Breakdown of Jeg føler meg tryggere når jeg går sammen med venner.
Questions & Answers about Jeg føler meg tryggere når jeg går sammen med venner.
In Norwegian, when you talk about how you feel (emotionally or physically), you normally use the reflexive verb å føle seg (literally: to feel oneself).
So you say:
- Jeg føler meg trygg. – I feel safe.
- Jeg føler meg trøtt. – I feel tired.
Jeg føler without meg usually needs a direct object, like:
- Jeg føler kulden. – I feel the cold.
In your sentence, you’re describing your own state, so you must use føler meg, not just føler.
The reflexive pronoun must match the subject. Here the subject is jeg (I), so you use meg:
- Jeg føler meg tryggere.
If the subject were han (he) or hun (she), you’d use seg:
- Han føler seg tryggere.
- Hun føler seg tryggere.
Quick overview:
- jeg → meg
- du → deg
- han / hun / den / det / man → seg
- vi → oss
- dere → dere
- de → seg
Tryggere is the comparative form of the adjective trygg (safe, secure). It literally means safer / more safe or more secure.
The pattern is:
- Positive: trygg – safe
- Comparative: tryggere – safer
- Superlative: tryggest / tryggeste – safest
Most regular one-syllable adjectives form the comparative with -ere and the superlative with -est / -este:
- stor → større → størst(e) (big → bigger → biggest)
- snill → snillere → snillest(e) (kind → kinder → kindest)
Both can sometimes be translated as safe or secure, but they are used differently:
- trygg is mostly about feeling safe, protected, not in danger:
- Jeg føler meg trygg her. – I feel safe here.
- sikker is mainly certain / sure about facts, or technically/physically secure:
- Jeg er sikker på at han kommer. – I’m sure he’s coming.
- En sikker løsning. – A secure/safe solution (technical, formal).
In your sentence, you’re talking about a subjective feeling, so tryggere is the natural choice.
Yes, Jeg er tryggere når jeg går sammen med venner is grammatically correct, and it would usually be understood as I am safer when I walk with friends (more about actual safety).
- Jeg føler meg tryggere focuses on your subjective feeling of safety.
- Jeg er tryggere focuses more on the objective situation: in that situation you are in fact safer.
In everyday speech, people often prefer føler meg tryggere when talking about inner feelings and comfort.
Norwegian distinguishes når and da, even though both can translate as when in English:
når is used for:
- general truths / repeated situations
- the future
- the present
da is used for one specific event in the past.
Your sentence talks about a general, repeated situation (whenever you walk with friends), so it has to be når:
- Jeg føler meg tryggere når jeg går sammen med venner.
If you described one specific past time, you’d use da:
- Jeg følte meg trygg da jeg gikk sammen med venner i går.
I felt safe when I walked with friends yesterday.
All of these are possible, but they don’t say exactly the same thing:
- går sammen med venner – literally walks together with friends.
Emphasizes both the movement (walking) and being together as a group. - går med venner – walks with friends. Also correct. Slightly less emphasis on the “together as a unit” feeling; in some contexts gå med can mean other things (e.g., “date” in some varieties), but here it’s still fine.
- er sammen med venner – is together with friends.
Focuses on being in their company, not specifically on walking.
The original går sammen med venner highlights that you are walking and doing it as part of a group.
You cannot say jeg går sammen venner; that is ungrammatical.
- sammen is an adverb meaning together.
- med is the preposition with, which introduces the people you are with.
So you can say:
- Jeg går sammen med venner. – I walk together with friends.
- Jeg går med venner. – I walk with friends.
- Jeg er sammen med venner. – I am together with friends.
But you can’t drop med after sammen when you mention the people.
Both are possible; they just have different nuances:
- med venner – with friends (in general).
It sounds more general and less specific; it doesn’t stress that they are your particular friends. - med vennene mine – with my friends (the specific group that are your friends).
So:
- Jeg føler meg tryggere når jeg går sammen med venner.
I feel safer when I walk with friends (as opposed to walking alone). - Jeg føler meg tryggere når jeg går sammen med vennene mine.
I feel safer when I walk with my friends (this specific group).
In many contexts, med venner already implies they are your friends, so the possessive mine is not necessary.
No, not with that word order. In Norwegian:
- In a subordinate clause with når, the verb does not come before the subject. You must say:
når jeg går, not når går jeg.
The correct versions are:
- Jeg føler meg tryggere når jeg går sammen med venner.
- Når jeg går sammen med venner, føler jeg meg tryggere.
Putting går before jeg after når turns it into a question-like word order, which is wrong here.
No, you can’t drop jeg there. In Norwegian, each clause normally needs its own explicit subject.
So you must say:
- Jeg føler meg tryggere når jeg går sammen med venner.
Leaving out jeg in the second clause would be incorrect in standard Norwegian, except in some special constructions (like imperatives or very fixed expressions). Here, a full subject is required.