skrive (to write) | Norwegian Grammar

skrive ("to write") is a strong verb — it builds its past by changing the stem vowel, not by adding an ending — and it's one of the friendliest strong verbs an English speaker can meet. Its three key forms, skrive – skrev – skrevet, line up almost perfectly with English write – wrote – written, so the irregularity is already in your head; you just learn the Norwegian spellings. That cognate hook makes skrive the ideal verb for getting comfortable with the strong pattern.

Conjugation

Class: strong, ablaut i–e–e. Auxiliary: ha (as for every Norwegian verb).

Tense / mood	Norwegian	English
Infinitiv	å skrive	to write
Presens	skriver	write(s), am/is/are writing
Preteritum	skrev	wrote
Perfektum	har skrevet	have/has written
Pluskvamperfektum	hadde skrevet	had written
Futurum	skal/vil skrive	will write
Imperativ	skriv!	write!
Presens partisipp	skrivende	writing (adjective)
Passiv (infinitiv)	å skrives	to be written (s-passive)

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Spell the supine with care: it's skrevet — one v, an e where the present has i, and the ending -et. The classic error is to weak-conjugate it as "skrivet," keeping the i and the v of the infinitive. The vowel must change to e in both the preterite (skrev) and the supine (skrevet).

The ablaut, and why it matches English

A strong verb signals the past by changing the stem vowel rather than adding -te or -et. skrive runs the series i → e → e:

i in the present/infinitive: skrive, skriver
e in the preterite: skrev
e in the supine: skrevet

English inherited the same verb from the same Germanic root, and although the spellings drifted, the strong behaviour survived: write → wrote → written. So you already conjugate this verb every day in English — it's an irregular ("strong") verb there too. The Norwegian forms are if anything more regular than the English ones: there's no doubled consonant, no silent letter, just a clean i → e vowel swap and the supine ending -et.

Be honest about the limit, though: knowing it's strong tells you to expect a vowel change, but nothing in the spelling of skrive tells you in advance that the past is skrev (an e) rather than some other vowel. You memorise the principal parts of the first verb in a class; after that the pattern carries you to its relatives — bite/bet/bitt ("bite"), ride/red/ridd ("ride"), gripe/grep/grepet ("grip"), all built on the same long-i root.

Jeg skriver et brev til bestemor — hun liker ikke e-post.

I'm writing a letter to grandma — she doesn't like email.

Han skrev en hel roman på under et år.

He wrote an entire novel in under a year.

Har du skrevet ferdig oppgaven, eller mangler du fortsatt konklusjonen?

Have you finished writing the assignment, or are you still missing the conclusion?

Present tense: one form for "write," "writes," and "am writing"

English uses three present forms — I write, she writes, I am writing — but Norwegian has only skriver for all of them. There's no separate progressive: jeg skriver et brev covers both "I write a letter" (habit) and "I'm writing a letter" (right now). To stress that you're in the middle of it, Norwegian uses sitte og skrive ("sit and write") — a posture verb plus og — which is the closest equivalent to the English "-ing" progressive.

Hun sitter og skriver på oppgaven sin akkurat nå.

She's (sitting) writing her assignment right now.

Jeg skriver alltid handlelista før jeg drar i butikken.

I always write the shopping list before I go to the shop.

Senses and the supine after har

The core sense is plain: to put words on paper or screen. As in English, skrive covers everything from handwriting a note to authoring a book to writing software code (skrive kode). The one rule to keep straight is the same for every strong verb: after har/hadde you use the supine skrevet, never the preterite skrev. Use skrev for a finished past action ("I wrote") and har skrevet for the perfect ("I have written").

Skriv navnet ditt øverst på arket, er du snill.

Write your name at the top of the sheet, please.

Jeg skrev til dem i forrige uke, men har ikke hørt noe ennå.

I wrote to them last week, but haven't heard anything yet.

Particles and the reflexive

Strong verbs combine freely with particles, and several of these are everyday vocabulary:

skrive under (på noe) — to sign (literally "write under"): skrive under på kontrakten ("sign the contract").
skrive ut — to print (out), or to discharge a patient from hospital: skrive ut dokumentet ("print the document"); bli skrevet ut ("be discharged").
skrive ned — to write down, jot down: skrive ned nummeret ("write down the number").
skrive seg — used reflexively in skrive seg fra/tilbake til, "to date back to / originate from" (formal): Tradisjonen skriver seg fra 1700-tallet. ("The tradition dates back to the 18th century.")

Du må skrive under her, så er kontrakten ferdig.

You have to sign here, and then the contract is done.

Kan du skrive ut billettene? Skriveren står på kontoret.

Can you print the tickets? The printer's in the office.

Skikken skriver seg helt tilbake til middelalderen.

The custom dates all the way back to the Middle Ages.

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"Sign your name" is skrive under or the verb signere (more formal, for official documents) — not skrive alone. And "spell" a word is a different verb entirely, stave (Hvordan staver du det?, "How do you spell that?"), never skrive.

The verb stem feeds a productive family of words worth recognising:

en forfatter — "an author / writer" (of books); the literary professional. A journalist or general writer is en skribent.
skriving — "writing" as an activity (kreativ skriving, "creative writing").
en skrift — "a script / writing / typeface"; håndskrift is "handwriting" (note å).
en skriver — "a printer" (the machine), and also, in older usage, a clerk/scribe (archaic).
et skrivebord — "a desk" (literally a "writing-table").

So you can climb from the verb to a whole topic: Hun jobber med kreativ skriving ("She does creative writing"), en kjent forfatter ("a famous author"), pen håndskrift ("nice handwriting").

Bestefar hadde den fineste håndskriften jeg har sett.

Grandpa had the finest handwriting I've ever seen.

Hun drømmer om å bli forfatter og skriver hver eneste dag.

She dreams of becoming an author and writes every single day.

Where skrive sits among the strong verbs

skrive belongs to the largest, most regular strong series — the long-i verbs that run i → e → e and end the supine in -et. Once skrive is solid, you get a whole shelf of relatives almost for free, because they all behave the same way:

Infinitive	Preterite	Supine	English
skrive	skrev	skrevet	write
bite	bet	bitt	bite
gripe	grep	grepet	grip / grab
bli	ble	blitt	become / stay

You can see the family resemblance — and also why you still memorise each one: the supine wobbles between -et (skrevet, grepet) and a shorter -tt (bitt, blitt). The vowel series is predictable; the exact supine ending is the part you learn per verb.

Common Mistakes

❌ Jeg har skrivet et brev.

Incorrect — skrive is strong; the supine changes the vowel: skrevet, not skrivet

✅ Jeg har skrevet et brev.

I've written a letter.

❌ Han skrivde en bok i fjor.

Incorrect — skrive is strong, not weak; the preterite is skrev, with no ending

✅ Han skrev en bok i fjor.

He wrote a book last year.

❌ Har du skrev ferdig?

Incorrect — after har you need the supine skrevet, not the preterite skrev

✅ Har du skrevet ferdig?

Have you finished writing?

❌ Du må skrive kontrakten.

Incorrect — to sign you 'skriver under på', not just 'skrive'; plain skrive means compose/write the text

✅ Du må skrive under på kontrakten.

You have to sign the contract.

Key Takeaways

skrive / skriver / skrev / har skrevet / skriv! — strong, ablaut i–e–e, mirroring English write/wrote/written.
Change the vowel to e in both past forms: preterite skrev, supine skrevet — never the weak "skrivet."
After har/hadde use the supine skrevet, never the preterite skrev.
Particles: skrive under (sign), skrive ut (print), skrive ned (write down).

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