Many relative clauses involve a preposition that "belongs" somewhere inside the clause: the house I live in, the man I talked to, the country he comes from. English speakers were once taught that the polished version fronts the preposition — the man *to whom I talked — and that habit transfers straight into Norwegian, where it produces sentences that sound stiff to the point of wrong. Norwegian has one natural answer: it *strands the preposition at the very end of the clause, every time. There is no everyday "to whom." This page shows you the default that actually sounds Norwegian, the formal escape hatch you should recognize but rarely use, and the special words for place and time.
The rule: the preposition stays at the end
In a Norwegian relative clause, the preposition sits where it would in a plain main clause — and since the relative pronoun has moved to the front, the preposition is left dangling at the end:
Huset som jeg bor i, er over hundre år gammelt.
The house I live in is over a hundred years old.
Mannen som jeg snakket med, var faren hennes.
The man I talked to was her father.
Det er en sang jeg aldri blir lei av.
That's a song I never get tired of.
Compare the plain clauses: jeg bor *i huset, jeg snakket **med mannen. The preposition keeps its slot; only the noun has been relativized and moved up front, leaving *i and med stranded. This is mechanically identical to how Norwegian handles questions — Hvem snakket du *med?* ("Who did you talk to?") — so stranding is a single consistent pattern across the whole language, not a quirk of relatives (see questions/preposition-stranding).
som drops just like always
Because these are ordinary relative clauses, the object drop rule applies: the relativized noun is the object of the preposition, so som is freely droppable. In fact, dropping it is the more natural, conversational choice.
Stolen du satt på, er nymalt.
The chair you sat on is freshly painted.
Vennen jeg reiste med, ble syk underveis.
The friend I travelled with got sick on the way.
Det landet som han kommer fra, har jeg aldri besøkt.
That country he comes from I've never visited.
You can keep som (stolen *som du satt på) or drop it (*stolen du satt på) — both are correct. The preposition's position never changes: it stays stranded at the end regardless. This works because the noun is functioning as the object of the preposition, and objects allow som-deletion (see pronouns/relative-som).
der and hvor for place
When the relative describes a place and the relationship is locational, Norwegian often replaces som + preposition with the relative adverbs der or hvor ("where"). This is smoother than spelling out som … i / på:
Byen der jeg vokste opp, er ikke så stor.
The town where I grew up isn't very big.
Vi fant en kafé hvor de spilte god musikk.
We found a café where they played good music.
Hotellet der vi bodde, lå rett ved stranda.
The hotel where we stayed was right by the beach.
Der and hvor are largely interchangeable here; der is a touch more colloquial and hvor a touch more formal (informal / formal). Both let you avoid an awkward stranded preposition: you would not normally say byen som jeg vokste opp i when byen der jeg vokste opp is available — though the stranded version is not wrong, just heavier.
da for time
For time antecedents — the day, the year, the moment — the relative word is da ("when," in the past sense), not som:
Den dagen da vi møttes, regnet det fælt.
The day we met, it was raining terribly.
Jeg husker det året da alt forandret seg.
I remember the year when everything changed.
Note that da here is the relative "when," distinct from the question word når. Norwegian splits English when: da for a specific past time (relative or "when [back then]"), når for questions and for repeated/future time. In a time relative pointing at a single past moment, it is da.
The formal pied-piped alternative: i hvilket, med hvilken
There is a fronted, preposition-first construction in Norwegian — but it is bureaucratic, legalistic, or archaic, and you should treat it as recognition-only. It uses hvilken / hvilket / hvilke ("which") after the preposition:
Avtalen i hvilken partene forplikter seg, trer i kraft straks.
The agreement in which the parties commit themselves takes effect immediately. (formal/legal)
Et tilfelle for hvilket det ikke finnes presedens.
A case for which there is no precedent. (formal/academic)
This is the genuine equivalent of English "in which / for which," and it appears in contracts, statutes, and very formal prose (formal / archaic in speech). In every normal context — conversation, journalism, ordinary writing — you strand instead: avtalen som partene forplikter seg i. Producing i hvilket in speech sounds comically stuffy, like saying "the bench upon which I sat" to a friend.
hvis for "whose"
One more formal relative completes the picture: the possessive hvis ("whose"), placed before the possessed noun. It is more formal and written than spoken (formal / literary); in casual speech people often rephrase.
En forfatter hvis bøker alle har lest, men ingen forstår.
An author whose books everyone has read but nobody understands.
Et selskap hvis verdier vi deler.
A company whose values we share. (formal)
In everyday speech you would more likely restructure — en forfatter som alle har lest bøkene til ("an author whose books everyone has read," literally "that everyone has read the books of") — which, predictably, strands the possessive til at the end. So even "whose" tends to collapse back into the stranding pattern in real Norwegian.
Common Mistakes
❌ Mannen med som jeg snakket, var faren hennes.
Incorrect — Norwegian never fronts the preposition before som.
✅ Mannen som jeg snakket med, var faren hennes.
The man I talked to was her father.
❌ Huset i som jeg bor er gammelt.
Incorrect — the preposition cannot precede som; it strands at the end.
✅ Huset som jeg bor i, er gammelt.
The house I live in is old.
❌ Byen som jeg vokste opp, er liten.
Incorrect — either strand a preposition (...opp i) or, more naturally, use der/hvor.
✅ Byen der jeg vokste opp, er liten.
The town where I grew up is small.
❌ Den dagen som vi møttes, regnet det.
Incorrect — for a specific past time, the relative word is da, not som.
✅ Den dagen da vi møttes, regnet det.
The day we met, it was raining.
❌ Hvem snakket du med hvem?
Incorrect — only one preposition + one question word; strand the preposition once at the end.
✅ Hvem snakket du med?
Who did you talk to? (til/med stranded, as in relatives)
Key Takeaways
- Norwegian always strands the preposition at the end of a relative clause: mannen jeg snakket med, huset jeg bor i. There is no everyday "to whom."
- Since the noun is the preposition's object, som drops freely — and stranding works whether som is present or not.
- Use der / hvor for place relatives and da for specific past-time relatives instead of a heavy stranded preposition.
- The fronted forms i hvilket ("in which") and hvis ("whose") exist but are formal/legal/literary — recognize them, but strand in real speech.
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- 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).
- Questions with Prepositions (Stranding)B1 — When a Norwegian question targets the object of a preposition, the preposition stays stranded at the end of the clause — Hvem snakker du med? — never fronted as 'with whom'.
- Relative ClausesB1 — How to build relative clauses with som — when it is mandatory, when you can drop it, why ikke moves in front of the verb, and how preposition stranding works.
- Free Relatives and Headless ClausesB2 — Headless relatives in Norwegian — den som (the one who), det som (what/that which), de som (those who), and the som-insertion trap when the free relative is a subject (det som teller, hva som skjedde).