The Conditional: ville/skulle + Infinitive | Norwegian Grammar

Norwegian has no separate conditional mood — no special set of "would" endings the way Romance languages have. Instead it does what English does: it puts a preterite modal in front of an infinitive. The modals are ville ("would") and skulle ("should / was going to"). This page is about building English "would" with these forms; the full machinery of if-clauses and counterfactuals lives in complex/conditionals-counterfactual, which this page feeds into.

ville + infinitive = "would"

The core equation is simple: ville + infinitive translates English would + verb. Ville is the preterite of vil, and that past form is what gives the construction its hypothetical, "would" sense.

Jeg ville hjelpe deg om jeg kunne.

I would help you if I could.

Det ville være fint å se deg igjen.

It would be nice to see you again.

Notice det ville være — "it would be." This frame (det ville være + adjective) is one of the most useful things on the page: it is how you soften suggestions, opinions and offers into polite, hypothetical territory.

Det ville vært dumt å si nei til et slikt tilbud.

It would be foolish to say no to an offer like that.

The flexibility English lacks: ville + infinitive vs ville + supine

Here is the point competitors skip. In a conditional, Norwegian very often uses ville + the supine (the har-form) where you might expect the bare infinitive — and the two are interchangeable in everyday speech.

Jeg ville reise (ville + infinitive)
Jeg ville reist (ville + supine)

Both mean "I would travel / I would go." English cannot do this — "I would gone" is simply wrong — but Norwegian treats ville reise and ville reist as equivalent in the present-hypothetical sense. The supine version (ville reist) is, if anything, the more natural in speech.

Jeg ville gjort det samme i ditt sted.

I would do the same in your position.

Hadde jeg vært deg, ville jeg sagt ja med en gang.

If I were you, I would say yes straight away.

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Treat ville reise and ville reist as two natural ways to say the same "would" — pick whichever you hear more. The supine pattern (ville gjort, ville sagt, ville reist) is especially idiomatic in spoken Norwegian, so it is worth getting comfortable producing it.

Past counterfactual: ville (ha) + supine

To say "I would have done it" — talking about a past possibility that never happened — Norwegian adds ha to make ville ha + supine, parallel to English "would have + done."

Jeg ville ha reist hvis jeg hadde hatt tid.

I would have travelled if I had had time.

In speech, though, Norwegian very commonly drops the ha, leaving just ville + supine — so ville reist can mean both "would travel" and "would have travelled," with context deciding. This is genuinely ambiguous, and natives rely on the surrounding tense to disambiguate.

Jeg ville gjort det, men jeg hadde ikke nok penger.

I would have done it, but I didn't have enough money.

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Ville reist is doing double duty: "would travel" (present-unreal) and "would have travelled" (past-unreal). The if-clause settles it — hvis jeg hadde tid (preterite) points to the present, hvis jeg hadde hatt tid (pluperfect) points to the past. See verbs/pluperfect for that past frame.

skulle: "should" and "was going to"

The other preterite modal, skulle, covers two English meanings. As "should," it gives advice or expectation; as "was going to," it reports a planned-but-not-(yet)-realised intention in the past.

Du skulle ha sagt det med en gang.

You should have said so right away.

Han skulle reise til Bergen, men toget ble innstilt.

He was going to travel to Bergen, but the train was cancelled.

That second use — skulle + infinitive for a thwarted past plan — is extremely common and has no single-word English equivalent; "was going to" is the closest. It pairs naturally with a but-clause explaining why the plan fell through.

Vi skulle egentlig gifte oss i fjor, men så kom pandemien.

We were actually going to get married last year, but then the pandemic came.

How the if-clause behaves (a preview)

A full conditional sentence has two halves: the if-clause (the condition) and the result clause (the "would"). The result clause is what this page is about — ville/skulle + verb. The if-clause uses a backshifted tense:

Present-unreal → if-clause in the preterite: Hvis jeg hadde penger, ville jeg kjøpt det. ("If I had money, I would buy it.")
Past-unreal → if-clause in the pluperfect: Hvis jeg hadde visst det, ville jeg ha sagt fra. ("If I had known, I would have said something.")

Hvis jeg hadde penger, ville jeg kjøpt en ny sykkel.

If I had money, I would buy a new bike.

Hvis jeg hadde visst det, ville jeg ha sagt fra.

If I had known, I would have said something.

One more spoken shortcut: in casual Norwegian, hadde alone can carry the conditional, with the ville left out and understood: Hadde jeg hatt tid, så hadde jeg kommet ("Had I had time, I'd have come"). This is idiomatic, not sloppy. The complete treatment of these structures is in complex/conditionals-counterfactual.

Common Mistakes

The big traps are using a present modal where the preterite is needed, and confusing the conditional ville with the plain future vil.

❌ Jeg vil hjelpe deg om jeg kunne.

Incorrect — vil is plain future/intention ('I will'); 'would' needs the preterite ville.

✅ Jeg ville hjelpe deg om jeg kunne.

I would help you if I could.

❌ Det vil være fint, men jeg har ikke tid.

Incorrect for a hypothetical — vil states a future fact; the polite hypothetical 'it would be' is ville være.

✅ Det ville være fint, men jeg har ikke tid.

It would be nice, but I don't have time.

❌ Jeg ville har reist hvis jeg hadde tid.

Incorrect — it's ville ha (infinitive of ha), not ville har; and present-unreal usually drops ha entirely.

✅ Jeg ville reist hvis jeg hadde tid.

I would travel if I had time.

❌ Hvis jeg har penger, ville jeg kjøpt det.

Incorrect — present-unreal needs the if-clause in the preterite (hadde), not the present (har).

✅ Hvis jeg hadde penger, ville jeg kjøpt det.

If I had money, I would buy it.

A subtler error is reaching for skulle whenever English says "would." Skulle is "should / was going to," not the neutral hypothetical "would" — for plain "would," stay with ville.

Key Takeaways

Norwegian builds "would" with the preterite modal ville + verb; there is no separate conditional mood.
ville + infinitive and ville + supine are interchangeable for present-hypotheticals (ville reise = ville reist) — a flexibility English lacks.
Past counterfactual is ville (ha) + supine; the ha is often dropped in speech, so ville reist spans "would" and "would have."
skulle = "should" or "was going to" (a thwarted past plan) — not the neutral "would."
The if-clause backshifts: preterite for present-unreal, pluperfect for past-unreal; full coverage in complex/conditionals-counterfactual.

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