Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Barna ler mens de former en ny snøball i hvert vindkast. - The children laugh while they form a new snowball in each gust of wind.

• barn is the indefinite singular and plural form for “child” and “children.”
• To make it definite plural (“the children”), you add the suffix -a: barna.
• There is no barner—that would be ungrammatical. barnene is also possible in some dialects, but the standard written Norwegian uses barna for the definite plural of barn.

Why is de used in the clause mens de former instead of repeating barna?

• de is the 3rd-person plural pronoun (“they”).
• It refers back to barna to avoid repeating the noun.
• In Norwegian, replacing a repeated noun with the appropriate pronoun is both natural and required for fluid speech.

What does mens mean here, and how is it different from når?

• mens translates as while, indicating two actions happening simultaneously (the children laugh while they shape a new snowball).
• når can mean when, often used for a point in time or a repeated event: “When the bell rings, we go home.”
• Using mens stresses the continuous overlap of the two activities.

Why do we say de former en ny snøball (subject-verb-object) and not former de en ny snøball?

• The clause is introduced by the subordinating conjunction mens.
• In subordinate clauses, Norwegian follows SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) order, not the V2 rule you see in main clauses.
• That’s why de (subject) comes before former (verb).

Why is it i hvert vindkast, and why hvert instead of hver?

• i hvert vindkast = in each gust (of wind).
• i is the preposition “in,” used here to locate the action within each gust.
• hver is the base form “each,” but it adapts to match the gender and number of the noun it modifies.
– Common gender singular: hver dag (each day)
– Neuter singular: hvert vindkast (each gust)
– Plural does not inflect in the same way (often you use hver or switch to alle).

Why is there both en and ny before snøball?

• When you have an indefinite noun plus an adjective, Norwegian requires the indefinite article (en, et) before the adjective.
• Structure: [article] + [adjective] + [noun] → en ny snøball (“a new snowball”).
• You cannot drop en; saying just ny snøball would sound like a bare adjective phrase, not an indefinite noun phrase.

What gender is snøball, and how do adjectives agree with it?

• snøball is common gender (also called masculine/feminine).
• Indefinite singular article: en snøball.
• Adjective “new” takes the common gender form ny → en ny snøball.
• If it were neuter, you’d see nytt (e.g., et nytt hus), and plural would be nye.

What tense are ler and former, and how do you form the present tense?

• Both verbs are in the present tense.
• Norwegian present is typically built by dropping å from the infinitive and adding -r.
– å le → jeg ler, du ler, han ler
– å forme → jeg former, du former, hun former

What is vindkast, and how is this compound formed?

• vindkast is a compound noun: vind (wind) + kast (throw or gust).
• In Norwegian, it’s common to join nouns into compounds without a hyphen.
• The first noun specifies the second, so vindkast literally means “wind-gust,” i.e., a gust of wind.

Why use former (“shape”) a snowball instead of lager or ruller?

• former (“to shape” or “to mould”) emphasizes the hand-crafting and giving form to the snowball.
• lager means “to make” or “to create” in general; you could say lager en snøball, but it’s less specific.
• ruller means “to roll.” You often roll a snowball along the ground to make it bigger, but you still former it with your hands into the final ball shape.