Folk drikker kaffe om morgenen.

People drink coffee in the morning.

Breakdown of Folk drikker kaffe om morgenen.

• drikke: to drink
• morgenen: the morning
• kaffen: the coffee
• om: in
• folket: the people

Questions & Answers about Folk drikker kaffe om morgenen.

What does folk mean in this sentence, and is it singular or plural?

folk is a collective noun meaning people in general. In Norwegian it has the same form whether you refer to the idea of people or an actual group, and it doesn’t take a plural ending. Grammatically it’s singular (common gender), but you translate it as a plural concept in English.

Why doesn’t folk have an article before it?

Because this is a general statement about people as a whole, not about a specific group. In Norwegian, when you speak about something in general—like people, dogs, or cars—you usually omit the article (zero article) with plural or collective nouns.

How is the verb drikker formed, and does it change according to the subject?

drikker is the present tense of the verb drikke (to drink). In Norwegian Bokmål, the present tense form is the same for all persons and numbers:
• jeg drikker
• du drikker
• han/hun drikker
• vi drikker, etc.

Why is kaffe used without an article such as en or a quantifier like noen?

Here kaffe is treated as an uncountable (mass) noun, referring to coffee in general. If you wanted to say “a cup of coffee,” you would use en kaffe, and for “some coffees” (counting cups) you could say noen kaffe or more naturally noen kopper kaffe.

What does om morgenen mean, and why do we use om plus the definite form morgenen?

om morgenen means in the morning (habitually or generally). When you talk about repeated or habitual actions at a time of day, Norwegian uses om + the definite singular form of the time noun. Other examples: om kvelden (in the evening), om vinteren (in winter).

Can we use på morgenen or i morgen tidlig instead of om morgenen?

• på morgenen is less common in Bokmål but can appear in dialects or informal speech.
• i morgen tidlig means tomorrow morning, so it refers specifically to the next morning, not mornings in general.
For habitual sense, stick with om morgenen.

What is the word order in this sentence, and could we move the time expression om morgenen to the front?

In a neutral statement you have Subject-Verb-Object-Adverbial (SVOA): Folk drikker kaffe om morgenen. If you start with the time expression, Norwegian follows the V2 rule (verb still in second position), so you invert subject and verb:
Om morgenen drikker folk kaffe.

How would you make this sentence negative?

Insert ikke (not) after the verb:
Folk drikker ikke kaffe om morgenen.

How would you turn this into a yes/no question?

Swap the verb and the subject (V-S order) and add a question mark:
Drikker folk kaffe om morgenen?