Each page in this Verb Reference section gives you the complete conjugation of one high-frequency Norwegian verb in a single table, followed by usage notes and natural example sentences. This page teaches you how to read those tables: what the five principal parts are, how to tell a weak verb from a strong one, and why the supine (the form after har) gets its own column. Once you can read one table, you can read all of them.
The five principal parts
Norwegian verbs are far simpler than the ones English speakers fear from Spanish or German: there is no person agreement at all. Jeg drikker, du drikker, hun drikker, vi drikker — every person uses the identical form. That means a whole tense collapses into a single word, and a verb's entire grammar fits into five "principal parts." Learn these five and you can build every sentence.
| Principal part | Norwegian term | Example (kaste, to throw) | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | infinitiv | (å) kaste | The dictionary form; follows å ("to") and modal verbs |
| Present | presens | kaster | Present and near future ("throws / is throwing / will throw") |
| Preterite | preteritum | kastet / kasta | Simple past, a finished event ("threw") |
| Supine | perfektum partisipp | kastet / kasta | The har-form; builds the perfect ("har kastet" = "has thrown") |
| Imperative | imperativ | kast! | Command form ("throw!") |
Here is the same verb shown the way every reference page lays it out — as a full skeleton you will see repeated for drikke, finne, falle, holde and the rest.
| Tense / mood | Form | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitiv | å kaste | to throw |
| Presens | kaster | throw(s), am/is/are throwing |
| Preteritum | kastet | threw |
| Perfektum | har kastet | have/has thrown |
| Pluskvamperfektum | hadde kastet | had thrown |
| Futurum | skal/vil kaste | will throw |
| Imperativ | kast! | throw! |
| Presens partisipp | kastende | throwing (adjective) |
Why the supine gets its own column
This is the column English speakers most often misread, so it gets its own explanation. The preterite and the supine are two different forms with two different jobs, even when they happen to look identical.
- The preterite (kastet) is a finished verb all by itself: Jeg kastet ballen — "I threw the ball."
- The supine (kastet) cannot stand alone. It needs har or hadde in front of it: Jeg har kastet ballen — "I have thrown the ball."
For weak verbs the two forms are often spelled the same, so the distinction feels invisible. But for strong verbs they diverge sharply, and that is exactly where learners stumble:
❌ Jeg har drakk for mye kaffe.
Incorrect — drakk is the preterite, not the supine
✅ Jeg har drukket for mye kaffe.
I've drunk too much coffee.
The English brain wants to put the past-tense word after "have," but Norwegian — like older English ("I have drunk," not "I have drank") — insists on the supine. Every reference table lists Preteritum and Perfektum on separate rows precisely so you can see, at a glance, drakk versus har drukket.
Reading the class label: weak vs strong
Every reference page tells you whether the verb is weak or strong. This is the deep organising fact of the Germanic verb system, and it works the same way in English — which is your secret advantage.
A weak verb forms its past with a dental suffix (a -t- or -d- sound) glued onto an unchanged stem. English does exactly this: walk → walked, love → loved. Norwegian weak verbs split into four classes by which suffix they take:
| Class | Suffix | Infinitive | Preterite | Supine | English parallel |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -et / -a | kaste | kastet / kasta | kastet / kasta | walk → walked |
| 2 | -te | lese | leste | lest | read → (read) |
| 3 | -de | leve | levde | levd | live → lived |
| 4 | -dde | bo | bodde | bodd | dwell → dwelled |
A strong verb takes no dental suffix. Instead it changes the vowel inside the stem — a pattern called ablaut. English does this too, with the very same words: drink → drank → drunk, find → found → found, fall → fell → fallen. A strong verb's preterite is a different vowel, not a verb plus -ed. That is the entire definition.
Jeg synger hver dag, men i går sang jeg ikke.
I sing every day, but yesterday I didn't sing.
De har funnet en leilighet i sentrum.
They've found an apartment downtown.
How strong verbs are grouped
The reference pages name a strong verb's ablaut pattern using its three key vowels. The most famous is the i–a–u class, the textbook model: drikke/drakk/drukket, finne/fant/funnet, synge/sang/sunget. If you learn this one pattern you have a template for a dozen common verbs. Other strong verbs follow other vowel series (falle/falt, holde/holdt, gi/gav/gitt), and each page tells you which.
Be honest with yourself here: there is no rule that predicts a verb's exact ablaut vowels from its infinitive. You cannot derive drakk from drikke by formula — you memorise it, just as English children memorise "drank." What the patterns give you is grouping: once you've learned that drikke is i–a–u, you recognise the same shape in finne and synge, and the memory load shrinks. The reference pages exist to give you each verb's parts cleanly so you can drill them.
Common Mistakes
❌ Hun har skrev et brev.
Incorrect — skrev is the preterite; the supine is skrevet
✅ Hun har skrevet et brev.
She has written a letter.
❌ Jeg er gått hjem allerede.
Incorrect — Norwegian never uses 'be' for the perfect
✅ Jeg har gått hjem allerede.
I've already gone home.
❌ Vi finnet huset til slutt.
Incorrect — finne is strong, so there's no -et past; it's fant
✅ Vi fant huset til slutt.
We found the house in the end.
❌ Du drikker for mye i går.
Incorrect — 'i går' (yesterday) needs the preterite, not the present
✅ Du drakk for mye i går.
You drank too much yesterday.
Key Takeaways
- Five principal parts run every Norwegian verb: infinitiv, presens, preteritum, perfektum (har + supine), imperativ — and there is no person agreement.
- The perfect always uses ha (har / hadde), never "be."
- The supine is the har-form and has its own table row; do not put the preterite after har (it's har drukket, not har drakk).
- Weak verbs add a dental suffix (-et/-a, -te, -de, -dde); strong verbs change the vowel (ablaut) with no suffix.
- English cognates are a prediction tool: the same verb is usually strong in both languages or weak in both.
Now practice Norwegian
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Verbs: OverviewA1 — A map of the Norwegian verb system — its five forms, the weak/strong split, the lack of a continuous tense, and its single most welcome feature for English speakers: no person agreement.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.