Proverb: Borte bra, men hjemme best

Five words, no verb, and an entire worldview: «Borte bra, men hjemme best» is one of the most quoted sayings in Norwegian, and it is a tiny masterclass in grammar. Packed into it are the static location adverbs borte and hjemme (not the directional bort and hjem that trip up every English speaker), the elliptical verbless structure that Norwegian proverbs love, and the irregular comparison bra / bedre / best. Read it whole, then take it apart piece by piece.

The proverb

You say it after a trip — stepping back through your own front door after a holiday, a long day, or a weekend at the cabin. It is warm and a little self-deprecating: yes, the holiday was lovely (borte bra), but nothing beats your own bed (hjemme best). The closest English equivalent is "there's no place like home," but the Norwegian version is shorter, rhythmic, and — crucially — concedes the point first: being away really was good. That concession is what makes it feel genuine rather than sentimental.

The verbless structure: ellipsis

The first thing an English speaker notices is that there is no verb. English cannot do this — "home best" is not a sentence. Norwegian proverbs routinely drop the verb er ("is") and the dummy subject det ("it"), leaving only the bare bones. The full, un-elided version would be:

(Det er) borte bra, men (det er) hjemme best. "(It is) good away, but (it is) best at home."

The brackets show what has been deleted — this deletion is called ellipsis. Proverbs prize ellipsis because it makes them short, balanced, and memorable; the missing words are so predictable that your brain supplies them automatically. This is exactly the same instinct behind English "better safe than sorry" (= "it is better to be safe than to be sorry") — the verb and subject vanish and nobody misses them.

The static adverbs: borte and hjemme

Here is the grammatical heart of the proverb, and the single most useful thing to take from this page. Norwegian splits its location words into two forms depending on whether you mean being somewhere (static) or going somewhere (directional). The proverb uses the static members of each pair:

Notice the pattern: the static form ends in -e (bort*e, hjemme*), and the directional form drops it (bort, hjem). The proverb is describing a state — what it's like to be away versus to be home — so it must use the static, -e forms. Using the directional forms would change the meaning entirely:

• Jeg er hjemme. — "I am home." (static — you are located there)
• Jeg går hjem. — "I'm going home." (directional — you are heading there)

Because the proverb is about being away and being home, borte and hjemme are the only correct forms. "Bort bra, men hjem best" would be ungrammatical — it pairs a state-of-being meaning with the motion forms, which jars to a Norwegian ear the way "I am go home" jars to an English one. For the full system of these pairs, see prepositions/location-directionals and adverbs/directional-adverbs.

The irregular comparison: bra / bedre / best

The proverb sets bra ("good") against best ("best"), and that pairing hides one of Norwegian's most important irregular adjectives. Just like English good / better / best, the word for "good" does not build its comparative and superlative the normal way (you can't say "god-ere" or "bra-est"). Instead it is suppletive — it switches to a completely different root:

"Suppletive" just means the forms come from unrelated roots stitched into one word-family — exactly as in English, where good has nothing in common with better or best. Norwegian and English inherited this irregularity from the same ancient source, so an English speaker already feels the pattern; you just have to learn the Norwegian spellings: bra/god → bedre → best.

The proverb skips the middle step (bedre) and jumps straight from positive (bra) to superlative (best), which is what gives it its punch: away is merely good, but home is the absolute best. No half-measures.

A note on bra versus god: both mean "good," and the proverb happens to use bra (which is invariable — it never changes form for gender or number). god does change (god / godt / gode). But their comparative and superlative are shared: whether you start from bra or god, you climb to bedre and best. See adjectives/comparison-irregular for the full set of suppletive adjectives.

The contrast word: men

The little word men ("but") is the hinge of the whole proverb. It marks a contrast — setting the modest praise of being away against the stronger claim that home wins. Grammatically, men is a coordinating conjunction, exactly like English but: it joins two parallel pieces (borte bra ‖ hjemme best) without subordinating one to the other. The balance is deliberate — same shape on each side (location adverb + adjective), with men tipping the scales toward home.

The culture: hjemmekos

You cannot fully read this proverb without hjemmekos — literally "home-coziness," the deeply Norwegian art of being comfortable indoors at home. Think candles, wool socks, a blanket, something warm to drink, and absolutely nowhere you need to be. Borte bra, hjemme best is the verbal expression of hjemmekos: the world outside is fine, even fun, but the real reward is coming home to your own warm, quiet space. It is the same cultural reflex that makes Norwegians light candles on a dark afternoon and call a Friday night on the sofa a perfect evening. The proverb, in other words, is not just describing a preference — it is endorsing a whole philosophy of contentment.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• The proverb is elliptical: restore the silent (det er) and it becomes ordinary grammar — (det er) borte bra, men (det er) hjemme best.
• borte and hjemme are the static forms (being somewhere), spelled with -e; the directional forms bort and hjem mean motion and would be wrong here.
• bra / bedre / best is suppletive and irregular, just like English good / better / best.
• men ("but") marks the contrast that tips the balance toward home.
• Culturally, it is the slogan of hjemmekos — the Norwegian love of cozy contentment at home.