The Norwegian present participle ends in -ende and looks deceptively like the English -ing form — løpende / running, kokende / boiling. But the resemblance is a trap. English -ing does a huge amount of work (it builds the progressive I am reading, the gerund reading is fun, and adjectives a running tap), while Norwegian -ende does only a slice of that. It is mostly an adjective and an adverb, occasionally a noun — and almost never a tense. This page maps where -ende lives so you stop reaching for it where English would.
How -ende is formed
Take the infinitive and add -ende: løpe → løpende, koke → kokende, smile → smilende, gå → gående, reise → reisende. The crucial fact about the form is what it does not do: it is invariant. It never agrees with a noun in gender, number, or definiteness, and it never takes the comparative endings of an ordinary adjective.
| Infinitive | Present participle | English |
|---|---|---|
| løpe | løpende | running |
| koke | kokende | boiling |
| skinne | skinnende | shining |
| smile | smilende | smiling |
| gå | gående | walking / going |
Use 1: as an adjective
The most common job of -ende is to describe a noun, exactly where English uses an -ing adjective. It sits in front of the noun and stays unchanged.
Et skinnende lys kom til syne i mørket.
A shining light appeared in the darkness.
Pass på — det er kokende vann i kjelen.
Be careful — there's boiling water in the pot.
Det var en forbløffende historie, fra første til siste side.
It was an astonishing story, from the first page to the last.
Some of these participles have drifted into being everyday adjectives in their own right — spennende (exciting), kommende (coming/next), levende (living/alive) — and you will meet them far more often as describers than as anything verbal.
Vi gleder oss til den kommende helga.
We're looking forward to the coming weekend.
Er det et levende dyr eller en leke?
Is that a living animal or a toy?
Use 2: as an adverb of manner
The participle can also describe how an action is carried out, attached to another verb. Han kom løpende = "he came running." Here -ende tells you the manner of the coming — at a run.
Han kom løpende ned trappa da han hørte ringeklokka.
He came running down the stairs when he heard the doorbell.
Leende svarte hun at det ikke gjorde noe.
Laughing, she replied that it didn't matter. (formal/literary)
Barnet kom gråtende inn til moren sin.
The child came crying in to its mother.
The clause-initial adverbial use (Leende svarte hun … — "Laughing, she answered …") is (literary) to (formal); in everyday speech you would more naturally say Hun lo og svarte at … ("She laughed and answered that …").
Use 3: the productive home — bli/komme + -ende
This is the construction worth singling out, because it is the one place where -ende is genuinely productive and idiomatic in everyday Norwegian. Pair it with a verb of position or motion:
- bli + -ende = "end up V-ing / remain V-ing / stay V-ing"
- komme + -ende = "come V-ing"
Han ble sittende lenge etter at de andre hadde gått.
He remained sitting long after the others had left.
Sekken ble liggende igjen på perrongen.
The backpack ended up left lying on the platform.
Hun kom syklende i full fart rundt hjørnet.
She came cycling at full speed around the corner.
Vi ble stående og prate i over en time.
We ended up standing and chatting for over an hour.
English captures this with stay/remain/end up + -ing (ble sittende = "remained sitting") and come + -ing (kom gående = "came walking"). The pairing with positional verbs (sitte, ligge, stå) overlaps with verbs/positional-verbs; what matters here is that this, not the progressive, is where -ende earns its keep.
Use 4: nominalised — "the running ones"
With an article, an -ende participle can become a noun referring to people who do the action — de reisende ("the travellers"), de overlevende ("the survivors"), de streikende ("the strikers"). This is (formal) and mostly found in signs, notices, and written prose. (Note: the ordinary word for a university student is en student, not an -ende participle.)
De reisende bes om å holde seg unna plattformkanten.
Travellers are asked to keep away from the platform edge. (formal/notice)
Blant de overlevende var det flere barn.
Among the survivors there were several children.
The big warning: -ende is NOT the progressive
Here is the error English speakers make most: building I am reading as jeg er lesende. This is wrong. Norwegian has no progressive tense at all. The plain present jeg leser already covers both English "I read" and "I am reading"; context decides.
Jeg leser akkurat nå, kan jeg ringe deg tilbake?
I'm reading right now, can I call you back?
When you specifically want to stress that an action is in progress — the I am in the middle of reading sense — Norwegian uses constructions, not -ende:
- holde på å
- infinitive = "be in the middle of V-ing": Jeg holder på å lese.
- holde på med
- noun: Jeg holder på med leksene.
- positional verb + og: Jeg sitter og leser ("I sit and read" = I'm reading).
Jeg holder på å lage middag, så jeg kan ikke snakke lenge.
I'm in the middle of making dinner, so I can't talk for long.
Hun sitter og leser i sofaen.
She's (sitting) reading on the sofa.
So English -ing fans out across three Norwegian resources: the infinitive (after prepositions and as a gerund — see verbs/no-gerund: å lese / uten å si noe), the plain present tense (for the progressive: jeg leser), and the present participle -ende (only as adjective/adverb). Mapping every -ing onto -ende is the single biggest source of unnatural Norwegian here.
| English -ing | Norwegian uses | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I am reading (progressive) | plain present | jeg leser |
| Reading is fun (gerund) | infinitive | å lese er gøy |
| a running tap (adjective) | -ende | en rennende kran |
| he came running (adverb) | -ende | han kom løpende |
Common Mistakes
Every error below traces back to treating -ende like English -ing.
❌ Jeg er lesende en bok akkurat nå.
Incorrect — Norwegian has no progressive; -ende is not a tense.
✅ Jeg leser en bok akkurat nå.
I'm reading a book right now.
❌ Vannet var kokendet da jeg kom.
Incorrect — -ende never inflects; no -t agreement.
✅ Vannet var kokende da jeg kom.
The water was boiling when I arrived.
❌ Å lesende bøker er gøy.
Incorrect — the gerund 'reading' is the infinitive å lese, not the participle.
✅ Å lese bøker er gøy.
Reading books is fun.
❌ Han satt og var skrivende et brev.
Incorrect — overuse of -ende; use the plain verb or sitte og skrive.
✅ Han satt og skrev et brev.
He was (sitting) writing a letter.
❌ De reisendene venter på toget.
Incorrect — the nominalised participle doesn't take a plural -ne ending here; it's de reisende.
✅ De reisende venter på toget.
The travellers are waiting for the train.
Key Takeaways
- -ende is formed from the infinitive + -ende and is invariant — it never agrees and never compares.
- Its real jobs are adjective (kokende vann, en forbløffende historie), adverb of manner (han kom løpende), nominalised noun (de reisende, formal), and the literary reduced clause (leende svarte hun).
- The genuinely productive pattern is bli/komme + -ende: ble sittende, kom syklende.
- -ende is not a tense. For the English progressive use the plain present (jeg leser) or holde på å / sitte og ….
- English -ing splits three ways in Norwegian: infinitive (gerund), plain present (progressive), and -ende (adjective/adverb).
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- Why There Is No -ing FormA2 — Norwegian has no English-style -ing form: the simple present covers 'am reading', the infinitive covers the gerund-noun, and holde på å / drive og expresses an action in progress.
- Participles as AdjectivesB1 — How Norwegian past participles inflect like adjectives when they describe a noun (en stekt fisk, stekte poteter, den malte veggen) — and how invariant present participles in -ende (kokende vann, et smilende barn) differ — distinguished from the unchanging supine in har stekt.
- Positional and Posture Verbs: ligge, sitte, stå, hengeB1 — Where English says an object 'is' somewhere, Norwegian picks a posture verb that encodes the object's orientation — ligge (lying flat), stå (standing upright), sitte (stuck/seated), henge (hanging) — and their transitive partners legge, sette, stille, henge.
- Uses of the InfinitiveB1 — The syntactic jobs of the Norwegian infinitive beyond modals — as subject (å lære norsk er gøy), object (jeg liker å lese), after prepositions (uten å si noe), in purpose clauses (for å vinne), after adjectives (lett å si), and the perfect infinitive (etter å ha spist) — anchored by the key fact that Norwegian has no -ing gerund.