Pronouns are the small words that stand in for people and things — jeg (I), deg (you), den (it). Norwegian's system is mostly familiar to English speakers, with one structural feature worth flagging at the top: pronouns are the only part of Norwegian grammar that still marks case (the subject/object distinction English keeps in I/me, he/him, they/them). Nouns lost their case endings centuries ago; pronouns kept theirs. This page orients you to the whole system; the detail pages drill into each subtype.
The subject/object table
Every personal pronoun has a subject form (when it does the action) and an object form (when it receives the action or follows a preposition). This is exactly the I/me split English speakers already have, just extended across the board.
| Person | Subject | Object | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st sg. | jeg | meg | I / me |
| 2nd sg. | du | deg | you / you |
| 3rd sg. masc. | han | ham (or han) | he / him |
| 3rd sg. fem. | hun | henne | she / her |
| 3rd sg. (thing, common gender) | den | den | it |
| 3rd sg. (thing, neuter) | det | det | it |
| 1st pl. | vi | oss | we / us |
| 2nd pl. | dere | dere | you (all) |
| 3rd pl. | de | dem | they / them |
The clearest demonstration is a sentence and its mirror image:
Jeg ser ham.
I see him.
Han ser meg.
He sees me.
In Jeg ser ham, jeg is the subject (it does the seeing) and ham is the object (he is seen). Flip the roles and you flip the forms: Han (subject) ser meg (object). This is the spine of the whole pronoun system.
Vi inviterte dem, og de kom.
We invited them, and they came.
Notice dem (object — they were invited) versus de (subject — they came), in the same sentence.
Case survives only here
In Old Norse, Norwegian nouns had four cases. Modern Norwegian has swept all of that away — en bil ("a car") looks identical whether it is subject or object. The pronouns are the last holdout. So if you have studied German, your case instinct is partly useful here, but mostly overkill: there is no dative, no accusative on nouns, no article declension. You only need to track two cases (subject vs object) and only on pronouns. That is a far lighter load than German — closer to the residue English keeps.
den and det: two words for "it"
English has one word for "it". Norwegian has two, and which you use depends on the gender of the noun being replaced. Common-gender nouns (the en/ei words) are replaced by den; neuter nouns (the et words) are replaced by det.
Hvor er bilen? – Den står utenfor.
Where's the car? – It's parked outside. (bil is common gender → den)
Hvor er huset? – Det ligger ved sjøen.
Where's the house? – It's by the sea. (hus is neuter → det)
This means "it" is never a single default in Norwegian — you must know the noun's gender to pick den or det. (There is a separate, very common det used as a dummy subject, as in Det regner, "It's raining" — covered on its own page.)
The universal du — and the vanished De
English long ago merged its informal "thou" and polite "you". Norwegian has gone the same way in practice. There used to be a polite second-person pronoun De / Dem / Deres (capitalised, like German Sie), used to address strangers, elders and superiors. In today's Norway it is effectively dead (archaic) — you use du with virtually everyone: shopkeepers, professors, the prime minister. You may still meet De in very old letters, in royal address, or occasionally in formal correspondence to the elderly, but using it with an ordinary stranger now sounds stiff or even faintly comical.
Unnskyld, kan du hjelpe meg?
Excuse me, can you help me? (a stranger — still du)
Reflexives: seg and the reflexive possessive sin
When the object refers back to the subject of the same clause, third-person pronouns switch to the reflexive seg ("himself/herself/itself/themselves"). First and second person just reuse the object form (meg, deg, oss), so seg is the genuinely new piece.
Han vasker seg.
He washes himself.
De gledet seg til ferien.
They were looking forward to the holiday.
Paired with this is the reflexive possessive sin / si / sitt / sine ("his/her/its/their own"), which English completely lacks. Sin points the possession back to the subject; hans/hennes points it at someone else. This distinction is the number-one pronoun trap, so it gets its own page — but the headline is:
Han tok jakken sin.
He took his (own) jacket. (sin → his own)
Han tok jakken hans.
He took his jacket. (hans → someone else's)
Same English sentence, two different Norwegian meanings. English is simply ambiguous here; Norwegian forces you to be precise.
Possessives, demonstratives, and the relative som
To round out the map, three more pronoun groups each have their own page:
- Possessives — min/mi/mitt/mine (my), din (your), hans (his), hennes (her), vår (our), deres (their/your-plural). These agree with the thing possessed, not the owner.
- Demonstratives — denne / dette / disse ("this/these") and den / det / de ("that/those"), the pointing words.
- The relative som — the all-purpose linker meaning "who/which/that" (mannen som bor her, "the man who lives here"). Norwegian uses one word, som, where English juggles "who", "which" and "that".
Jenta som vant, heter Mari.
The girl who won is called Mari.
Common Mistakes
❌ Det er en hemmelighet mellom du og jeg.
Incorrect — after a preposition you need object forms: deg og meg.
✅ Det er en hemmelighet mellom deg og meg.
It's a secret between you and me.
This is the famous "between you and I" error transferred straight from English. After mellom (and any preposition) the pronouns must be objects: deg og meg. The fact that there are two of them does not change the rule.
❌ Han tok jakken hans.
Incorrect if he took his OWN jacket — hans means someone else's.
✅ Han tok jakken sin.
He took his own jacket.
When the owner is the subject of the clause, use the reflexive possessive sin. Hans would mean a different man's jacket.
❌ Vi inviterte de.
Incorrect — 'them' is an object, so de must be dem.
✅ Vi inviterte dem.
We invited them.
De is the subject form ("they"); the object ("them") is dem — precisely parallel to English they/them.
❌ Hvor er bilen? – Det er utenfor.
Incorrect — bil is common gender, so 'it' is den, not det.
✅ Hvor er bilen? – Den er utenfor.
Where's the car? – It's outside.
"It" tracks the noun's gender: common gender → den, neuter → det.
Key Takeaways
- Pronouns are the only Norwegian words that still mark case (subject vs object).
- Object forms: meg, deg, ham, henne, oss, dere, dem — use them exactly where English uses me/you/him/her/us/them, including after prepositions.
- "It" is den (common gender) or det (neuter) — never a single default.
- du is now universal; the polite De is archaic.
- The reflexive seg and reflexive possessive sin have no English equivalent and are the system's main traps.
Now practice Norwegian
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Subject PronounsA1 — The Norwegian subject pronouns — jeg, du, han, hun, den/det, vi, dere, de — including the den/det gender split for 'it' and why du works for almost everyone.
- 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.
- sin vs hans/hennes: The Reflexive PossessiveB1 — The classic Scandinavian trap: sin/si/sitt/sine refers possession back to the SUBJECT of the clause (han tok jakken sin = his own jacket), while hans/hennes/deres points to someone else (jakken hans = another man's). sin agrees with the possessed noun's gender and number, never the owner, and can never be part of the subject — two rules English has no analogue for.
- Relative Pronouns: som and derA2 — Norwegian collapses English's who/whom/which/that into a single relative word, som — invariant for people and things alike, droppable as an object but never as a subject (boka jeg leste vs mannen som kom).
- Saying 'it': den vs detA2 — How to translate English 'it' into Norwegian — den for common-gender referents, det for neuter referents, and det as the dummy subject for weather, time and abstract statements.