Jeg tar sjansen og spør sjåføren om et fint sted å spise fisk.

I take the chance and ask the driver for a nice place to eat fish.

Breakdown of Jeg tar sjansen og spør sjåføren om et fint sted å spise fisk.

• jeg: I
• spise: to eat
• et: a
• om: about

Questions & Answers about Jeg tar sjansen og spør sjåføren om et fint sted å spise fisk.

What does tar sjansen mean and why isn’t there an article before sjansen?

Tar sjansen literally means “take the chance” or “seize the opportunity.” It’s an idiomatic expression in Norwegian. You don’t insert en here because sjansen is already in the definite form (“the chance”). When you speak of a specific opportunity at hand, you say ta sjansen rather than ta en sjanse.

Why is there no å before spør in tar sjansen og spør sjåføren?

In Norwegian, when you join two finite verbs with og, you don’t use å before the second verb. Both tar and spør are in the present tense (finite form), sharing the same subject jeg, so you simply say tar ... og spør.

Why is it sjåføren and not en sjåfør or just sjåfør?

Sjåføren is the definite form (“the driver”). You use it here because you mean a specific driver (e.g. the one you’re with or the one you see). If you were referring to any driver in general, you could say en sjåfør (“a driver”) or just sjåfør in certain contexts, but here it’s definite.

Why do we use om after spør?