This is the conjugation reference for ha, "to have." It does two jobs, and the second is what makes it indispensable. First, it is the ordinary verb of possession (jeg har en bil = "I have a car"). Second — and this is the headline for an English speaker — ha is the sole auxiliary for every compound tense in Norwegian. Every "have done," "had done," "will have done" runs through har or hadde. Master this one verb and you have the entire perfect system's engine.
Principal parts
Ha is irregular but tidy. Watch the spelling: the preterite hadde has a double d, and the supine hatt a double t.
| Infinitive | Present | Preterite | Perfect (har + supine) | Imperative |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| å ha | har | hadde | har hatt | ha! |
| to have | have / has | had | have had | have! |
Like every Norwegian verb, ha takes one form per tense for all persons: jeg har, du har, de har; jeg hadde, vi hadde. There is no has/have split — har covers both.
Jeg har to søsken, en bror og en søster.
I have two siblings, a brother and a sister.
Hun har ikke tid i dag.
She doesn't have time today.
ha as the perfect auxiliary
This is the most important function on the page. To build the perfect ("have done"), use har + supine. To build the pluperfect ("had done"), use hadde + supine. See verbs/perfect-tense and verbs/pluperfect for the full systems; here is the core in action:
Har du spist allerede?
Have you eaten already?
Vi hadde aldri sett noe lignende før.
We had never seen anything like it before.
Toget har gått, og bussen hadde gått da vi kom.
The train has left, and the bus had left by the time we got there.
hadde for the pluperfect — and for hypotheticals
Beyond "had done," hadde is the workhorse of unreal/conditional sentences — the equivalent of English "if I had... I would have...":
Hvis jeg hadde visst det, hadde jeg sagt fra.
If I had known, I would have said something.
This double hadde (one in the if-clause, one in the result) feels redundant to English ears, but it is completely natural Norwegian.
Object idioms: ha det, ha med seg, ha på seg, ha lyst til
Ha anchors a cluster of everyday fixed expressions. These are core vocabulary, not deducible from "have."
ha det (bra) — the standard casual goodbye, literally "have it (good)":
Takk for i dag, ha det bra!
Thanks for today, take care! (informal)
ha det gøy / ha det fint — to have a good/fun time:
Vi hadde det så gøy på festen i går.
We had such a fun time at the party yesterday.
ha med seg — to bring along (literally "have with oneself"):
Husk å ha med deg paraply — det skal regne.
Remember to bring an umbrella — it's going to rain.
ha på seg — to wear / have on:
Hva hadde hun på seg i bryllupet?
What was she wearing at the wedding?
ha lyst til (å) / ha lyst på — to feel like, to want (a desire, not a need):
Jeg har lyst til å reise til Lofoten i sommer.
I'd like to travel to Lofoten this summer.
Har du lyst på en kaffe?
Do you fancy a coffee?
Note the reflexive seg/deg/meg in ha med seg and ha på seg: it agrees with the subject (jeg har med meg, hun har med seg). English drops the reflexive ("bring along," "have on"), so learners routinely forget it.
The imperative: ha
The command form is simply ha (the bare stem). You meet it mostly in well-wishing formulas:
Ha en fin dag!
Have a nice day!
Ha det gøy i kveld!
Have fun tonight!
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg er gått hjem.
Incorrect — the perfect auxiliary is always ha, never være.
✅ Jeg har gått hjem.
I've gone home.
❌ Vi hade det gøy.
Incorrect — the preterite is hadde, with a double d.
✅ Vi hadde det gøy.
We had a fun time.
❌ Har du hat en fin dag?
Incorrect — the supine is hatt, with a double t.
✅ Har du hatt en fin dag?
Have you had a nice day?
❌ Jeg har lyst å reise.
Incorrect — it's ha lyst TIL å + verb (or ha lyst PÅ + noun).
✅ Jeg har lyst til å reise.
I'd like to travel.
❌ Husk å ha med paraply.
Incorrect — ha med seg needs the reflexive: ha med deg.
✅ Husk å ha med deg paraply.
Remember to bring an umbrella.
Key Takeaways
- ha / har / hadde / hatt, imperative ha — note hadde and hatt with their doubled consonants.
- ha is the only compound-tense auxiliary in Norwegian: har
- supine for the perfect, hadde
- supine for the pluperfect.
- supine for the perfect, hadde
- There is no være-auxiliary, even for motion verbs — simpler than German/French/Dutch.
- Learn the idiom block as vocabulary: ha det bra, ha med seg, ha på seg, ha lyst til.
Now practice Norwegian
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- The Present Perfect: har + supineA2 — How to build the Norwegian present perfect with har plus the invariant supine — and why Norwegian uses har for every verb, including come, go and be.
- The Pluperfect: hadde + supineB1 — The pluperfect (past perfect) — hadde + supine for an action completed before another past action — in narrative, reported speech, and counterfactual conditionals, with English 'had + participle' as your guide.
- være (to be)A1 — The complete conjugation of Norwegian's most important verb — present er, preterite var, supine vært, imperative vær — a fully suppletive copula whose forms never change for person.
- bli (to become / get)A1 — The full conjugation of bli — present blir, preterite ble, supine blitt, imperative bli — the change-of-state counterpart to være and the auxiliary of the bli-passive.