svømme (to swim) | Norwegian Grammar

svømme ("to swim") is a verb every learner needs early — it shows up in talk about exercise, holidays, the beach, and children's lessons. It looks deceptively simple, but it hides two traps worth slowing down for: the double m that runs through every form, and the fact that the modern standard is weak (svømte / svømt) even though an older strong preterite svam still lurks in dictionaries and dialect. Get the spelling and the class right and this verb is yours for good.

Conjugation

Class: weak, Class 2 (-te / -t). Auxiliary: ha.

Tense / mood	Norwegian	English
Infinitiv	å svømme	to swim
Presens	svømmer	swim(s), am/is/are swimming
Preteritum	svømte	swam
Perfektum	har svømt	have/has swum
Pluskvamperfektum	hadde svømt	had swum
Futurum	skal/vil svømme	will swim
Imperativ	svøm!	swim!
Presens partisipp	svømmende	swimming (adjective)

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The double m belongs to the stem and survives everywhere except the bare imperative: svømme, svømmer, svømte, svømt all keep mm, but the command drops the final -e and you get svøm! with a single m. Don't let the imperative talk you into single-m forms elsewhere.

A weak Class 2 verb — the -te / -t pattern

svømme belongs to weak Class 2, which forms its past with -te in the preterite and -t in the supine. The mechanics: take the stem svømm-, drop the infinitive -e, and add the ending.

Preteritum: svømm- + -te → svømte
Supinum: svømm- + -t → svømt

Notice that the preterite svømte and supine svømt differ only by a final -e — this is the signature of Class 2 and the single most common spelling slip on the verb. Jeg svømte ("I swam") describes a finished event on its own; jeg har svømt ("I have swum") needs the helper har and the bare supine. Keeping the -e on the supine (har svømte) is the classic error, and it is wrong every time.

Why Class 2 and not Class 1 (-et) here? The heuristic is phonological: stems ending in a single sonorant consonant — m, n, l, r — after a vowel tend toward the -te / -t of Class 2, whereas stems ending in a heavy consonant cluster lean toward the -et of Class 1. svømm- ends in m, so -te is exactly what the pattern predicts. This is the same logic that gives drømme → drømte ("dream") and glemme → glemte ("forget") — a small family of double-m Class 2 verbs that all behave like svømme.

Vi svømmer hver morgen før jobb.

We swim every morning before work.

Hun svømte tvers over fjorden i fjor sommer.

She swam right across the fjord last summer.

Jeg har aldri svømt i så kaldt vann før.

I've never swum in such cold water before.

The old strong form svam

Here is the honest complication. Historically svømme was a strong verb of the i–a–u family (like finne / fant / funnet), with the preterite svam and supine svømmet. You will still find svam in older texts, in some dialects, and listed as a permitted variant in dictionaries. But in modern standard Bokmål the weak forms svømte / svømt are overwhelmingly dominant, and that is what you should produce. Treat svam as a form to recognise, not to use.

I den gamle boka står det at han svam over elva.

In the old book it says that he 'swam across the river' (archaic strong form).

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If a Norwegian corrects your svømte to svam, they are almost certainly reaching for a dialect or older form. Both are defensible, but for clean, modern, neutral Bokmål the weak svømte / svømt is the safe default — and it is what learners are tested on.

Prepositions and compounds

svømme takes ordinary directional prepositions to say where the swimming goes, exactly as in English:

svømme over — swim across / swim over (to the other side)
svømme under (vann) — swim underwater
svømme i land — swim ashore
svømme rundt — swim around

These are not inseparable prefixed verbs — over, under and rundt are stressed particles, and in the present and past they often follow the verb: hun svømmer over, han svømte under hele veien. Don't confuse this with fused prefixes like for- or an-, which never detach.

Several high-frequency nouns sit in the same family: en svømmehall (an indoor swimming pool / baths), et svømmebasseng (a swimming pool), and en svømmetur (a swim, a swimming trip). The verb of choice for doing lengths is just svømme; for bathing / having a dip Norwegians often switch to bade (å bade = to bathe, swim for fun), so the two divide the labour — svømme leans athletic, bade leans recreational. This split has no clean English equivalent: English "swim" covers both, so an English speaker who says jeg svømte i sjøen hele dagen sounds oddly sporty where a Norwegian would more naturally say jeg badet i sjøen hele dagen.

Barna lærte å svømme i den lokale svømmehallen.

The kids learned to swim at the local pool.

Kan du svømme under vann med åpne øyne?

Can you swim underwater with your eyes open?

Vi badet hele dagen, men ingen orket å svømme ut til øya.

We swam (for fun) all day, but no one had the energy to swim out to the island.

Svøm rolig de første hundre meterne, så holder du ut lenger.

Swim slowly for the first hundred metres and you'll last longer.

Common Mistakes

❌ Jeg svømmet i går.

Incorrect — svømme is Class 2, so the preterite is svømte, not svømmet

✅ Jeg svømte i går.

I swam yesterday.

❌ Hun har svømte over.

Incorrect — after har use the bare supine svømt, not the preterite svømte

✅ Hun har svømt over.

She has swum across.

❌ Vi svømer hver dag.

Incorrect — the stem has a double m: svømmer

✅ Vi svømmer hver dag.

We swim every day.

❌ Han svømte i går — han svam veldig fort.

Inconsistent — don't mix the modern weak preterite svømte with the archaic strong svam for the same past event

✅ Han svømte i går — han svømte veldig fort.

He swam yesterday — he swam very fast.

Key Takeaways

svømme / svømmer / svømte / har svømt / svøm! — weak Class 2 (-te / -t).
Keep the double m everywhere except the imperative svøm!.
The supine is svømt (no -e); har svømte is always wrong.
svam is an older/dialectal strong preterite — recognise it, but use svømte.
svømme = athletic swimming; bade = swimming for fun / bathing.

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