Breakdown of Jeg er urolig, nesten ulykkelig, når jeg må avlyse et møte med venner.
Questions & Answers about Jeg er urolig, nesten ulykkelig, når jeg må avlyse et møte med venner.
Urolig is a fairly broad word. In this context it can cover:
- emotionally uneasy / unsettled
- anxious / worried
- sometimes also restless / on edge
Compared with other words:
- bekymret = specifically worried about something.
- engstelig = anxious, often a bit stronger, more nervous.
- urolig = a mix of uneasy, restless, anxious, depending on context.
So here, Jeg er urolig suggests I don’t feel calm or at ease because I have to cancel the meeting.
Yes. Norwegian has a strict rule that subordinate clauses are separated by a comma.
- Jeg er urolig, nesten ulykkelig, når jeg må avlyse et møte med venner.
- Main clause: Jeg er urolig, nesten ulykkelig
- Subordinate clause: når jeg må avlyse et møte med venner
You must put a comma before når here, because it introduces a subordinate clause (telling when you are uneasy).
If the sentence starts with the når-clause, the comma comes after it:
- Når jeg må avlyse et møte med venner, er jeg urolig, nesten ulykkelig.
You cannot say da jeg må avlyse in this sentence.
Basic rule (for time clauses in the past):
- da = when (for one specific event in the past)
- når = when / whenever (for repeated, general, or future situations)
In this sentence, the meaning is general/repeated (whenever I have to cancel a meeting with friends), so når is correct.
If you were talking about one specific past time, you could use da:
- Jeg ble urolig da jeg måtte avlyse møtet i går.
I became uneasy when I had to cancel the meeting yesterday.
Both can be correct, but they mean slightly different things:
- Jeg er urolig = I am uneasy (describing your state in that situation)
- Jeg blir urolig = I become / get uneasy (focusing on the change of state)
The original sentence describes how you feel when this situation occurs, as an ongoing state, so er (am) fits well.
If you wanted to stress the process of starting to feel that way, you could say:
- Jeg blir urolig, nesten ulykkelig, når jeg må avlyse et møte med venner.
They are not interchangeable:
- ulykkelig
- literally: un-happy
- strong emotional word: deeply unhappy, miserable, heartbroken (depending on context)
- uheldig
- means unfortunate / unlucky, not about deep sadness.
- Det var uheldig = That was unfortunate.
- lei meg
- Jeg er lei meg = I am sad / upset (milder, more neutral than ulykkelig)
In this sentence, nesten ulykkelig = almost deeply unhappy, used for emotional emphasis. It’s stronger than just a bit sad.
Grammatically and by normal reading, nesten only modifies ulykkelig:
- urolig, nesten ulykkelig
→ uneasy, almost unhappy
So the idea is:
- You are uneasy,
- You are almost unhappy/miserable.
If you wanted nesten to modify both, you’d usually write it differently, e.g.:
- Jeg er nesten urolig og ulykkelig …
(then nesten can be felt to cover both, depending on emphasis)
Both avlyse and kansellere exist, but they have different usage tones:
- avlyse = the standard, neutral Norwegian verb for to cancel (an event/meeting).
- kansellere = a loan from English; used, but often sounds more bureaucratic, technical, or influenced by English.
In everyday language, avlyse et møte is the most natural and common phrase.
Må is a modal verb meaning must / have to. It expresses necessity or obligation.
Structure:
- må + infinitive = have to/must do something
Here:
- jeg (subject)
- må (modal verb, 2nd position in the clause)
- avlyse (infinitive main verb)
So jeg må avlyse = I have to cancel.
Both are correct, but they feel slightly different:
- et møte med venner
- literally: a meeting with friends
- more general/vague: implies some friends, your social circle, not specifying which.
- et møte med vennene mine
- literally: a meeting with my friends
- more specific: a known group of friends, more personal and concrete.
The original sentence is more general: canceling a meeting with friends (in general) makes me uneasy.
No, et vennemøte is not normal Norwegian here and sounds odd.
Natural ways to say it:
- et møte med venner
- en avtale med venner (more like “a plan/arrangement with friends”)
- å treffe venner / et treff med venner (less formal, more like “seeing friends”)
So stick with et møte med venner or en avtale med venner.
Yes, the word order is normal:
- når (subordinating conjunction)
- jeg (subject)
- må (verb in 2nd position inside the subordinate clause)
- avlyse et møte med venner (rest)
In a subordinate clause, Norwegian does not do inversion like in main clauses. So:
- Main clause: Jeg må avlyse et møte.
- Subordinate clause: når jeg må avlyse et møte.
You cannot say: når må jeg avlyse et møte (that would be a question word order).
Yes, that’s perfectly correct and very natural:
- Når jeg må avlyse et møte med venner, er jeg urolig, nesten ulykkelig.
This just changes the emphasis slightly:
- Original: emphasises the feeling first.
- Reordered: emphasises the condition/situation first.
Both versions are common in Norwegian.
Møte can be both formal and informal, depending on context.
- With venner (friends), et møte usually just means a get‑together / meetup / planned meeting, not necessarily something formal.
- For scheduled, more official things (work, organization, etc.), møte is also the standard word.
If you want it to sound clearly informal, you could instead say:
- når jeg må avlyse en avtale med venner
- når jeg må avlyse planene med venner
- når jeg må avlyse å treffe venner (more colloquial)