pleie (to usually do) | Norwegian Grammar

pleie is the verb Norwegian reaches for whenever English would say "usually" or "used to." It is not a content verb you can use on its own to mean much — its whole job is to sit in front of another verb and mark that action as a habit. The construction is always pleie å + infinitive, and it splits cleanly along the tense line: the present pleier means "usually does," while the preterite pleide means "used to." English needs two completely different words for those two ideas; Norwegian gets both from a single verb, which is exactly why pleie is worth a page of its own.

Conjugation

Class: weak (e-verb), with a contracted supine. Auxiliary: ha.

Tense / mood	Norwegian	English
Infinitiv	å pleie	to usually do / to tend to
Presens	pleier	usually do(es)
Preteritum	pleide	used to
Perfektum	har pleid	have/has used to
Pluskvamperfektum	hadde pleid	had used to
Futurum	vil/skal pleie	will tend to
Imperativ	pleie! (rare)	—
Presens partisipp	pleiende	(rarely used)

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The single most important fact about this verb is that pleie always needs å before the next verb: jeg pleier å stå opp tidlig. Drop the å and the sentence is broken — unlike the modals (bør, må, kan), which take a bare infinitive, pleie is an ordinary verb governing an infinitive clause.

pleier å — the everyday "usually"

The perfect/supine and the rarely-used imperative are footnotes. What you actually use pleie for, every single day, is the present-tense habitual:

Jeg pleier å stå opp tidlig i helgene også.

I usually get up early on weekends too.

Vi pleier å spise middag rundt seks.

We usually have dinner around six.

Pleier du å trene før eller etter jobb?

Do you usually work out before or after work?

Notice what is not happening here. English speakers instinctively want to translate "usually" with an adverb and reach for vanligvis ("usually") or som regel ("as a rule"). Those adverbs exist and are perfectly correct — but in natural Norwegian, the default, most idiomatic way to say "I usually..." is the verb pleie, not an adverb. A native speaker says jeg pleier å gå dit far more readily than jeg går vanligvis dit. Treat pleie å as your first choice and the adverb as a secondary tool.

There is no simple one-word present-tense verb for "usually" in English to map onto, which is why this construction feels alien at first. Think of pleier as a light auxiliary that means "habitually": pleier å lese = "habitually reads" = "usually reads."

pleide å — "used to"

Put pleie in the preterite and you get pleide, which is the standard translation of English "used to." This is its second high-value function: describing a past habit that has stopped.

Jeg pleide å bo i Oslo, men nå bor jeg i Bergen.

I used to live in Oslo, but now I live in Bergen.

Han pleide å røyke en pakke om dagen før han sluttet.

He used to smoke a pack a day before he quit.

Bestemor pleide å fortelle de samme historiene hver jul.

Grandma used to tell the same stories every Christmas.

The implication of pleide is the same as English "used to": the habit is over. Jeg pleide å bo i Oslo strongly suggests you no longer live there. If you only mean "I lived in Oslo for a while" without the habitual flavour, you would just use the plain preterite bodde. Reach for pleide specifically when you want that "this was my routine, but not anymore" colour.

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The tense does all the work of the English split. pleier å = "usually" (present habit, still true); pleide å = "used to" (past habit, now over). Same verb, two English translations — let the present/preterite contrast carry the meaning.

The other pleie — to nurse / care for

There is a second, unrelated verb spelled the same way: pleie meaning "to nurse, to tend, to care for" (a patient, a wound, a garden, a friendship). This pleie is fully lexical and takes a direct object, no å-infinitive: pleie en pasient, pleie såret. The familiar noun en pleier ("a nurse / care worker") comes from it, as does sykepleier ("nurse," literally "sick-tender") and pleiehjem ("nursing home").

Hun pleide den syke faren sin i mange år.

She cared for her sick father for many years.

Vi må pleie vennskapet, ellers forsvinner det.

We have to nurture the friendship, or it will fade away.

Note the trap hiding in that first example: pleide here is the preterite of the care-for verb ("cared for"), not the habitual "used to." Context disambiguates — if there is an å and another verb, it is habitual; if there is a direct object, it is the nursing verb.

Common Mistakes

❌ Jeg pleier stå opp tidlig.

Incorrect — pleie requires å before the infinitive

✅ Jeg pleier å stå opp tidlig.

I usually get up early.

❌ Jeg vanligvis går på kino på fredager.

Awkward — overusing the adverb where a native speaker would use pleie

✅ Jeg pleier å gå på kino på fredager.

I usually go to the cinema on Fridays.

❌ Jeg brukte å bo i Oslo.

Incorrect — 'used to' is not 'bruke å'; that's a calque of English 'use to'

✅ Jeg pleide å bo i Oslo.

I used to live in Oslo.

❌ Han pleiet å røyke.

Incorrect — the preterite is pleide, not the regular weak pleiet

✅ Han pleide å røyke.

He used to smoke.

Key Takeaways

pleie / pleier / pleide / har pleid — always followed by å + infinitive when it means "habitually."
pleier å = "usually" (present habit); pleide å = "used to" (past habit, now over). One verb does both English jobs.
Prefer pleie å over the adverb vanligvis; the verb is the idiomatic default.
Don't calque "used to" as bruke å — that is wrong. The word is pleide.
A separate verb pleie means "to nurse / care for" (takes a direct object, no å); it gives us en pleier "a nurse."

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