Some languages bake the source of information straight into the verb: a grammatical ending that says I saw this myself versus someone told me versus I'm guessing. Norwegian has no such obligatory ending — like English, it is not a grammatically evidential language. But it does have a small, surprisingly systematic lexical toolkit for marking where a claim comes from, and using it well is one of the things that separates a fluent C1 speaker from an advanced one. The difference between det blir kaldt (a flat prediction) and det skal visstnok bli kaldt (I'm only passing on what I heard) is the difference between owning a claim and reporting it. This page maps the toolkit by evidence type: hearsay, inference, and direct witness.
The deep point is this: every time you state something, you are implicitly making a claim about how you know it. English speakers do this too, but loosely — apparently, I heard, seems like. Norwegian has tighter, more conventionalised markers, and crucially it has the reportative skal, which sits halfway between a modal and a true evidential. A learner who states reported information as bare fact comes across as either gullible or as taking responsibility they didn't mean to take. The markers below are how you hand that responsibility back to your source.
Hearsay: "I heard it, I'm not vouching for it"
The cleanest hearsay marker is the reportative skal — is said to. The mechanics of this construction (its tenses, its hearsay perfect) are covered in detail on the evidential skal/skulle page; here we place it in the wider system. The essential force is: people say X; I'm not the source.
Han skal være styrtrik, etter det jeg har hørt.
He's supposed to be filthy rich, from what I've heard.
Hun skal ha sagt noe sånt på møtet, men jeg var ikke der selv.
She's said to have said something like that at the meeting, but I wasn't there myself.
Notice the last example uses the hearsay perfect skal ha sagt — is said to have said — and the speaker explicitly disclaims first-hand knowledge. That is evidentiality doing its job.
The adverb visstnok is the all-purpose hearsay/uncertain-source marker — apparently, reportedly, I gather. It signals that you have the information second-hand and won't stake your reputation on it. (Orthography: visstnok has a double s — viss- from viss "certain" — a spelling learners routinely get wrong.)
Det skal visstnok bli kaldt til helgen.
Apparently it's going to turn cold this weekend.
De har visstnok solgt huset allerede.
They've reportedly already sold the house.
Han er visstnok flyttet til Bergen, men jeg vet ikke sikkert.
He's apparently moved to Bergen, but I don't know for sure.
For a more formal or written register, etter sigende (according to what is said / reportedly) and ifølge + source (according to X) do the same work. Etter sigende is slightly literary and carries a faint whiff of so the rumour goes; ifølge is neutral and names a concrete source, so it is the workhorse of news writing.
Etter sigende skal de ha kranglet i årevis før bruddet. (literary/formal)
According to what people say, they reportedly quarrelled for years before the split.
Ifølge politiet er ingen alvorlig skadd. (formal/news)
According to the police, no one is seriously injured.
Two more belong here. Angivelig (allegedly, purportedly) is the marker of the claimed but unverified — strongly associated with journalism and crime reporting, and it carries a clear note of the claim has been made, but it is contested. It is sharper than visstnok: where visstnok is casual hearsay, angivelig flags a claim someone is actively asserting and that may be false.
Mannen skal angivelig ha truet flere personer. (formal/news)
The man allegedly threatened several people.
Pengene ble angivelig overført til en konto i utlandet.
The money was allegedly transferred to an account abroad.
Inference: "I didn't witness it, but the evidence points to it"
A second, distinct kind of indirect knowledge is inference — you didn't see the event, but you can read it off the available signs. Norwegian marks this with a family of "seems" verbs and adverbs that English speakers often flatten into a single seems.
The verb virke (to seem, to come across as) reports an impression based on perceptible evidence — how something looks, sounds or feels to you.
Hun virker trøtt i dag.
She seems tired today.
Det virker som om de ikke har snakket sammen på lenge.
It seems like they haven't spoken in a long time.
The construction se ut til (å) / se ut som om (to look like it will / look as if) is the prediction-from-appearances marker: you infer a likely outcome from visible signs.
Det ser ut til å bli en fin dag.
It looks like it's going to be a nice day.
Det ser ut til at flyet er forsinket.
It looks like the plane is delayed.
Among adverbs, the key inference markers are tydeligvis and tilsynelatende, and learners must not confuse them — they pull in opposite directions. Tydeligvis means evidently, clearly and commits the speaker: the visible evidence is strong enough that the speaker treats the conclusion as established. Tilsynelatende means seemingly, on the face of it and does the reverse — it flags that the appearance may be misleading, that reality could differ from how things look.
De har tydeligvis vært her — døra står åpen og lyset er på.
They've evidently been here — the door's open and the light's on.
Han var tilsynelatende rolig, men hendene skalv.
He was seemingly calm, but his hands were shaking.
Direct evidence: when to say nothing at all
The third evidence type — direct witness — is, paradoxically, usually unmarked. If you saw it yourself, you simply assert it: Det regner (it's raining). Adding a hedge where you have first-hand knowledge sounds oddly evasive. The only time direct evidence gets marked is for contrast or emphasis, with jeg så (I saw), jeg hørte (I heard), selv (myself):
Jeg så det selv — bilen kjørte rett på rødt.
I saw it myself — the car drove straight through a red light.
This contrast is the whole system in miniature: bare assertion = I vouch for it; visstnok / skal = I'm passing it on; virke / se ut til = I'm inferring it. C1 fluency means choosing the right one without thinking.
The face function: handing back responsibility
These markers are not only about accuracy — they protect both speaker and listener. By saying det skal visstnok bli kaldt instead of det blir kaldt, you pre-empt being blamed if the forecast is wrong: you only reported it. This is the face-saving function of evidentiality (see also the page on indirectness and hedging). It is also polite to your source: ifølge legen credits the doctor rather than presenting medical fact as your own.
Jeg skal ikke si det sikkert, men det skal visstnok være stengt i dag.
I won't say for certain, but apparently it's closed today.
Common Mistakes
❌ Det blir kaldt til helgen. (when you only heard it from a colleague)
Not wrong grammatically, but states hearsay as your own firm prediction.
✅ Det skal visstnok bli kaldt til helgen.
Apparently it's going to turn cold this weekend.
English speakers routinely drop the evidential hedge, because English tolerates bare assertion of second-hand news more readily. In Norwegian, stating reported information flat makes you sound like the source — add skal or visstnok when you aren't.
❌ Jeg tror han er rik. (passing on a rumour)
Overuses jeg tror — this says it's your personal belief, not hearsay.
✅ Han skal visstnok være rik.
He's apparently supposed to be rich.
Jeg tror (I think) marks your own opinion, not your source. Learners reach for it as a catch-all hedge, but for reported information the evidential skal/visstnok is correct — they say I heard this, not I believe this.
❌ Han var tilsynelatende sliten, så jeg ba ham gå hjem og hvile.
Self-contradictory — tilsynelatende casts doubt, undercutting your own action.
✅ Han var tydeligvis sliten, så jeg ba ham gå hjem og hvile.
He was evidently tired, so I told him to go home and rest.
Confusing tilsynelatende (seemingly, maybe not really) with tydeligvis (evidently, clearly) reverses your meaning. If you acted on the evidence, you believed it — use tydeligvis.
❌ Ifølge meg er filmen kjedelig.
Incorrect — ifølge is for external sources, not yourself.
✅ Etter min mening er filmen kjedelig. / Jeg synes filmen er kjedelig.
In my opinion the film is boring.
Ifølge + meg is a classic transfer error from English according to me. Ifølge names an external authority; for your own view use etter min mening or jeg synes.
❌ Det er vistnok stengt.
Misspelled — single s.
✅ Det er visstnok stengt.
Apparently it's closed.
Visstnok has a double s. The single-s spelling is one of the most common errors even among natives, but it is still an error.
Key Takeaways
- Norwegian has no grammatical evidentiality, but a real lexical system for marking source — and C1 speakers are expected to use it.
- Hearsay: skal / skal ha (is said to / to have), visstnok (apparently), etter sigende (literary "rumour has it"), ifølge X (formal, names source), angivelig (allegedly, contested).
- Inference: virke (seems, from impression), se ut til (looks like it will), tydeligvis (evidently — committing), tilsynelatende (seemingly — distancing).
- Direct evidence is normally unmarked; mark it only for contrast with jeg så / selv.
- Choosing the right marker also manages face — it hands responsibility back to your source. Don't state hearsay flat, and don't overuse jeg tror where an evidential fits.
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Reportative skal and skulle: 'Is Said To'C1 — How skal and skulle mark hearsay — han skal være rik means 'he is reportedly rich', not 'he will be rich' — a grammaticalised evidential with no clean English equivalent, central to reading Norwegian news and gossip.
- Deponent s-Verbs: synes, finnes, trivesB1 — The lexical -s verbs that are never passives — synes, finnes, trives, lykkes — and the three-way 'think' split between synes, tror and mener.
- Sentence Adverbs: kanskje, nok, vel, sikkertB1 — Modal/sentence adverbs that color a whole clause — kanskje, nok, vel, sikkert, visstnok, antakelig — their mid-field position, the -vis adverbs, and the famous quirk that fronted kanskje does NOT have to trigger V2 inversion.
- Indirectness, Face and HedgingC1 — How Norwegians soften requests and disagreement — preterite-modal politeness (jeg lurte på, jeg skulle gjerne), modal hedges, softening particles and litotes (ikke verst = pretty good) — and why Norwegian is more direct than English with no real word for 'please'.