Transport and Travel

Getting around is something you do every single day, and Norwegian builds its travel language on two patterns that neither match English by nor English catch. You travel med a means of transport (med tog, med bil, med fly) and you ta the bus, the train, the tram (ta bussen, ta toget). Master those two collocations and a handful of station phrases, and you can navigate any Norwegian town, buy a ticket, and ask when the next bus leaves. This page covers exactly that.

The core pattern: med + means of transport

When you say how you travel — what vehicle carries you — Norwegian uses med (with) plus the means of transport, almost always with no article: med tog, med buss, med bil, med fly, med båt, med sykkel. English uses by here (by train, by car), but med is the only word that works in Norwegian. Do not translate by with ved or av — it is always med.

Note that the noun after med is bare — med tog, not med et tog or med toget. The bare form names the mode of travel in general, the way English by train doesn't say by a train. (For everything med can do as a preposition, see [prepositions/med].)

Here is the full set, since these are the words you will reach for constantly:

(T-bane = tunnelbane, the Oslo metro; trikk is the tram, found in Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim.)

ta the bus, the train, the tram

The second core pattern is the verb å ta (to take) plus the means of transport — but here, unlike with med, the noun is definite: ta bussen, ta toget, ta trikken, ta T-banen, ta flyet. This is exactly like English take the bus, and it focuses on the concrete act of boarding this bus rather than the abstract mode of travel.

For a taxi you say ta drosje or ta taxi (both are normal; drosje is the official word, taxi the everyday one):

So the split is: med + bare noun for the mode (Jeg reiser med buss), and ta + definite noun for the act of boarding (Jeg tar bussen). Both are correct and both are common; they simply highlight different things. (For the full conjugation of å ta, see [verb-reference/ta]; for reise/dra as travel verbs, see [choosing/ga-dra-reise].)

The verbs of moving: kjøre, sykle, gå, fly, reise, dra

Norwegian has a separate verb for travelling under each kind of power, and English speakers stumble on two of them.

• å kjøre — to drive (a car), or to ride in/go by any vehicle that someone drives. You kjører a car, but a bus also kjører, and you can say toget kjører (the train runs).
• å sykle — to cycle (one verb, from sykkel).
• å gå — to walk, on foot only. This is the big trap: gå does not mean "go by vehicle." If you want to say you go somewhere by some means, use dra or reise, not gå.
• å fly — to fly.
• å reise / å dra — to travel / to go (the general "set off" verbs, neutral as to means).

Buying a ticket: en billett til...

A ticket is en billett, and you buy one til a destination: en billett til Bergen, en billett til sentrum. To buy is å kjøpe; to ask the price, Hva koster...?

Useful ticket words: en enkeltbillett (a single), en returbillett / tur-retur (a return), et periodekort / et månedskort (a season/monthly pass), en sone (a fare zone). In Oslo most people now travel with the Ruter-app on the phone rather than a paper ticket, but the words above are still what you ask for.

At the station: timetables and stops

Two questions get you through any station or bus stop. To ask when something leaves, use Når går...? (When does ... leave/go?) — the verb går here means departs (a train or bus "goes"), not "walks." To ask where the nearest stop or station is, use Hvor er nærmeste...?

Vocabulary for places: en holdeplass (a bus/tram stop), en stasjon / en togstasjon (a (train) station), en T-banestasjon (a metro station), en busstasjon (a bus station), en perrong / et spor (a platform/track), en flyplass (an airport).

To talk about how often something runs, Norwegian uses det går (there goes / there runs) + frequency:

(et kvarter = a quarter of an hour, 15 minutes — a very common time word; see [numbers/clock-time].)

Changing, getting on, getting off

Three little phrasal verbs round out the chapter:

• å bytte — to change (vehicles): bytte buss, bytte til trikken.
• å gå på — to get on / board: gå på bussen.
• å gå av — to get off: gå av på neste stopp.

Here på and av are stressed particles (on and off), and note that with these particle verbs gå loses its "walk" meaning — gå på bussen is get on the bus, not walk onto the bus.

Aboard: på toget vs med tog

One subtlety worth flagging. Med tog answers how do you travel? — it names the mode. But once you are physically aboard a vehicle and want to say you are on the train / on the bus, you switch to på: på toget, på bussen, på flyet. So med is for the means, på is for being on board.

Compare the two in one breath: Jeg reiser *med tog, og akkurat nå sitter jeg på toget. — I travel **by train, and right now I'm sitting on the train. The mode is *med; being aboard is på.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• med + bare noun names the mode: med tog, med bil, med fly, med båt — never ved or av for English "by."
• ta + definite noun is the act of boarding: ta bussen, ta toget, ta trikken, ta drosje.
• gå = walk (on foot) only; for "go somewhere" by any means use dra or reise.
• Ask departures with Når går...? and the nearest stop with Hvor er nærmeste...?
• Det går en buss hvert kvarter is the frame for frequency; bytte / gå på / gå av handle changing and boarding.
• Once aboard, switch from med to på: på toget, på bussen.