is as good (skilled) as her brother.
Bilen er like rask som vinden.
The car is as fast as the wind.
så + adjective + som = "as … as," often in fixed or emphatic comparisons and after a negative:
Det er ikke så ille som du tror.
It's not as bad as you think.
Kom så fort som mulig.
Come as fast as possible.
The key contrast for English speakers: English uses as … as for both halves (as fast as), but Norwegian splits the labour. The first "as" is like (or så); the second "as" is som. You cannot use som for both, and you cannot use like for both. The pattern is fixed: like X som Y.
som om — "as if"
A special equative is som om ("as if / as though"), introducing a hypothetical comparison — a manner clause that describes how something seems, often counter to fact:
Han oppfører seg som om ingenting har skjedd.
He behaves as if nothing has happened.
Det ser ut som om det skal regne.
It looks as if it's going to rain.
Hun snakket til meg som om jeg var et barn.
She spoke to me as if I were a child. (counterfactual — note the past var)
As in English ("as if I were a child"), the counterfactual som om clause leans toward a past-tense verb (var, hadde) to mark unreality. This is the same backshift English uses, so it transfers naturally.
jo … desto / jo … jo — the correlative comparative
This is the structure competitors skip and the one that earns you native-level credit: the proportional correlative, English "the more … the more …." Norwegian has two forms, jo … desto and jo … jo, and they mean the same thing. Both halves must contain a comparative:
Jo mer jeg leser, desto mer forstår jeg.
The more I read, the more I understand.
Jo eldre jeg blir, jo mindre vet jeg.
The older I get, the less I know.
The grammar has three moving parts that all have to be right:
- jo opens the first half; desto (or a second jo) opens the second half. The pair jo … desto is slightly more formal/written; jo … jo is a touch more colloquial — both are fully standard.
- The comparative is fronted in each half — it rides at the very front, right after jo/desto: jo *mer …, desto mer …; jo **eldre …, jo mindre …*. You cannot leave the comparative in its normal mid-clause position.
- The second half inverts: after desto/jo + comparative, the verb comes before the subject. Look closely: desto mer forstår jeg, not desto mer jeg forstår. The fronted desto-element triggers V2 inversion, so the finite verb precedes the subject — exactly as it would after any fronted element in a Norwegian main clause.
| Half | Structure | Example |
|---|---|---|
| First (subordinate-like) | jo + comparative + subject + verb | Jo mer du øver, |
| Second (main, inverted) | desto/jo + comparative + verb + subject | desto bedre blir du. |
Jo mer du øver, desto bedre blir du.
The more you practise, the better you get. (note the inversion: blir du, not du blir)
Jo lenger vi ventet, desto sintere ble passasjerene.
The longer we waited, the angrier the passengers got.
Jo billigere det er, jo flere kjøper det.
The cheaper it is, the more people buy it.
For an English speaker the architecture is familiar — the more …, the more … — but two things are new: the opener is jo (not a word resembling "the"), and the second half inverts the verb. English keeps subject-before-verb in both halves ("the better you get"); Norwegian flips the second half ("desto bedre blir du"). Get that inversion in and the sentence snaps into a fully idiomatic shape.
Ellipsis in comparatives: leaving out the obvious
Comparative clauses love ellipsis — dropping a verb the listener can supply. Hun løper raskere enn meg is, in full, Hun løper raskere enn meg (gjør) / enn jeg (gjør) — "than I do." The verb gjør ("do") or a repeat of the main verb is simply left out because it is recoverable:
Hun løper raskere enn meg.
She runs faster than me. (full form: enn jeg gjør / enn meg gjør — 'than I do')
Du forstår dette bedre enn jeg gjør.
You understand this better than I do. (verb restored: gjør)
Han betalte mer for bilen enn den var verdt.
He paid more for the car than it was worth.
English does the very same trimming ("faster than me," "better than I do"), so ellipsis transfers without trouble. The one thing to keep straight is the case interaction from earlier: when you drop the verb, the everyday choice is the object pronoun (enn meg); when you keep a verb, you need the subject pronoun (enn jeg gjør). The ellipsis and the case go hand in hand.
Common Mistakes
❌ Hun er eldre en meg.
Spelling error — 'than' is enn (double n); en (single n) means 'a/one'.
✅ Hun er eldre enn meg.
She is older than me.
❌ Han er høyere enn jeg.
Hypercorrection — a bare subject pronoun with no verb sounds stiff; use the object form enn meg, or finish the clause: enn jeg er.
✅ Han er høyere enn meg. / Han er høyere enn jeg er.
He is taller than me. / He is taller than I am.
❌ Bilen er like rask som vinden som.
Doubling error — the equative frame is like … som, with only one som: like rask som vinden.
✅ Bilen er like rask som vinden.
The car is as fast as the wind.
❌ Jo mer jeg leser, desto mer jeg forstår.
Missing inversion — after desto + comparative the verb must precede the subject: desto mer forstår jeg.
✅ Jo mer jeg leser, desto mer forstår jeg.
The more I read, the more I understand.
❌ Mer du øver, mer bedre blir du.
Two errors — the opener must be jo (not bare 'mer'), and you don't stack 'mer' onto a comparative; use jo … desto with the bare comparative bedre.
✅ Jo mer du øver, desto bedre blir du.
The more you practise, the better you get.
Key Takeaways
- enn ("than", double n — never en) introduces the second member of a comparative: a noun, a pronoun, or a full clause.
- After enn, use the object pronoun in everyday speech (enn meg) or a full clause with the subject pronoun (enn jeg er). Avoid the dangling, hypercorrect enn jeg.
- Equatives use like … som / så … som ("as … as") — first slot like/så, second slot som, never som … som. som om = "as if" (often with a counterfactual past).
- The correlative jo … desto / jo … jo ("the … the …") needs a fronted comparative in both halves and verb–subject inversion in the second half (desto bedre blir du).
- Comparatives freely use ellipsis (raskere enn meg); just match the pronoun case to whether a verb survives.
Now practice Norwegian
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Comparison: -ere, -estA2 — Regular Norwegian adjectives compare with -ere (finere, billigere) and the superlative -est (finest, billigst); the comparative never agrees, the definite superlative adds -e (den fineste), and a stress-pattern syncope shortens words like enkel → enklere.
- Result and Consequence: så...at, slik at, derforB2 — How Norwegian links cause to effect — the så…at degree-result frame, slik at for result, the for…til å 'too…to' construction and nok til å 'enough to', and the consequence adverbs derfor/dermed/således that trigger V2 inversion when fronted.
- Object PronounsA1 — The Norwegian object pronouns — meg, deg, ham/han, henne, den, det, oss, dere, dem — including ham vs han for 'him' and the de→dem shift that mirrors English they/them.
- Correlative Conjunctions: både…og, enten…eller, verken…ellerB1 — The paired conjunctions that bracket two items — både…og (both…and), enten…eller (either…or), verken…eller (neither…nor, already negative so no extra ikke), and the parallel-structure rule that holds them together.
- Ellipsis and GappingB2 — Leaving out what the listener can already recover — gapping in coordination, the modal-without-verb ellipsis (jeg må hjem), answer ellipsis, comparative ellipsis, and casual topic-drop.