Strong verbs are the other half of the Norwegian past tense. Instead of adding a dental ending (-et, -te, -de, -dde), they form the preterite by changing the stem vowel — a process called ablaut. Å drikke → drakk → har drukket: the i becomes a in the preterite and u in the supine, with no -t or -d added anywhere. There are far fewer strong verbs than weak ones, but they include the most frequent verbs in the language, so you meet them constantly. The good news for English speakers: Norwegian and English strong verbs are cousins, so the patterns are already in your head — drink / drank / drunk is drikke / drakk / drukket.
The no-suffix principle
This is the defining rule, and the most common error to avoid. A strong preterite is a single bare form with a changed vowel and nothing tacked on:
- drikke → drakk (not *drikket, not *drakte)
- finne → fant (not *finnet)
- skrive → skrev (not *skriv-te)
If you find yourself adding -et or -te to one of these verbs, you have mistakenly treated a strong verb as weak. The vowel change is the past tense; the suffix would be redundant.
Jeg drakk altfor mye kaffe i går.
I drank way too much coffee yesterday.
Hun skrev brevet for hånd.
She wrote the letter by hand.
Vi fant aldri ut hvem som hadde ringt.
We never found out who had called.
Three principal parts
Every strong verb is defined by three forms you simply have to know: infinitive / preterite / supine. The supine (the har form) usually differs from the preterite in vowel and often doubles a consonant. There is no shortcut for predicting it from the infinitive — you memorise the trio, exactly as you once memorised go / went / gone.
| Infinitive | Present | Preterite | Supine (har + …) | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| å drikke | drikker | drakk | har drukket | drink |
| å skrive | skriver | skrev | har skrevet | write |
| å finne | finner | fant | har funnet | find |
| å komme | kommer | kom | har kommet | come |
| å gå | går | gikk | har gått | go / walk |
The main ablaut series, grouped
Strong verbs are not random; they fall into a handful of vowel-change families inherited from Old Norse — and these families line up strikingly well with English. Learn one model verb per group and the rest follow.
i → a → u (drikke / drakk / drukket)
The classic three-way ablaut. English speakers know it as drink / drank / drunk, sing / sang / sung, swim / swam / swum — and Norwegian matches almost one-for-one.
| Infinitive | Preterite | Supine | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| å drikke | drakk | har drukket | drink / drank / drunk |
| å synge | sang | har sunget | sing / sang / sung |
| å finne | fant | har funnet | find / found / found |
| å vinne | vant | har vunnet | win / won / won |
| å springe | sprang | har sprunget | run / sprang / sprung |
Laget vant kampen helt på tampen.
The team won the match right at the end.
Vi sang bursdagssangen alt for høyt.
We sang the birthday song far too loudly.
i → e → e (skrive / skrev / skrevet)
The i-stem verbs that go to e. English: write / wrote / written, drive / drove / driven, bite / bit / bitten.
| Infinitive | Preterite | Supine | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| å skrive | skrev | har skrevet | write / wrote / written |
| å drive | drev | har drevet | drive / run (operate) |
| å bite | beit / bet | har bitt | bite |
| å bli | ble | har blitt | become / be (passive aux.) |
Han drev gården alene i mange år.
He ran the farm alone for many years.
Det ble veldig sent før vi kom hjem.
It got very late before we got home.
y/ju → ø → ø (fryse / frøs / frosset; tilby / tilbød)
Verbs with a y or ju in the stem that round to ø. English cognates: freeze / froze / frozen, fly / flew / flown.
| Infinitive | Preterite | Supine | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| å fryse | frøs | har frosset | freeze |
| å fly | fløy | har fløyet | fly |
| å tilby | tilbød | har tilbudt | offer |
Vi frøs som hunder på vei opp fjellet.
We froze like dogs on the way up the mountain.
De tilbød meg jobben på stedet.
They offered me the job on the spot.
Irregular high-frequency loners
A few of the most-used verbs don't slot neatly into a series and must be memorised individually — but precisely because they are so common, you will fix them quickly.
| Infinitive | Present | Preterite | Supine | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| å gå | går | gikk | har gått | go / walk |
| å komme | kommer | kom | har kommet | come |
| å få | får | fikk | har fått | get / receive |
| å se | ser | så | har sett | see |
| å gi | gir | ga (gav) | har gitt | give |
| å ta | tar | tok | har tatt | take |
Jeg fikk en pakke i posten i dag.
I got a parcel in the post today.
Vi gikk hele veien hjem i regnet.
We walked all the way home in the rain.
Hun ga meg nøkkelen og forsvant.
She gave me the key and disappeared.
Honest difficulty: there is no full rule
Be clear-eyed about this: although the groups help, you cannot fully predict a strong verb's forms from its infinitive. Two verbs that look alike can diverge — å gi gives ga / gitt, but å bli gives ble / blitt. And some verbs vary freely (ga and the more formal gav are both correct; beit and bet both occur for bite). The honest path is to learn the three principal parts of each strong verb as a fixed unit and lean on the English cognate as a memory anchor wherever one exists. There are roughly 120 strong verbs in everyday Norwegian, and the high-frequency core is well under fifty — a very manageable list.
Common Mistakes
1. Weak-conjugating a strong verb. Adding -et or -te to a vowel-change verb is the classic transfer error.
❌ Jeg drikket en øl etter jobb.
Incorrect — 'drikke' is strong: preterite is 'drakk'.
✅ Jeg drakk en øl etter jobb.
I drank a beer after work.
2. Getting the supine vowel wrong (using the infinitive vowel). The supine has its own vowel, not the infinitive's.
❌ Jeg har drikket for mye.
Incorrect — supine is 'drukket', with u.
✅ Jeg har drukket for mye.
I've drunk too much.
3. Using the preterite vowel in the supine. Fant is the preterite; the supine changes again to funnet.
❌ Vi har fant en god løsning.
Incorrect — supine of 'finne' is 'funnet', not 'fant'.
✅ Vi har funnet en god løsning.
We've found a good solution.
4. Adding a dental ending to the bare preterite. The strong preterite is already complete.
❌ Hun skrevte en lang melding.
Incorrect — the strong preterite is 'skrev', with no ending.
✅ Hun skrev en lang melding.
She wrote a long message.
Key takeaways
- Strong verbs form the past by changing the stem vowel (ablaut), not by adding a dental ending — the preterite is a bare form (drakk, fant, skrev).
- Memorise three principal parts per verb: infinitive / preterite / supine.
- The main series — i-a-u (drikke), i-e-e (skrive), y/ju-ø-ø (fryse) — line up with English strong verbs; use the cognate as a memory hook.
- The supine often ends in -et and doubles a consonant (drukket, funnet, kommet) but is not weak; the changed vowel is the tell.
- Strong verbs are few but frequent — learn the high-frequency core (well under fifty) early.
Now practice Norwegian
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Start learning Norwegian→Related Topics
- 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.
- Verb Reference: How to Use These TablesA2 — How to read the Norwegian verb-reference pages — the five principal parts, weak vs strong classes, and the supine (the har-form).
- 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.