A direct question and an indirect (embedded) one ask the same thing but wear different syntax. Hvor bor han? ("Where does he live?") is a direct question with inversion — verb before subject. But tuck it inside a bigger sentence — Jeg vet ikke hvor han bor ("I don't know where he lives") — and the order flips back to subject-before-verb. Embedded questions are subordinate clauses, and they follow subordinate word order. This page covers the three things English speakers most often get wrong: the no-inversion rule, om for yes/no, and the obligatory som in subject questions.
Rule 1: no inversion — subject comes before the verb
A direct hv-question inverts: Hvor *bor han? In an embedded question the clause is subordinate, so it takes *subordinate order: the subject comes first, then the verb. The hv-word introduces the clause, and after it everything is normal subject-verb-object.
| Direct (inversion) | Embedded (no inversion) |
|---|---|
| Hvor bor han? | Jeg vet ikke hvor han bor. |
| Når går toget? | Vet du når toget går? |
| Hva heter hun? | Jeg lurer på hva hun heter. |
Hun spurte hvor jeg bodde, men jeg svarte ikke.
She asked where I lived, but I didn't answer.
Vet du når toget går?
Do you know when the train leaves?
Jeg lurer på hva han egentlig mente.
I wonder what he really meant.
The matrix clause may still be a question (Vet du …?, with its own inversion), but the embedded part — når toget går — keeps subject before verb. The two halves are governed independently.
Rule 2: ikke and other adverbs go BEFORE the verb
Because an embedded question is a subordinate clause, the sentence adverbs — ikke, alltid, aldri, ofte — sit before the finite verb, not after it. This is the general subordinate-clause rule (see word-order/embedded-clause-order), and it bites hard in embedded questions.
Jeg vet ikke om han ikke kommer.
I don't know whether he isn't coming.
Hun forklarte hvorfor hun aldri svarer på telefonen.
She explained why she never answers the phone.
In hvorfor hun *aldri svarer, the *aldri precedes svarer — the reverse of a main clause (hun svarer aldri). Getting the ikke/adverb placement right is what separates a learner's embedded question from a native one.
Rule 3: om for embedded yes/no questions
A yes/no question has no hv-word. To embed it, Norwegian introduces it with om ("whether/if"). Crucially, om — not hvis — is the word here. Hvis means "if" only in the conditional sense ("if it rains"); for an embedded yes/no question you need om.
Jeg vet ikke om han kommer i kveld.
I don't know whether he's coming tonight.
Hun spurte om jeg ville være med.
She asked whether I wanted to come along.
Kan du sjekke om butikken er åpen?
Can you check whether the shop is open?
The split mirrors English whether/if vs. conditional if, but English lets you reuse "if" for both, which is exactly why learners wrongly carry hvis into Norwegian yes/no embeddings. In Norwegian the two are never interchangeable: conditional → hvis (or dersom); embedded yes/no → om. See conjunctions/om-whether for the full contrast.
Rule 4: the subject question takes som — hvem som, hva som
This is the structural quirk with no English analogue, and it is the most-missed point on this page. When the hv-word is the subject of the embedded clause — when it is the thing doing the verb — Norwegian inserts som right after it.
- Hvem *som ringte* — "who called" (hvem is the subject: hvem is the one calling)
- Hva *som skjedde* — "what happened" (hva is the subject)
- Hvilket tog *som går først* — "which train leaves first"
Jeg vet ikke hvem som ringte i sted.
I don't know who called just now.
Ingen kunne forklare hva som hadde skjedd.
No one could explain what had happened.
Vi lurer på hvem som skal betale for dette.
We're wondering who's going to pay for this.
English simply says "I don't know who called" — no extra word. Norwegian needs the som to fill the subject slot of the embedded clause, because the hv-word has been pulled to the front of the clause as its connector and something must mark the subject position. Think of som as the relative "that/who" propping up the subject.
Contrast this with an object or adverbial hv-question, where there is no som because the subject is some other word:
Jeg vet ikke hvem du så på festen.
I don't know who you saw at the party. (hvem = object; du is the subject — no som)
Jeg vet ikke hvem som så deg på festen.
I don't know who saw you at the party. (hvem = subject — som required)
Those two sentences are a minimal pair worth memorising. Hvem *du så (object — *du is the subject, no som) vs. Hvem *som så deg (subject — *som required). The presence of som literally signals who is doing the seeing.
| hv-word's role | Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Subject of embedded clause | hv-word + som | hvem som ringte / hva som skjedde |
| Object / adverbial | hv-word (no som) | hvem du så / hvor han bor / hva du sa |
Where embedded questions live: vite, spørre, lure på
Embedded questions typically serve as the object of verbs of knowing, asking, and wondering: vite (know), spørre (ask), lure på (wonder), forklare (explain), sjekke (check), huske (remember).
Jeg lurer på om hun husker hvem som var der.
I wonder whether she remembers who was there.
Han spurte hvorfor jeg ikke hadde sagt noe før.
He asked why I hadn't said anything earlier.
Notice the second example stacks everything: embedded hvorfor (no inversion), ikke before the verb (jeg *ikke hadde sagt*) — both subordinate-clause rules at once.
Common Mistakes
Each error below is a direct transfer from English or a confusion of om/hvis.
❌ Jeg vet ikke hvor bor han.
Incorrect — embedded questions don't invert; the subject comes before the verb.
✅ Jeg vet ikke hvor han bor.
I don't know where he lives.
❌ Hun spurte hvis jeg ville bli med.
Incorrect — embedded yes/no uses om, not the conditional hvis.
✅ Hun spurte om jeg ville bli med.
She asked whether I wanted to come along.
❌ Jeg vet ikke hvem ringte.
Incorrect — a subject wh-question needs som: hvem som ringte.
✅ Jeg vet ikke hvem som ringte.
I don't know who called.
❌ Han forklarte hvorfor han svarer aldri.
Incorrect — in a subordinate clause the adverb (aldri) goes before the verb.
✅ Han forklarte hvorfor han aldri svarer.
He explained why he never answers.
❌ Vet du når går toget?
Incorrect — the embedded question når toget går must not invert.
✅ Vet du når toget går?
Do you know when the train leaves?
Key Takeaways
- Embedded questions are subordinate clauses: no inversion — subject before verb (jeg vet ikke hvor han bor).
- Sentence adverbs (ikke, aldri, alltid) go before the finite verb (hvorfor han *aldri svarer*).
- Embed a yes/no question with om ("whether") — never the conditional hvis.
- When the hv-word is the subject of the embedded clause, add som: hvem *som ringte, hva **som skjedde* — a word English has no counterpart for.
- Object/adverbial hv-questions take no som: hvem du så, hvor han bor. The minimal pair hvem du så vs. hvem som så deg turns on exactly this.
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Embedded Clauses and the Verb-Late OrderB2 — The full subordinate-clause field model — subjunction + subject + sentence-adverb (ikke) before the finite verb — applied to embedded/indirect questions, where Norwegian keeps subject-before-verb order (jeg vet hvor han bor, NOT hvor bor han) and inserts som when the question word is the subject.
- om: Whether/If (Embedded Questions)B1 — om = 'whether' — the word that introduces an embedded yes/no question after verbs of knowing, asking and wondering, where English 'if' is ambiguous but Norwegian never allows hvis.
- Question Words: hva, hvem, hvor, hvorfor, hvilkenA1 — The Norwegian hv- question words — what, who, where, why, how, when, which — with the silent h, inversion after fronting, hvor for 'how' before adjectives, and hvilken's agreement.
- Extraposition: Heavy Subjects and ObjectsB2 — How Norwegian shifts a heavy å-clause or at-clause to the end of the sentence and holds its slot with an anticipatory det (Det er fint å se deg) — and why front-heavy clausal subjects sound stilted.