jobbe ("to work") is the verb you reach for whenever you talk about your job, your hours, or what you do for a living. It is a textbook weak Class 1 verb — the easiest and most regular conjugation type in Norwegian — and it comes with a small set of governed prepositions (jobbe med, jobbe som, jobbe på) that you should learn as fixed units. It also has a more formal twin, arbeide, and knowing when to pick which is part of sounding like a real speaker rather than a textbook.
Conjugation
Class: weak, Class 1 (-et / -a). Auxiliary: ha.
| Tense / mood | Norwegian | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitiv | å jobbe | to work |
| Presens | jobber | work(s), am/is/are working |
| Preteritum | jobbet | worked |
| Perfektum | har jobbet | have/has worked |
| Pluskvamperfektum | hadde jobbet | had worked |
| Futurum | skal/vil jobbe | will work |
| Imperativ | jobb! | work! |
| Presens partisipp | jobbende | working (adjective) |
How the conjugation works
Class 1 weak verbs build both the preterite and the supine by adding -et to the stem: jobb- → jobbet. There is no vowel change, no stem change, nothing to memorize beyond the ending. This is the opposite of a strong verb like finne/fant/funnet, where the vowel itself shifts.
Note the double b. The stem ends in -bb, and that doubling survives through every form: jobbe, jobber, jobbet. The double consonant is doing real work — it tells you the preceding vowel is short. A single b (jobe) would invite a long-vowel reading and is simply wrong.
In everyday speech and casual writing you will constantly hear and see the -a ending instead of -et: jobba for both the preterite and the supine. Jeg jobba hele helga and jeg har jobba der i tre år are completely standard in spoken Bokmål and in texting (informal). Both jobbet and jobba are officially permitted in written Bokmål, so neither is wrong — jobbet just reads as slightly more neutral/written, jobba as more spoken.
Jeg jobber på et sykehus i Oslo.
I work at a hospital in Oslo.
Hun jobbet som lærer før hun ble pensjonist.
She worked as a teacher before she retired.
Vi har jobbet sammen i over ti år nå.
We've worked together for over ten years now.
Jobb litt mindre og sov litt mer!
Work a bit less and sleep a bit more!
The governed prepositions: med, som, på
jobbe takes different prepositions depending on what kind of information you are adding — and the choice is not free. Learn each combination as a unit:
- jobbe med — to work on/with (a task, a field, a topic, or people). Hva jobber du med? is the standard way to ask "What do you do (for work)?" — literally "What do you work with?"
- jobbe som — to work as (a role or profession). Jeg jobber som sykepleier.
- jobbe på — to work at (a workplace), or to work on something to improve it. Jeg jobber på et kontor. / Jeg jobber på norsken min ("I'm working on my Norwegian").
English splits the same ground with "work on / work with / work as / work at," but the lines fall in different places. In particular, English asks "What do you do?" while Norwegian asks "What do you work with?" (Hva jobber du med?) — a question that sounds odd if you translate it word-for-word.
Hva jobber du med, egentlig?
What do you actually do for a living?
Han jobber med fornybar energi.
He works in renewable energy.
Jeg jobber som frilanser, så timene varierer.
I work as a freelancer, so my hours vary.
Hun jobber på en kafé ved siden av studiene.
She works at a café alongside her studies.
jobbe vs arbeide
jobbe and arbeide both mean "to work," and in most contexts they are interchangeable in meaning. The difference is register, not sense:
- jobbe — the everyday, spoken, all-purpose verb (informal/neutral). This is what people actually say.
- arbeide — the same idea in a more formal, written, or elevated key (formal). It shows up in legislation, job ads, news writing, and careful prose. Arbeide conjugates as arbeider / arbeidet / har arbeidet.
Crucially, the noun flips the default. While jobbe dominates as the verb, the standard noun for "work/job/labour" in many compounds is built on arbeid-: arbeid (work), arbeidsplass (workplace), arbeidsledig (unemployed), arbeidsgiver (employer). You will say jeg jobber but write arbeidskontrakt — so both roots are unavoidable. The casual noun jobb ("a job") also exists: jeg har fått ny jobb.
I helga jobber jeg ikke — da slapper jeg helt av.
On the weekend I don't work — that's when I completely relax.
Søkeren har arbeidet ti år innen helsevesenet.
The applicant has worked ten years within the health sector.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg har jobb her i to år.
Incorrect — 'jobb' is the noun; the supine after 'har' is 'jobbet/jobba'
✅ Jeg har jobbet her i to år.
I have worked here for two years.
❌ Jeg jobber som en lærer.
Incorrect — after 'jobbe som' Norwegian drops the article; no 'en'
✅ Jeg jobber som lærer.
I work as a teacher.
❌ Hva jobber du på?
Incorrect for 'what do you do?' — that question uses 'med', not 'på'
✅ Hva jobber du med?
What do you do for a living?
❌ Jeg jober på et kontor.
Incorrect — the stem keeps the double b: jobber, not jober
✅ Jeg jobber på et kontor.
I work at an office.
Key Takeaways
- jobbe / jobber / jobbet / har jobbet / jobb! — weak Class 1, preterite and supine are the same word.
- Colloquial -a (jobba) is standard and very common; jobbet is the more neutral written form.
- Learn the prepositions whole: jobbe med (work on/with), jobbe som (work as), jobbe på (work at).
- Ask "what do you do?" as Hva jobber du med? — not ...på? and not a calque of English "do."
- arbeide is the formal verb; the noun root arbeid- powers most work compounds even when you say jobbe.
Now practice Norwegian
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Weak Verbs: The Four ClassesA2 — A map of the four regular Norwegian past-tense classes (-et/-a, -te, -de, -dde) — how to predict a verb's class from its stem and how the supine differs from the preterite.
- Weak Class 1: -et / -a (kaste)A2 — The largest weak verb class — preterite and supine both in -et (kaste → kastet → har kastet) — and the fully correct colloquial -a variant (kasta, snakka).
- 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).
- Verbs with Fixed PrepositionsB1 — Verbs that govern a fixed, unpredictable preposition you must memorise as a unit: vente på (wait for), tenke på (think about), lete etter (look for), be om (ask for), glede seg til (look forward to), bestemme seg for (decide on) — where the Norwegian preposition almost never matches English.
- snakke (to speak / talk)A1 — Full conjugation of the weak Class 1 verb snakke (snakke / snakker / snakket~snakka / har snakket) — the -et/-a preterite variants, snakke med / om, and how snakke differs from si, fortelle and prate.