Double Objects and Ditransitive Verbs

A handful of common verbs — gi (give), sende (send), vise (show), fortelle (tell), kjøpe (buy), låne (lend), tilby (offer), by (offer) — take two objects: a recipient (the person who gets something) and a theme (the thing they get). Norwegian, like English, gives you two ways to arrange them. The good news for an English speaker is that the system maps almost one-to-one onto give me the book vs give the book to me, so transfer carries you a long way. The one genuinely Norwegian wrinkle is what happens when both objects are pronouns — and that's where careful learners trip.

The two patterns

Pattern A — recipient first, both bare (the double-object order)

Put the recipient immediately after the verb, then the thing. Neither object takes a preposition. This is gi noen noe — "give someone something."

The recipient (henne, meg, oss) comes first, the theme (boka, saltet, bildene) second. No til. This is the default in everyday speech, and it's especially natural when the recipient is a pronoun.

Pattern B — theme first, recipient with til (the prepositional order)

Put the thing first, then mark the recipient with til. This is gi noe til noen — "give something to someone."

Here the preposition is til — spelt with a single l. (A few verbs use for in this slot, e.g. kjøpe noe for noen in some uses, but til is the workhorse for recipients.) See the preposition til.

When to prefer each order

The two orders aren't free variants you pick at random; each suits a different information flow. The guiding principle is end-weight and newness: short, known, pronoun-like material comes early; long, new, emphasised material goes last.

Prefer Pattern A (recipient first) when the recipient is a pronoun or otherwise short and known. A pronoun recipient is light and given, so it slots in right after the verb.

The heavy theme (et langt brev om hele situasjonen) lands at the end where the new information belongs. Saying Jeg sendte et langt brev om hele situasjonen til henne is also fine, but it buries the light pronoun henne at the very end.

Prefer Pattern B (with til) when you want to emphasise the recipient, contrast it, or when the recipient is long.

When the recipient carries the focus (til Per, ikke til Lise) or is a heavy phrase (alle som ville høre), the til-order puts it last where the emphasis falls.

The pronoun constraint — the one real trap

Here is the part that does not behave like English. When both objects are pronouns, the orders are not equally available.

• gi meg den (recipient pronoun + theme pronoun, double-object order) — acceptable, common in speech.
• gi den til meg (theme pronoun + til
  • recipient pronoun, prepositional order) — fully natural, the preferred written form.
• gi den meg (theme pronoun before a bare recipient pronoun) — not used in modern Bokmål; it sounds archaic or wrong.

Both of the above are good. What you must not do is reverse them into a bare gi den meg — that order is dead in modern Bokmål. When two pronouns meet, the til-order is the reflex native speakers reach for:

So when both objects are pronouns, your safe, always-correct choice is the til-order: gi den til meg, send dem til oss, vis det til ham. The double-object gi meg den is also fine, but the reversed gi den meg is the form to avoid. English, by contrast, allows give it to me and give me it (the latter is fine in many dialects), so don't let that flexibility tempt you into the Norwegian gi den meg.

Imperatives with two objects

The same two patterns show up in commands and requests, which is where you'll use ditransitives most in daily life.

All three use Pattern A (recipient first), which is the natural register for a quick spoken request. The til-versions (Kjøp en is til meg) are equally grammatical but feel a touch more deliberate.

Passive: the recipient can become the subject

A useful and slightly surprising property of these verbs: in the passive, the recipient can be promoted to subject — not just the theme. English does this too (She was given the book), so the instinct transfers, but it's worth seeing it spelled out.

Here the recipient (hun, vi) is the grammatical subject, and the theme (boka) stays put. The alternative passive promotes the theme instead: Boka ble gitt til henne ("The book was given to her"). For the full picture see passive of ditransitives.

Common Mistakes

With two pronouns, the safe order is theme + til + recipient. The bare gi den meg doesn't work, even though English allows give me it.

If the theme comes first, the recipient must be marked with til. Only the recipient-first order lets both objects stay bare.

Pick one pattern cleanly: either recipient-first-with-no-preposition, or theme-first-with-til. Don't put til in front of the recipient while keeping recipient-first order.

In the double-object order the recipient sits immediately after the verb, ahead of the theme.

Key Takeaways

• Ditransitive verbs (gi, sende, vise, fortelle, kjøpe, låne, tilby) take a recipient and a theme.
• Pattern A: recipient first, both bare — gi henne boka. Preferred when the recipient is a pronoun.
• Pattern B: theme first, recipient with til — gi boka til henne. Preferred for emphasis or a heavy recipient.
• Two pronouns → use til (gi den til meg). The bare gi den meg is not modern Bokmål.
• In the passive, the recipient can become the subject: Hun ble gitt boka.