Breakdown of Historiene om en stor storm blir fortalt år etter år i den lille byen.
en
a
stor
big
liten
small
om
about
i
in
den
the
stormen
the storm
byen
the town
bli fortalt
to be told
historien
the story
år etter år
year after year
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Norwegian grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Historiene om en stor storm blir fortalt år etter år i den lille byen.
What does historiene mean, and why is it in the definite plural form?
historiene is the definite plural of historie, meaning “the stories.” In Norwegian you add -ene to make a plural noun definite. So historiene literally means “the stories,” not just “stories.”
How do you translate blir fortalt, and why use those words?
blir fortalt is the present‐tense passive construction of å fortelle (to tell). It literally means “are told.” Norwegian often uses blir + past participle to form the passive, similar to English “be + past participle.”
Could you instead say fortelles? What’s the difference between blir fortalt and fortelles?
Yes, you can say fortelles. That’s the so‐called –s‐passive (enclitic passive) where you add -s to the verb stem. Both forms convey the same meaning (“are told”), but blir fortalt is often clearer in complex sentences, while fortelles is more compact and common in formal or written language.
What does år etter år mean, and is it a fixed expression?
år etter år literally means “year after year.” It’s a common adverbial expression describing something that happens repeatedly over many years. You could also say år på år or år etter annen, but år etter år is the most idiomatic.
Why is år etter år placed before i den lille byen? Is there a rule about word order?
Norwegian generally orders adverbials as time before place. Here, år etter år (time) comes before i den lille byen (place). Both follow the finite verb blir, satisfying the V2 rule (verb second) in main clauses.
Why is it en stor storm but den lille byen? What governs the articles and adjective endings?
en stor storm uses the indefinite article en (for masculine/feminine nouns) and the adjective stor remains in its basic form because the noun is indefinite.
den lille byen uses the definite article den plus adjective lille, which takes the weak form -e before a definite noun. byen is the definite form of by (city/town).
Could I say store storm instead of stor storm?
No. When an adjective modifies an indefinite noun, it takes the strong form. For stor, the strong masculine/feminine form is stor, not store. You only use store for plural or definite nouns (e.g. de store stormene – “the big storms”).