This page maps the entire Norwegian verb system from a height, so you know how the pieces fit together before you drill into individual tenses. The most important thing to take away — and the thing that makes Norwegian verbs dramatically easier than English, French, or German verbs — is that a Norwegian verb has one form per tense, for every subject. Once you know how a verb behaves with jeg ("I"), you know how it behaves with everyone.
The five forms of a verb
A regular Norwegian verb has five forms you need to recognise. Take the weak verb å kaste ("to throw"):
| Form | Example | English |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | (å) kaste | (to) throw |
| Present | kaster | throw(s) / am throwing |
| Preterite (past) | kastet | threw |
| Supine (used in perfect) | har kastet | have thrown |
| Imperative | kast! | throw! |
The infinitive is the dictionary form. It usually appears after the infinitive marker å — note carefully that this is the single letter å, not og ("and"), even though the two are pronounced almost identically in fast speech. Mixing them up is the most common spelling slip even among native writers.
Jeg liker å kaste stein i vannet.
I like to throw stones in the water.
Han kaster ballen til meg.
He throws the ball to me.
Kast den hit!
Throw it here!
No person agreement — the big relief
In English, you must change the verb for the third-person singular: I throw but he throws. Norwegian does not do this. The present-tense form kaster is used identically with every single subject. Here is the present-tense paradigm of å være ("to be"), the verb that in English has the wild irregularity am / are / is:
| Subject | Verb | English |
|---|---|---|
| jeg | er | I am |
| du | er | you are |
| han / hun | er | he / she is |
| vi | er | we are |
| dere | er | you (all) are |
| de | er | they are |
One form — er — covers what English splits into three. This is not a quirk of å være; it is the rule for every verb in the language.
Jeg er trøtt, og hun er sulten.
I am tired, and she is hungry.
Vi er hjemme nå, men de er fortsatt på jobb.
We are home now, but they are still at work.
Weak verbs vs strong verbs
Verbs split into two broad classes by how they form the past.
Weak verbs form the preterite and supine with a dental ending (-et, -te, -de, -dde). They are by far the larger group and include essentially all new and borrowed verbs (å chatte → chattet, å google → googlet).
| Infinitive | Present | Preterite | Supine |
|---|---|---|---|
| å kaste | kaster | kastet | kastet |
| å spise | spiser | spiste | spist |
| å bo | bor | bodde | bodd |
Strong verbs form the preterite with a vowel change (an ablaut) and usually no ending, exactly like English sing–sang–sung or drink–drank–drunk. There are a few hundred of them, but they are the most frequent verbs in the language, so you meet them constantly.
| Infinitive | Present | Preterite | Supine |
|---|---|---|---|
| å drikke | drikker | drakk | drukket |
| å skrive | skriver | skrev | skrevet |
| å finne | finner | fant | funnet |
Be honest with yourself about this: there is no rule that predicts a strong verb's vowel changes. You memorise them, just as English speakers once memorised go–went–gone. The good news is that the present tense is regular even for strong verbs (drikker, skriver, finner all just take -r), and English gives you a head start — many Norwegian strong verbs are cognates of English strong verbs.
Hun skriver en bok om bestemoren sin.
She is writing a book about her grandmother.
Vi drakk kaffe og snakket i timevis.
We drank coffee and talked for hours.
There is no continuous (-ing) tense
English has two present tenses: the simple (I read) and the continuous (I am reading). Norwegian has only one. The simple present kaster / leser / spiser covers both meanings, and context tells you which is meant.
Jeg leser en god bok for tiden.
I am reading a good book at the moment.
Jeg leser hver kveld før jeg sover.
I read every evening before I sleep.
Notice the same form — leser — does the work of both "I am reading" and "I read." Do not reach for a manufactured continuous form; there is no jeg er lesende in everyday Norwegian. When you genuinely need to stress that something is in progress, Norwegian uses constructions like holder på å lese ("am in the middle of reading") or sitter og leser ("sit reading"), but the default is always the plain present.
Hva gjør du? — Jeg lager middag.
What are you doing? — I'm making dinner.
How the tenses fit together
From these building blocks, Norwegian assembles its compound tenses with the auxiliaries å ha ("to have") and å skulle/ville (for the future):
- Perfect: har
- supine — jeg har kastet ("I have thrown")
- Pluperfect: hadde
- supine — jeg hadde kastet ("I had thrown")
- Future: skal/vil
- infinitive — jeg skal kaste ("I will throw"), or simply the present with a time word (jeg kaster i morgen)
Each of these has its own page; the point here is that they are all built from the five forms above plus a helper verb. There is nothing more to memorise per subject — the auxiliary itself never agrees with the subject either.
Common Mistakes
❌ Han kommers klokka tre.
Incorrect — English -s imported onto the third person.
✅ Han kommer klokka tre.
He comes at three o'clock.
The deepest habit English speakers must unlearn is the third-person -s. There is no third-person ending in Norwegian; jeg kommer, du kommer, han kommer are all identical.
❌ Jeg er lesende en bok.
Incorrect — invented continuous form.
✅ Jeg leser en bok.
I am reading a book.
There is no am + -ing construction. The simple present already means "I am reading."
❌ Jeg liker og svømme.
Incorrect — 'og' (and) used for the infinitive marker.
✅ Jeg liker å svømme.
I like to swim.
The infinitive marker is å, never og. They sound alike, so listen for the meaning: if you can substitute "to," it's å.
❌ De spiset middag nå.
Incorrect — wrong stem/ending guess for a strong verb.
✅ De spiser middag nå.
They are eating dinner now.
The present is regular — infinitive spise plus -r gives spiser. Save the irregularity for the past tense, where strong verbs change their vowel.
Key Takeaways
- A Norwegian verb has five forms: infinitive, present, preterite, supine, imperative.
- No agreement: one finite form serves every subject. Only the tense changes.
- Weak verbs add a dental ending in the past; strong verbs change their vowel (memorise these).
- There is no continuous tense — the simple present covers both "I read" and "I am reading."
- The infinitive marker is å, not og.
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 Present Tense (-r)A1 — How to form the Norwegian present tense — add -r to the infinitive, one form for every person — and how it routinely expresses the future with a time word.
- The Infinitive and the Marker åA1 — The dictionary form of the verb, the infinitive marker å ('to') and when it appears, why modal verbs take a bare infinitive, and how å contrasts with the identical-sounding conjunction og.
- No Person Agreement: One Form Fits AllA1 — Norwegian verbs do not change for person or number — one finite form serves every subject, in every tense — and why this halves the conjugation work for English speakers.