Breakdown of Frykten gjør meg stille om kvelden.
Questions & Answers about Frykten gjør meg stille om kvelden.
"gjør" is the present tense of "å gjøre" (to do / to make).
In this sentence, "gjøre" is used in its causative sense:
- "Frykten gjør meg stille" = "The fear makes me quiet."
So the structure is:
- subject: Frykten (The fear)
- verb: gjør (makes)
- object: meg (me)
- object complement: stille (quiet)
This is very similar to English uses like:
- "The news made me sad."
- "The movie made me tired."
You would not translate it literally as "Fear does me quiet"; that sounds wrong in both languages. Here "gjør" = "makes" in the sense of "causes (me) to be".
In Norwegian, nouns can appear in:
- indefinite form: frykt = (a) fear / fear (in general)
- definite form: frykten = the fear
So:
- "frykt" = more general, “fear” as a concept
- "frykten" = a specific fear, or the fear that is relevant in this context
"Frykten gjør meg stille om kvelden." suggests:
- there is some specific fear (maybe something known from context) that makes the speaker quiet in the evening.
If you said:
- "Frykt gjør meg stille om kvelden."
it would sound more like: - “Fear (in general) makes me quiet in the evenings.”
Both can be grammatically correct; the choice depends on whether you mean the particular fear vs fear as a general phenomenon.
In this sentence, "stille" functions as an adjective describing "meg" (me):
- "gjør meg stille" = "makes me quiet"
Norwegian adjectives can change form depending on gender, number, and definiteness when they go in front of a noun:
- en stille kveld (a quiet evening)
- det stille barnet (the quiet child)
- de stille barna (the quiet children)
But after verbs like "være" (to be), "bli" (to become), "gjøre" (to make), the adjective stands in a form that doesn’t change for gender or number, and "stille" already matches that pattern.
Examples:
- Jeg er stille. – I am quiet.
- Hun blir stille. – She becomes quiet.
- Det gjør meg glad. – It makes me happy.
So "stille" here is an adjective used as an object complement, and its form is the normal one for that position.
Yes.
- "Frykten gjør meg stille." = "The fear makes me quiet."
Without "om kvelden", the sentence simply doesn’t specify when. It becomes a general statement: fear makes me quiet (in general, at any time).
With "om kvelden":
- "Frykten gjør meg stille om kvelden."
you say that this effect happens in the evenings specifically.
In "om kvelden", the preposition "om" is used in a time expression and is usually translated as:
- "in the evening / in the evenings"
Some common patterns:
- om morgenen – in the morning / in the mornings
- om dagen – in the daytime
- om natten – at night
- om våren – in (the) spring
You generally don’t say:
- ✗ i kvelden (wrong)
- ✗ i morgenen (wrong in this habitual sense)
You can hear "på kvelden" in some contexts, especially dialectally, and it can overlap with "om kvelden", but the most standard neutral choice for “in the evenings / in the evening (as a habit)” is "om kvelden".
So here:
- "om" = “during / in (that part of the day, as a regular time frame)”.
Norwegian often uses definite singular time words to express repeated / habitual actions:
- om morgenen – in the morning / in the mornings
- om kvelden – in the evening / in the evenings
- på vinteren – in (the) winter / in winters
- på søndagen – on Sundays (as a habit)
So:
- "om kvelden" literally: “(during) the evening”,
but idiomatically: “in the evenings” (as a regular thing).
Using "kvelder" / "kveldene" here would not be natural for the habitual meaning.
Thus, definite singular is the normal way in Norwegian to express a repeated time of day/period.
Yes, that is also correct Norwegian, and very natural:
- "Frykten gjør meg stille om kvelden."
- "Om kvelden gjør frykten meg stille."
Both mean: "Fear makes me quiet in the evenings."
When you put the time expression "om kvelden" at the beginning, you’re just emphasising the time frame:
- "Om kvelden" (As for the evenings), frykten gjør meg stille.
The important thing is that in a main clause, the finite verb (here: gjør) must come in the second position:
- 1st: Om kvelden (time)
- 2nd: gjør (verb)
- 3rd: frykten (subject)
- then: meg stille (object + complement)
So the word order is fine, and follows the V2 rule (verb-second) in Norwegian main clauses.
Yes, that’s grammatically correct:
- "Frykten gjør at jeg er stille om kvelden."
= literally, "The fear makes that I am quiet in the evening."
Meaning-wise, it is very close to:
- "Frykten gjør meg stille om kvelden."
Differences in feel:
- "gjør meg stille" is shorter and more direct, and feels more natural and idiomatic.
- "gjør at jeg er stille" is more explicit about the clause “I am quiet” being a result, a bit heavier and more formal.
In everyday speech and writing, the original sentence
- "Frykten gjør meg stille om kvelden."
would usually be preferred.
Yes, you can express a similar idea using "bli" (“become”) and a prepositional phrase:
- "Jeg blir stille om kvelden på grunn av frykten."
- I become quiet in the evenings because of the fear.
or more natural:
- "Jeg blir stille om kvelden fordi jeg er redd."
- I become quiet in the evenings because I am afraid.
This shifts the focus slightly:
- With "Frykten gjør meg stille", the fear is the active cause that makes you quiet.
- With "Jeg blir stille", you’re focusing more on your own change of state.
Both are correct; they just present the same situation from different angles.
Approximate pronunciation (Standard East Norwegian):
"Frykten": /ˈfryk.tən/
- "fry": like German ü or French u (front rounded vowel, not like English “free”)
- "kt": pronounced together, like "kt" in English “fact”
- "-en": a short, neutral -ən sound
"kvelden": /ˈkʋɛl.dən/ or /ˈkvɛl.dən/
- "kv" / "kʋ": like kv in “kvetch” or a k plus a labial glide
- "e": like "e" in English “bed”
- "ld": pronounced as written (though in some dialects l may be “thicker”)
- "-en": again a short -ən
So slowly and clearly you might say:
- FRYK-ten gjør meg STIL-le om KVEL-den.