A participle is a verb form that can moonlight as an adjective. English does this freely — a broken window, boiling water, a smiling child — and so does Norwegian. The twist for English speakers is that Norwegian adjectives agree with their noun, and a participle used adjectivally is no exception: it takes the same endings as any other adjective. The very same word that stays frozen in the perfect tense (har stekt "has fried") suddenly inflects when it describes a noun (en stekt fisk, stekte fisker). Learning to see the participle in two roles — frozen supine versus agreeing adjective — is the whole skill. For the agreement endings themselves, see adjectives: agreement; for participles inside the bli-passive, see bli-passive.
Two participles, two behaviours
Norwegian has two participles, and they behave oppositely as adjectives:
- The past participle (perfektum partisipp): from steke → stekt, male → malt, skrive → skrevet. As an adjective it inflects like a normal adjective.
- The present participle (-ende): from koke → kokende, smile → smilende, løpe → løpende. As an adjective it is invariant — one form for everything.
Hold these apart and the rest is detail.
en stekt fisk og kokende vann
a fried fish and boiling water
In that phrase stekt (past participle) and kokende (present participle) both describe nouns, but only stekt will change its ending across genders and numbers. Kokende never moves.
Past participle as adjective: it agrees
When a past participle sits in front of a noun (attributive) or after være/bli (predicative), it behaves as an ordinary adjective. That means three endings to track: the indefinite singular splits by gender (en/et), the plural and the definite ("the …") take -e.
Take steke → stekt ("fried"):
| Form | Phrase | English |
|---|---|---|
| en-word, indefinite | en stekt fisk | a fried fish |
| et-word, indefinite | et stekt egg | a fried egg |
| plural, indefinite | stekte poteter | fried potatoes |
| definite (the …) | den stekte fisken | the fried fish |
The pattern is the everyday adjective pattern: bare form for en-/et-singular, -e in the plural and the definite. (Many participles, like stekt, happen to have the same shape for en and et; with malt below you see the same — the visible change is the plural/definite -e.)
Vi spiste stekte poteter og en stekt ørret til middag.
We had fried potatoes and a fried trout for dinner.
Den malte veggen ser mye lysere ut enn jeg trodde.
The painted wall looks much lighter than I thought.
De sårede soldatene ble fløyet ut samme kveld.
The wounded soldiers were flown out the same evening.
Weak vs. strong participles both inflect
It doesn't matter whether the verb is weak or strong — the participle still takes adjective endings. Weak verbs give participles in -et / -t / -d (malt, kjent, bygd); strong verbs give -et / -en (skrevet, stjålet, gitt). Both kinds inflect:
| Verb | Participle | en/et | plural/definite |
|---|---|---|---|
| male (paint, weak) | malt | en malt vegg / et malt hus | malte vegger / den malte veggen |
| kjenne (know, weak) | kjent | en kjent forfatter | kjente forfattere / det kjente bildet |
| skrive (write, strong) | skrevet | et skrevet brev | skrevne brev / det skrevne ordet |
| stjele (steal, strong) | stjålet | en stjålet bil | stjålne biler / den stjålne bilen |
Notice the strong participles in -et lose a syllable when they take -e: skrevet → skrevne, stjålet → stjålne (the unstressed e drops). This is a genuine spelling trap.
Et skrevet brev betyr mer enn ti meldinger.
A written letter means more than ten text messages.
Politiet fant den stjålne bilen i en skog utenfor byen.
The police found the stolen car in a forest outside town.
Hun er en kjent forfatter, men de tidlige bøkene hennes er glemt.
She's a well-known author, but her early books are forgotten.
Supine vs. agreeing adjective: same word, two roles
This is the distinction competitors blur. The supine is the unchanging participle that follows har/hadde to build the perfect (har stekt, har malt) — it never inflects. The adjective is the same participle describing a noun, and it does inflect. So malt freezes after har but agrees before a noun:
| Role | Example | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Supine (after har/hadde) | Vi har malt alle veggene. | frozen — never *malte |
| Adjective (before noun) | alle de malte veggene | agrees — plural/definite -e |
Vi har malt huset, og det nymalte huset skinner i sola.
We've painted the house, and the freshly painted house shines in the sun.
In that one sentence, malt after har is the frozen supine, while nymalte before huset is the agreeing adjective. Same verb, two jobs — ask whether the word follows har/hadde (supine, frozen) or describes a noun (adjective, agreeing).
Predicative past participles: the resultant state
After være ("be") or bli ("become"), a past participle describes the state an action left behind — the result. English uses "is broken," "was closed"; Norwegian agrees the participle with the subject here too:
Vinduet er knust — noen må ha kastet en stein.
The window is broken — someone must have thrown a stone.
Begge vinduene er knuste etter stormen.
Both windows are broken after the storm.
Døra var låst, så vi måtte vente ute.
The door was locked, so we had to wait outside.
This "resultant state" (er knust = it is now in a broken state) contrasts with the bli-passive (ble knust = it got broken, focusing on the event). See bli-passive for that distinction.
Present participle as adjective: -ende, always invariant
The present participle ends in -ende and, unlike the past participle, never changes its form — not for gender, not for number, not for definiteness. It is the rare Norwegian adjective with no endings at all.
et smilende barn og en smilende mor
a smiling child and a smiling mother
Hell det kokende vannet over teposen.
Pour the boiling water over the teabag.
En sovende katt lå sammenkrøllet i vinduskarmen.
A sleeping cat lay curled up on the windowsill.
Notice kokende is identical whether it describes vann (et-word), vannet (definite), or would describe a plural. That invariance is the headline feature. Its adjectival use is also limited: Norwegian uses -ende far less than English uses "-ing," preferring relative clauses (en mann som løper "a man who runs") over en løpende mann in many everyday contexts. En løpende mann and rennende vann ("running water") exist, but you can't manufacture -ende adjectives as freely as English makes "-ing" ones.
Det var rennende vann og strøm i hytta, heldigvis.
There was running water and electricity in the cabin, luckily.
Common Mistakes
❌ Vi spiste stekt poteter.
No agreement — the participle must take the plural ending.
✅ Vi spiste stekte poteter.
We ate fried potatoes.
A past participle before a plural noun agrees: stekt → stekte. English speakers forget this because English participles never inflect.
❌ den malt veggen
Missing the definite -e.
✅ den malte veggen
the painted wall
In a definite phrase (den … -en), the adjective — participle included — takes -e: den malte veggen.
❌ Vi har malte huset.
Over-inflected — after har the participle is the frozen supine.
✅ Vi har malt huset.
We have painted the house.
After har/hadde the participle is the supine and never agrees. The -e belongs only to the adjective role.
❌ et kokendet egg
Invented ending — present participles never inflect.
✅ et kokende egg
a boiling egg
The -ende form is invariant. Never add -t or -e to it.
❌ den skrevete teksten
Wrong stem for the strong participle's -e form.
✅ den skrevne teksten
the written text
Strong participles in -et drop the e before the ending: skrevet → skrevne, stjålet → stjålne.
Key Takeaways
- The past participle as an adjective inflects like any adjective: en stekt fisk, et stekt egg, stekte fisker, den stekte fisken.
- Both weak (malt, kjent) and strong (skrevet, stjålet) participles inflect; strong -et forms shed the e before -e: skrevne, stjålne.
- The supine (after har/hadde) is frozen (har malt); the adjective (before a noun) agrees (malte vegger) — same word, two roles.
- After være/bli, the past participle agrees and names the resultant state: vinduene er knuste.
- The present participle in -ende is an invariant adjective (kokende vann, et smilende barn) with limited, non-productive use.
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Adjective Agreement: -, -t, -eA1 — A Norwegian adjective changes shape to match its noun — bare with masculine/feminine singular (en stor bil), -t with neuter singular (et stort hus), -e with every plural (store biler) — and it agrees after 'to be' too, which English never does.
- The bli-PassiveB1 — How to form the periphrastic bli + past participle passive (ble åpnet, blir valgt, har blitt bygd) and why it — not the s-passive — is the default for specific events.
- The Present Perfect: har + supineA2 — How to build the Norwegian present perfect with har plus the invariant supine — and why Norwegian uses har for every verb, including come, go and be.
- 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.
- Participial Adjectives and Their ComparisonC1 — How Norwegian turns participles into adjectives — the invariant -ende present participle (en spennende bok, never spennendet) versus the fully agreeing past participle (en stekt fisk, stekte egg, et knust glass), the lexicalised emotion participles and their fixed prepositions, and how each type is compared.