Learn Hardcore Norwegian: I framtiden vil jeg skrive en bok om familien min. - In the future I want to write a book about my family.

The first position in this sentence is an adverbial: I framtiden (In the future).
Therefore, the verb must come next: vil.
The subject jeg comes after the verb.

So:

Correct: I framtiden vil jeg skrive en bok om familien min.
Also correct: Jeg vil i framtiden skrive en bok om familien min. (here jeg is first, so vil is still in second place)

But:

Incorrect: *I framtiden jeg vil skrive … (here jeg is in second place and vil is third, breaking the V2 rule)

Why do we use vil here to talk about the future? Could we use skal or other forms instead?

Norwegian often expresses the future with present tense or with the auxiliaries vil and skal. They can all refer to the future, but with different nuances:

vil
- Basic meaning: want to, will (in the sense of willingness/intention).
- In many contexts, it’s a neutral future for plans or intentions.
- In this sentence, it suggests a personal intention:
  - I framtiden vil jeg skrive en bok om familien min.
    → In the future, I *want to / will write a book about my family.*
skal
- Often used for plans, arrangements, duties, or scheduled events.
- If you say:
  - I framtiden skal jeg skrive en bok om familien min.,
    it can sound more like a firm plan or even a kind of promise or obligation.
kommer til å + infinitive
- Used for something that is likely to happen, or that you predict will happen.
- I framtiden kommer jeg til å skrive en bok om familien min.
  → Feels like: I’m probably going to write a book about my family someday.

All three can be grammatically correct, but vil fits nicely for a personal intention or wish.

Why is it I framtiden and not på framtiden?

In Norwegian, different prepositions are used with time expressions:

i is used with longer, more general time periods:
- i framtiden – in the future
- i sommer – in the summer
- i løpet av året – during the year
på is commonly used with:
- days: på mandag – on Monday
- some holidays: på julaften – on Christmas Eve
- some parts of the day: på kvelden – in the evening

Framtiden is seen as a long, general time period, so Norwegian uses i, not på.
So i framtiden is the natural, idiomatic choice.

What is the difference between i framtiden and i fremtiden?

Both are correct, but they reflect different spelling traditions:

framtiden
- Uses the a-form (framtid).
- Common in Nynorsk and in many spoken dialects.
- Also allowed in Bokmål, especially in more modern/radical Bokmål.
fremtiden
- Uses the e-form (fremtid).
- Traditional/conservative Bokmål form.
- Very common in written Bokmål.

Meaning-wise, there is no difference. It’s just spelling/variety.
You can say either:

I framtiden vil jeg skrive …
I fremtiden vil jeg skrive …

and they mean exactly the same thing.

Could I say I framtida instead of I framtiden?

Yes, but it changes style/variety:

framtiden is the Bokmål definite form (standard in most textbook Norwegian Bokmål).
framtida is:
- the Nynorsk definite form, or
- a very common form in many dialects (even if people officially write Bokmål).

So:

Standard Bokmål: I framtiden / I fremtiden
Nynorsk / dialectal: I framtida

Choose based on which written standard you’re learning. If you’re learning Bokmål, stick with i framtiden / i fremtiden.

Why is it skrive en bok and not skrive boka?

The difference is indefinite vs definite:

en bok = a book (indefinite)
boka/boken = the book (definite)

In this sentence, you’re not talking about one specific, already known book.
You’re saying that someday you will write a book, some book that doesn’t exist yet.

So you use the indefinite:

skrive en bok – write a book

If you said:

I framtiden vil jeg skrive boka om familien min.

that would sound like “In the future I will write the book about my family”, implying a specific book everyone already knows about. That’s not what you usually mean here.

Why is it en bok and not ei bok?

Norwegian has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

The noun bok is grammatically feminine by origin, but in Bokmål:

You are allowed to treat many feminine nouns as masculine.
So both of these are accepted in Bokmål:
- ei bok – boka (feminine pattern)
- en bok – boken/boka (masculine pattern)

In standard, neutral Bokmål teaching, you’ll often see:

en bok (indefinite)
boka or boken (definite)

So en bok in this sentence is perfectly normal Bokmål.
If you speak a dialect that strongly uses ei, you might say ei bok, but textbooks often prefer en bok.

What does om mean in en bok om familien min?

In this context, om means about, just like in English:

en bok om familien min
→ a book about my family

Other common uses of om with similar meaning:

snakke om noe – talk about something
tenke om noe – think about something (as in your opinion of it)
en film om krigen – a film about the war

So here, om connects the book with its topic.

Why is it familien min and not min familie?

In Norwegian, possessives can be placed after or before the noun, but the form of the noun changes:

Postposed possessive (most common / neutral)
- Noun is definite, possessive comes after:
  - familien min – my family
    (literally: the family my)
This is the most natural, neutral way in everyday Norwegian, especially for close relationships and body parts:
- moren min – my mother
- broren min – my brother
- vennene mine – my friends
Preposed possessive (min + bare noun)
- Possessive comes before, noun is normally indefinite:
  - min familie – my family
This can sound:
- more formal, emphatic, or
- stylistically marked (e.g. Min familie er veldig viktig for meg – My family is very important to me, with stress on my).

In this sentence, en bok om familien min is the most natural way to say “a book about my family” in everyday language.
En bok om min familie is grammatically correct, but feels more formal or emphatic.

Why is it min and not mitt or mine in familien min?

The possessive pronoun in Norwegian must agree with the noun in gender and number:

min – for singular masculine and feminine nouns
mi – for feminine in dialects/Nynorsk (not always used in standard Bokmål)
mitt – for singular neuter nouns
mine – for plural nouns (all genders)

The noun here is familie:

It is singular.
In Bokmål, familie is a feminine noun (often treated as common gender).

So you use:

familien min – my family

Compare with:

mitt hus – my house (because hus is neuter)
mine venner – my friends (plural)

Why is jeg not capitalized like I in English?

In Norwegian, pronouns are not capitalized unless they come at the beginning of a sentence or are part of a title, just like regular words.

So:

jeg – I
du – you
han – he
hun – she
vi – we

Examples:

Jeg er trøtt. – Jeg is capitalized because it starts the sentence.
I framtiden vil jeg skrive en bok … – jeg is in the middle of the sentence, so it is not capitalized.

Unlike English, Norwegian does not have a special rule to capitalize jeg everywhere.

Is there anything special about the pronunciation of vil jeg skrive en bok om familien min that I should know?

A few tips that often help English speakers:

vil – short i (like in English will, but a bit tenser).
jeg – often pronounced like “yai” or “jæi” in standard Eastern Norwegian, but in many dialects it can be “je”, “jæ”, etc.
skrive – skri-ve, stress on the first syllable, i like in machine, short open e at the end (not “skreev”).
en bok – en often weakens to something like “en”/“ən”; bok has a long o.
familien – stress on the mi: fa-MI-lien. The en at the end is a light, short syllable.
min – short i again.

Norwegian has fairly regular stress: in this sentence, content words get the main stress:

I FRAMtiden VIL jeg SKRIve en BOK om faMIli(en) MIN.

Listening to native audio and repeating is the best way to internalize this.

Could the sentence also be Jeg vil skrive en bok om familien min i framtiden? Is that still correct?

Yes, that is perfectly correct Norwegian.

I framtiden vil jeg skrive …
– You front the time expression, which is common and natural when you want to emphasize when.
Jeg vil skrive en bok om familien min i framtiden.
– The word order is more like English.
– The verb is still in second position (jeg vil), which fits the V2 rule.

Both are grammatically fine.
Using I framtiden at the beginning just puts a bit more focus on the time frame.