ri ("to ride", on horseback) is a short, contracted strong verb that hides a lot of grammar in very few letters. It belongs to the same i–e–e ablaut class as skrive and bite, and it is the near-perfect twin of the English ride / rode / ridden — so much so that the English cognate practically hands you the Norwegian forms. The catch is that ri is contracted (the stem has lost its old consonant), which makes the present and the supine look unusually bare, and the meaning is narrower than English "ride": in Norwegian ri is for horses, not for cars, buses or bikes.
Conjugation
Class: strong, ablaut i–e–e (contracted stem). Auxiliary: ha.
| Tense / mood | Norwegian | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitiv | å ri | to ride |
| Presens | rir | ride(s), am/is/are riding |
| Preteritum | red | rode |
| Perfektum | har ridd | have/has ridden |
| Pluskvamperfektum | hadde ridd | had ridden |
| Futurum | skal/vil ri | will ride |
| Imperativ | ri! | ride! |
| Presens partisipp | riende | riding (adjective) |
The ablaut and the English cognate
ri runs the i → e → e path of the skrive-class:
- i: ri, rir (infinitive and present)
- e: red (preterite)
- i → dd: ridd (supine)
The English cousin is ride / rode / ridden, and it is one of the cleanest matches in the whole language. English rode has the same lowered vowel as Norwegian red; English ridden and Norwegian ridd both keep the high vowel and a doubled dental. If you can recite "ride, rode, ridden," you already know "ri, red, ridd" — you only have to trust the cognate.
The one place ri differs from its classmate skrive is the supine. Stems that end in -t or that are contracted shorten the supine to -dd rather than keeping the long -evet: compare skrive → skrevet with ri → ridd and bite → bitt. So the preterite is reliably e (red), but the supine is the short ridd.
Hun rir hver lørdag på en gård utenfor byen.
She rides every Saturday at a farm outside the city.
Som barn red jeg bestandig uten sal.
As a child I always rode bareback.
Har du ridd før, eller er dette første gang?
Have you ridden before, or is this your first time?
ri vs kjøre — ride a horse, drive a vehicle
This is the high-value distinction on the page, and it is exactly where English speakers go wrong. English "ride" covers horses, bikes, buses, trains and motorbikes. Norwegian splits this work:
- ri — to ride an animal, almost always a horse. The thing under you is alive.
- kjøre — to drive or be carried by a vehicle: a car, bus, train, and (in everyday speech) a bicycle or motorbike too.
So "I rode the bus" is not jeg red bussen; it is jeg tok bussen or jeg kjørte med bussen. "Ride a bike" in natural Norwegian is sykle (its own verb) or kjøre sykkel, never ri sykkel. Reserve ri for the saddle.
Vi kjørte til hytta, men da snøen kom, måtte vi ri den siste biten.
We drove to the cabin, but when the snow came we had to ride the last stretch.
Du rir ikke bussen — du tar bussen.
You don't 'ride' the bus — you take the bus.
ri på and the noun en ridetur
ri combines with på to name what you ride on: ri på en hest, ri på et esel. The bare ri en hest (no på) also occurs and sounds slightly more clipped, but ri på is the everyday phrasing and the safe default for learners.
The verb anchors a small family of compound nouns you will meet constantly around stables and the outdoors:
- en ridetur — a horseback ride / a hack (a riding outing)
- en rideskole — a riding school
- en ridehest — a riding horse
- et ridehus / en ridebane — an indoor / outdoor riding arena
Barna fikk ri på ponni på bondegården.
The kids got to ride a pony at the farm.
Vi tok en lang ridetur langs stranda i solnedgangen.
We went for a long ride along the beach at sunset.
Hun har ridd på hest siden hun var fem.
She has ridden horses since she was five.
Common Mistakes
❌ Jeg ridde til skogen i går.
Incorrect — ri is strong; the preterite is red, not the regularised ridde
✅ Jeg red til skogen i går.
I rode to the forest yesterday.
❌ Har du redd den hesten?
Incorrect — red is the preterite; after har use the supine ridd (and redd means 'afraid'!)
✅ Har du ridd den hesten?
Have you ridden that horse?
❌ Vi red bussen hjem etter konserten.
Incorrect — a bus is a vehicle; use ta or kjøre, not ri
✅ Vi tok bussen hjem etter konserten.
We took the bus home after the concert.
❌ Han rider sykkel til jobben.
Incorrect — a bike isn't a horse; it's sykle (or kjøre sykkel)
✅ Han sykler til jobben.
He rides his bike to work.
Key Takeaways
- ri / rir / red / har ridd / ri! — strong, i–e–e, contracted; mirrors English ride / rode / ridden.
- Spelling trap: the preterite red also happens to spell red — don't confuse it with redd "afraid"; and don't regularise to ridde.
- ri is only for riding a living animal (a horse). For vehicles use kjøre, for a bike sykle, for public transport ta.
- Learn the på pattern (ri på en hest) and the noun family (ridetur, rideskole, ridehest).
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
- 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).