falle ("to fall") is a strong verb whose English cognate — fall / fell / fallen — makes it instantly recognisable, even though the two languages diverge in the details. Beyond literal falling, falle is the engine of a whole set of particle idioms (falle for, falle sammen, det faller meg inn) that you will meet constantly in conversation. It is an intransitive verb of motion: things fall, but you do not "fall something."
Conjugation
Class: strong. The vowel stays a in the past (no i–a–u shuffle here): falle → falt. Auxiliary: ha.
| Tense / mood | Norwegian | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitiv | å falle | to fall |
| Presens | faller | fall(s), am/is/are falling |
| Preteritum | falt | fell |
| Perfektum | har falt | have/has fallen |
| Pluskvamperfektum | hadde falt | had fallen |
| Futurum | skal/vil falle | will fall |
| Imperativ | fall! | fall! |
| Presens partisipp | fallende | falling (adjective) |
| Past participle (adj.) | fallen | fallen (as adjective: en fallen engel) |
The cognate, and where it differs
English fall / fell / fallen is strong, and so is Norwegian falle. But the patterns are not a perfect match, and this is worth flagging honestly:
- English changes the vowel: fall → fell → fallen.
- Norwegian keeps a all the way through (falle, faller, falt) and adds a plain -t in the past — so it looks almost weak, even though it's classed as strong because the supine falt lacks the regular weak -te/-de pattern of its consonant.
So your English instinct ("this verb is irregular") is correct, but you must not import the English vowel fell — there is no *fell in Norwegian. The past is simply falt, with the same a as the present.
This is the honest difficulty of falle: it is grouped with the strong verbs, yet on the surface it behaves like a slimmed-down weak verb (stem + -t), because the historical vowel changes have been worn flat in Bokmål. You do not need to resolve that classification puzzle to use the verb — you need exactly two facts. First, the past is falt, not the English-style *fell and not a regular weak *fallet. Second, the past and the supine are the same word (falt), so jeg falt and jeg har falt share a form, distinguished only by the presence of har. Lock those two in and the verb gives you no further trouble.
Bladene faller tidlig i år — det blir nok en lang høst.
The leaves are falling early this year — it'll be a long autumn.
Hun falt på isen og brakk håndleddet.
She fell on the ice and broke her wrist.
Temperaturen har falt under null i natt.
The temperature has dropped below zero overnight.
Senses
The core sense is physical falling — dropping, tumbling, descending under gravity. Crucially, falle is intransitive: a thing falls, but you cannot "fall" a thing. To say someone dropped an object, Norwegian switches to a different verb — miste ("to lose/drop") or slippe ("to let go") — so jeg mistet koppen ("I dropped the cup"), never *jeg falt koppen. English speakers reach for "fall" as if it could take an object; in Norwegian it never does.
By natural extension, falle also covers values and quantities going down — prices, temperatures, numbers, demand — where English says "fall" or "drop." This is the register you'll meet in news and finance (krona faller mot dollaren, "the krone is falling against the dollar"). And in elevated or commemorative language it means to die in battle: de falne is "the fallen," and falle for fedrelandet is "to fall for one's country." That sense is (formal/literary), reserved for solemn contexts; you would not use it for an ordinary death.
Aksjekursene falt kraftig etter nyheten.
Share prices fell sharply after the news.
Vi minnes dem som falt under krigen.
We remember those who fell during the war.
Particle idioms
falle + particle produces several everyday expressions. Learn them as wholes — the meanings rarely add up from the parts:
- falle ned — to fall down (the literal "descend and land").
- falle for — to fall for someone (romance), or to give in to a temptation. falle for fristelsen = "give in to temptation."
- falle sammen — to collapse, fall apart (a building, a plan, a person breaking down).
- det faller meg inn — "it occurs to me." Here falle inn
- a dative-style pronoun means a thought arrives. The subject is the impersonal det, and the person it occurs to goes in the object form: det faller *meg inn, det falt **henne inn*.
Pass på at ikke bøkene faller ned fra hylla.
Make sure the books don't fall down off the shelf.
Han falt for henne med en gang, allerede den første kvelden.
He fell for her right away, that very first evening.
Hele planen falt sammen da sjefen sa nei.
The whole plan fell apart when the boss said no.
Det falt meg aldri inn at hun kunne ha rett.
It never occurred to me that she might be right.
Common Mistakes
❌ Han fellte på trappa.
Incorrect — there's no English-style 'fell'; the preterite is falt
✅ Han falt på trappa.
He fell on the stairs.
❌ Prisene har fallen mye i år.
Incorrect — fallen is the adjective; the supine after har is falt
✅ Prisene har falt mye i år.
Prices have dropped a lot this year.
❌ Treet fallt i stormen.
Incorrect — the preterite has one l and one t: falt, not 'fallt'
✅ Treet falt i stormen.
The tree fell in the storm.
❌ Jeg faller inn at vi burde dra.
Incorrect — the idiom is impersonal: det faller meg inn
✅ Det faller meg inn at vi burde dra.
It occurs to me that we should leave.
Key Takeaways
- falle / faller / falt / har falt / fall! — strong, but the vowel stays a throughout; no English-style fell.
- The supine is falt; fallen is only the adjective ("a fallen angel").
- falle also means prices/temperatures going down and (formal) dying in battle.
- Key idioms: falle ned, falle for, falle sammen, and impersonal det faller meg inn.
Now practice Norwegian
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- The Strong Verb Ablaut ClassesB1 — The ablaut (vowel-change) classes of Norwegian strong verbs grouped by pattern — i–a–u, i–e–e, y/ju–ø–ø, a–o–å, e–a–e — each mapped onto its English cognate class so you can often guess the forms.
- Strong Verbs: Ablaut and the Vowel-Change ClassesA2 — Strong verbs build the past by changing the stem vowel instead of adding an ending (drikke → drakk → drukket) — the main ablaut series, grouped, with full tables and English cognate hooks.
- Verb Reference: How to Use These TablesA2 — How to read the Norwegian verb-reference pages — the five principal parts, weak vs strong classes, and the supine (the har-form).
- holde (to hold/keep)A2 — Full conjugation of the strong verb holde (holde / holder / holdt / har holdt), with the high-value idioms holde på (å), holde med, holde ut, holde fast and holde seg.