Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Søndagsmiddagen med slekten gjør meg glad. - The Sunday dinner with the extended family makes me happy.

Søndagsmiddag is the indefinite form: a Sunday dinner / Sunday dinner (in general).
Søndagsmiddagen is the definite form: the Sunday dinner.

In the sentence Søndagsmiddagen med slekten gjør meg glad, the speaker talks about a specific, usual, or known Sunday dinner (a recurring family event), so the definite form is natural.

What does the -s- in søndagsmiddag mean? Is it a genitive s like in English?

The -s- here is a linking sound used in compound nouns, not a real genitive like English ’s.

søndag = Sunday
middag = dinner
søndagsmiddag = Sunday-dinner (one compound word)

Norwegian often inserts an s between two nouns in a compound to make it sound natural: sommerferie (no s), but sommerjobb vs sommerskole, etc. It doesn’t literally mean Sunday’s dinner grammatically, even though the meaning is similar.

Why is slekt translated as “family/relatives”? How is it different from familien?

Slekt refers to your extended family, relatives, kin – not just the people you live with.

familien = the (nuclear) family; usually parents + children, or the household.
slekt(en) = relatives more broadly: grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.

So søndagsmiddagen med slekten suggests a bigger family gathering, not just parents and children.

Why do we say med slekten without a possessive like min?

In Norwegian, it is very common to leave out possessive pronouns when it’s obvious whose thing or people we mean, especially with family words and body parts.

So instead of:

med min slekt = with my relatives

you usually just say:

med slekten = with (the) relatives

Context makes it clear that it’s your own relatives. Saying min slekt is possible, but often sounds more contrastive or emphatic (e.g. compared to someone else’s relatives).

Why is slekten in the definite form? Could I say med slekt?

Slekten is the definite form: the relatives / the extended family.

slekt = (some) family/kin in general, an abstract or non-specific idea
slekten = the specific group of relatives we have in mind

In this context you are talking about your own known relatives as a group, so med slekten (with the relatives) is the natural way to say with my family/relatives.

Med slekt is grammatically possible, but it sounds more like “with relatives (in general)” and is unusual in this sentence.

In Søndagsmiddagen med slekten, what exactly is the subject of the sentence?

The entire phrase Søndagsmiddagen med slekten is the subject.

Søndagsmiddagen = the Sunday dinner
med slekten = with the relatives (a prepositional phrase describing that dinner)

Together they form one subject: The Sunday dinner with the relatives.
Then:

gjør = makes (verb)
meg = me (object)
glad = happy (predicative adjective)

How does the word order work here? Why does gjør come after the whole long subject?

Norwegian main clauses normally use V2 word order: the verb is in second position.

First position: the subject (here, a long noun phrase)
- Søndagsmiddagen med slekten
Second position: the finite verb
- gjør
Then the rest: object + other information
- meg glad

So even though the subject is long, it still counts as one unit, and gjør correctly stands right after it in second position.

How does the construction gjør meg glad work? Is this a fixed expression?

Gjør meg glad is an example of a common pattern:

gjøre + object + adjective
= make + object + adjective

Examples:

Det gjør meg trist. = It makes me sad.
Den filmen gjorde oss glade. = That film made us happy.

So gjør meg glad literally means “makes me happy.” It’s not a single fixed expression, but a productive structure you can reuse with many adjectives.

Could I also say Jeg blir glad av søndagsmiddagen med slekten? What is the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Jeg blir glad av søndagsmiddagen med slekten.

Differences in nuance:

Søndagsmiddagen med slekten gjør meg glad.
Focuses on the dinner as an active cause: The Sunday dinner with the relatives makes me happy.
Jeg blir glad av søndagsmiddagen med slekten.
Focuses more on your change of state: I become happy because of / from the Sunday dinner with the relatives.

Both are natural; the original sentence just emphasizes the event as the thing that does something to you.

Why is glad not inflected here (for gender/number)? When would it become glade?

Here glad is a predicative adjective (it describes the state of meg, linked by gjør), and in Bokmål:

Singular predicative: usually glad
- Jeg er glad.
- Hun er glad.
Plural predicative: often glade
- Vi er glade.

So in gjør meg glad, meg is singular, so glad is used.

You see glade more clearly in attributive position (before a noun):

en glad gutt = a happy boy
et glad barn = a happy child
glade barn = happy children
den glade gutten = the happy boy

Can I say søndags middag as two words, or must it be one compound noun?

It must be one compound noun: søndagsmiddag.

In Norwegian, when two nouns belong together with one clear combined meaning, they are usually written as one word:

hyttehelg = cabin weekend
julemiddag = Christmas dinner
sommerferie = summer vacation

Writing søndags middag would look like two separate words and is considered incorrect spelling.

Are days of the week normally capitalized in Norwegian, like Søndag here?

No. In Norwegian, days of the week are not normally capitalized:

mandag, tirsdag, onsdag, torsdag, fredag, lørdag, søndag

In the sentence, Søndagsmiddagen is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence, not because søndag itself should be capitalized. If the word appeared in the middle of a sentence, it would be:

… fordi søndagsmiddagen med slekten gjør meg glad.