Breakdown of På hjemmekontoret mitt trenger jeg stillhet for å konsentrere meg.
Questions & Answers about På hjemmekontoret mitt trenger jeg stillhet for å konsentrere meg.
In Norwegian, the choice between på and i is often idiomatic and tied to certain types of places.
For workplaces and institutions, Norwegian very often uses på:
- på kontoret – at the office
- på skolen – at school
- på jobb – at work
Hjemmekontor is understood as a kind of kontor (office), just located at home, so the natural preposition is also på:
- på hjemmekontoret mitt – at my home office
I is more common for enclosed physical spaces when you really want to focus on the inside of something:
- i huset – in the house
- i stua – in the living room
You could technically say i hjemmekontoret mitt if you stress the literal inside of a room, but it sounds unusual. På hjemmekontoret mitt is the normal phrase for “at my home office (when I’m working from home)”.
Norwegian has two main ways to use possessives:
Noun + definite ending + possessive after the noun
- hjemmekontoret mitt – literally “the home-office my”
- This is very common in spoken Norwegian and in neutral style.
Possessive before an indefinite noun
- mitt hjemmekontor – “my home office” (no definite ending)
- This can sound slightly more formal, contrastive, or focused.
In this sentence, hjemmekontoret mitt sounds perfectly natural and neutral.
You could say på mitt hjemmekontor, but it has a tiny bit more emphasis on mitt, as in “at my (own) home office”, and is less everyday than på hjemmekontoret mitt.
The -et is the definite singular ending for many neuter nouns.
- Base word: (et) hjemmekontor – a home office
- Definite form: (det) hjemmekontoret – the home office
In the sentence, the speaker is talking about a specific, known home office: their home office. That is why the definite form is used:
- på hjemmekontoret mitt – at my (specific) home office
If you used the indefinite form hjemmekontor, it would sound like talking about home offices in general, not a particular one.
Both word orders are correct; they just have slightly different focus.
Jeg trenger stillhet på hjemmekontoret mitt for å konsentrere meg.
- Neutral, very natural.
- Focus first on I need silence, then add where.
På hjemmekontoret mitt trenger jeg stillhet for å konsentrere meg.
- Starts with where (at my home office), then the verb trenger and subject jeg.
- This moves the focus to the location. It can sound a bit more stylistic or contrastive, like:
- “At my home office, I need silence (maybe more than in other places).”
Grammatically, when you move something other than the subject to the beginning of the sentence (like På hjemmekontoret mitt), Norwegian requires inversion: the verb comes before the subject:
- På hjemmekontoret mitt trenger jeg …
(not På hjemmekontoret mitt jeg trenger …)
Trenger comes from å trenge and means to need.
- Jeg trenger stillhet – I need silence.
You could say Jeg må ha stillhet:
- må = must / have to
- Jeg må ha stillhet på hjemmekontoret mitt for å konsentrere meg.
= I must have / I have to have silence at my home office to concentrate.
Both are correct, but:
- trenger is more neutral “need”.
- må ha can feel a bit stronger or more insistent.
stillhet is a noun: silence, quietness.
- Jeg trenger stillhet. – I need silence.
stille is usually an adjective or adverb: quiet, silent.
- Det er stille her. – It is quiet here.
- Vær stille! – Be quiet!
In this sentence you need a thing that you need, so you use the noun:
- Jeg trenger stillhet – I need silence.
You could also express it differently using stille:
- Jeg trenger at det er stille på hjemmekontoret mitt.
– I need it to be quiet at my home office.
But Jeg trenger stillhet is shorter and very natural.
For å introduces a purpose clause and usually means in order to or simply to:
- for å sove – (in order) to sleep
- for å lære norsk – (in order) to learn Norwegian
In the sentence:
- … trenger jeg stillhet for å konsentrere meg.
= “… I need silence in order to concentrate.”
You generally need for å before an infinitive when you express purpose:
- Jeg leser for å lære. – I read (in order) to learn.
In Norwegian, å konsentrere seg is a reflexive verb when it means to concentrate (oneself).
- Jeg konsentrerer meg. – I concentrate.
- Du konsentrerer deg. – You concentrate.
- Han konsentrerer seg. – He concentrates.
Without the reflexive pronoun, konsentrere normally means to concentrate something else:
- å konsentrere saften – to concentrate the juice (make it stronger).
So you need the pronoun:
- for å konsentrere meg – to concentrate (myself).
If you said for å konsentrere alone here, it would sound incomplete or wrong in this meaning.
Both are possible, but they are slightly different in nuance:
- konsentrere meg – normal, neutral way to say “concentrate”.
- konsentrere meg selv – adds emphasis, like “concentrate myself”, often used if you contrast it with concentrating on something else or someone else.
In everyday speech, people almost always just say:
- Jeg må konsentrere meg.
Meg selv is more emphatic or contrastive:
- Jeg må konsentrere meg selv, ikke alle andre.
– I have to focus on myself, not everyone else.
So in the original sentence, meg is the natural choice.
No, not in standard Norwegian. With the meaning to concentrate (mentally), the verb needs the reflexive pronoun:
- for å konsentrere meg – to concentrate (I)
- for å konsentrere deg – to concentrate (you)
- for å konsentrere oss – to concentrate (we)
Without the pronoun, konsentrere typically means to concentrate something else:
- å konsentrere trafikken – to concentrate the traffic.
So you should always include the correct reflexive pronoun when you mean mental concentration.
They are very similar, but:
In English, to concentrate can stand alone:
- I need to concentrate.
In Norwegian, when it’s about mental focus, it is almost always å konsentrere seg with the reflexive pronoun:
- Jeg må konsentrere meg.
- Hun prøver å konsentrere seg.
So conceptually it matches English to concentrate, but grammatically it behaves like to concentrate oneself.
Yes, you can.
- ro means peace, calm, quiet (not just lack of sound, but also lack of disturbance).
- stillhet focuses more on silence / absence of noise.
So:
- Jeg trenger stillhet for å konsentrere meg.
– I need silence to concentrate. - Jeg trenger ro for å konsentrere meg.
– I need peace and quiet to concentrate.
Both are natural; ro can sound a bit broader (also fewer interruptions, etc.), while stillhet more directly means minimal noise.
Yes, it is normally written as one compound word: hjemmekontor.
Norwegian often combines nouns into compounds:
- hjemme (at home) + kontor (office) → hjemmekontor (home office)
- hjemmekontoret – the home office
Writing it as hjemme kontor would be incorrect.