Punctuation

Punctuation is where confident English writers quietly make a steady stream of errors in Norwegian, because the marks look the same but the rules underneath are different. The most consequential difference is not stylistic at all: Norwegian uses a comma as its decimal point, so 3,5 means "three point five", and getting that backwards can change a price or a measurement. On top of that, the comma rules for clauses run on different logic, the quotation marks are typically the angled «...», and a whole class of words English capitalises — weekdays, months, nationalities — stays lowercase in Norwegian. This page covers the points where your English habits will actively mislead you.

The decimal comma and the space for thousands

This is the one to internalise first, because it has real-world consequences. Norwegian (like most of Europe) swaps the roles of the comma and the period in numbers:

• Decimal separator = comma. 3,5 = "three point five". 19,90 kr = 19.90 kroner.
• Thousands separator = a space (a thin/non-breaking space), not a comma. 1 000 = one thousand; 1 000 000 = one million.

So an English 1,000.50 becomes Norwegian 1 000,50: space where English has a comma, comma where English has a point. This is not pedantry — read 3.5 as a Norwegian and you may see "thirty-five" (a stray thousands dot) or nonsense; read 1,000 as a Norwegian and it looks like "one point zero zero zero".

Commas around clauses

Norwegian comma rules are clause-based and differ from English in three places that matter.

1. A fronted subordinate clause takes a comma. When a subordinate clause (introduced by når, hvis, da, fordi, selv om, etc.) comes before the main clause, you close it with a comma. English is loose about this; Norwegian is firm.

Note also the word order: after the fronted clause + comma, the main clause starts with its verb (lager jeg, blir vi) — the comma sits right at that pivot point. If the subordinate clause comes second, you generally do not put a comma before it: Jeg lager middag når jeg kommer hjem.

2. A comma before a main clause joined by men, for, så. When two full main clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction — especially men ("but"), for ("for/because"), and often så ("so") — Norwegian puts a comma before the conjunction.

Before og ("and") joining two main clauses the comma is optional and usually omitted in short sentences (Jeg kom hjem og lagde middag). The comma is most expected before men.

3. Generally NO comma before restrictive som / at. This is where English habits cause over-commaing. Norwegian does not put a comma before a restrictive relative clause with som ("who/which/that") or before a at ("that") complement clause. These attach without a comma.

In the first example the comma falls after the embedded som-clause (because that clause is inserted into the main clause), but there is no comma before som. In the second, at hun har rett gets no comma at all. Resist the English urge to fence off "that"-clauses with commas.

Quotation marks

The default Norwegian quotation marks are the guillemets «...» — angled double marks pointing outward. You will also see the curly form with a low opening quote, „...", in some books and handwriting. Straight English "..." marks are increasingly common in informal digital text but are not the typographic standard.

Note the colon before a quoted full sentence (Hun sa:), and that the guillemets point outward — « opens, » closes. When you don't have guillemets handy, the accepted fallback is the straight double quote "...", not the English curly pair with the high opening mark.

What is NOT capitalised

English speakers reliably over-capitalise in Norwegian, because several categories that English treats as proper nouns are common nouns/adjectives in Norwegian and stay lowercase:

• Weekdays: mandag, tirsdag, onsdag, torsdag, fredag, lørdag, søndag — all lowercase.
• Months: januar, februar, mars, april, mai ... — all lowercase.
• Nationality and language adjectives/nouns: norsk ("Norwegian"), engelsk ("English"), en franskmann ("a Frenchman"), spansk mat ("Spanish food") — lowercase.

What is capitalised matches English: the first word of a sentence, and genuine proper names — people (Kari), countries (Norge), cities (Bergen), the names of the languages' countries. The trap is purely the demonyms and calendar words. (Capitalisation in full — including the start-of-sentence rule and proper names — is covered on writing/handwriting-capitals; here we flag only the lowercase categories that surprise English writers.)

Colon and semicolon

The colon (:) introduces a quotation, a list, or an explanation, much as in English — and crucially before reported direct speech (Han sa: "..."). The word after a colon is lowercase unless it begins a full quoted sentence or a proper name.

The semicolon (;) links two closely related main clauses, as in English, but is used sparingly; in everyday Norwegian a period or og/men is usually preferred.

Common Mistakes

The decimal separator in Norwegian is a comma: 0,5, not 0.5.

Thousands are grouped with a space, not a comma: 5 500 000.

Weekdays and months are lowercase in Norwegian: mandag, mars.

A fronted subordinate clause needs a closing comma, and the main clause then begins with its verb: lager jeg.

Norwegian puts no comma before a at ("that") complement clause, unlike the comma English writers reflexively add.

Key Takeaways

• Decimal comma, thousands space: 3,5 and 1 000 000. Flip every English number habit.
• Comma after a fronted subordinate clause (Når jeg kommer hjem, ...), and the main clause then starts with its verb.
• Comma before men/for joining main clauses; no comma before restrictive som or before at.
• Quotation marks are the guillemets «...» (fallback "..."), not the English curly pair.
• Lowercase weekdays (mandag), months (mars), and nationality/language words (norsk); capitalise only sentence starts and true proper names.