Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Jeg er singel nå, men jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell. - I am single now, but I am looking forward to meeting someone special.

jeg gleder meg til … = I am looking forward to …
Literally: jeg (I) gleder (rejoice) meg (myself) til (towards/until) → I rejoice myself towards…

You use it like this:

Jeg gleder meg til helgen. – I’m looking forward to the weekend.
Jeg gleder meg til å reise til Norge. – I’m looking forward to going to Norway.

So jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell = I’m looking forward to meeting someone special.

Why is it jeg gleder meg and not just jeg gleder? What is meg doing here?

Glede seg is a reflexive verb in Norwegian. That means it is always used with a reflexive pronoun:

jeg gleder meg
du gleder deg
han/hun gleder seg
vi gleder oss
dere gleder dere
de gleder seg

You cannot say jeg gleder til on its own in this meaning. You must include the reflexive pronoun (meg, deg, seg, oss, dere, seg).

Without the reflexive pronoun, glede usually means to please someone:

Det gleder meg. – That pleases me.

But glede seg (til) = to look forward (to).

What is the difference between jeg gleder meg and jeg er glad?

Jeg gleder meg (til …) = I am looking forward to (something in the future).
- It’s about anticipation.
- Jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell.
Jeg er glad = I am happy (now / in general).
- It’s about your current emotional state, not about a future event.
- Jeg er glad nå. – I’m happy now.

So in this sentence, we talk about being excited about a future meeting, so jeg gleder meg til is the natural choice.

Why do we say til å møte? Do we really need both til and å? Could I say jeg gleder meg å møte?

After glede seg, when you talk about an activity, the normal structure is:

glede seg til + å + infinitive

So:

Jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell. ✅
Jeg gleder meg å møte noen spesiell. ❌ (wrong in this meaning)

You must keep til after gleder meg in this construction, and verbs in infinitive normally take å in front of them.

You could also say:

Jeg gleder meg til møtet. – I’m looking forward to the meeting. (here møtet is a noun, so no å)

What is the difference between møte and treffe? Both seem to mean “to meet”.

Both møte and treffe can translate to to meet, and they often overlap, but there are tendencies:

møte
- More neutral and very common.
- Used for both planned and unplanned meetings.
- Jeg skal møte henne i morgen. – I’m going to meet her tomorrow.
treffe
- Often feels slightly more personal or by chance, or about encountering someone.
- Jeg traff ham på gata. – I met/ran into him in the street.

In gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell, møte is exactly what you want.

Can noen really mean “someone”? I thought noen meant “some” or “any”.

Noen has two main uses:

With a noun (usually plural) – some / any:
- noen venner – some friends
- noen spørsmål? – any questions?
On its own, referring to a person – someone / anybody:
- Er det noen her? – Is there someone here?
- Jeg vil møte noen. – I want to meet someone.

In your sentence, noen is used in sense 2: someone.

So å møte noen spesiell = to meet someone special.

Why is it noen spesiell and not noen spesielt or noen spesielle?

It’s about adjective agreement and about what you mean:

spesiell = base form (masculine/feminine singular)
spesielt = neuter singular
spesielle = plural

noen spesiell
- Means someone special (a single, unspecified person).
- Understood as noen (en person) spesiell.
- Jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell. – I’m looking forward to meeting someone special.
noen spesielle
- Means some special people / some special ones (plural).
- Jeg vil bare være sammen med noen spesielle. – I only want to be with some special people.
noen spesielt
- This would sound wrong here, because spesielt is neuter and suggests something, not someone.
- For something special you normally use noe spesielt, not noen spesielt.

So noen spesiell is correct, because you mean one special person.

How would I say “something special” instead of “someone special”?

Use noe spesielt:

Jeg gleder meg til å oppleve noe spesielt.
– I’m looking forward to experiencing something special.

Compare:

møte noen spesiell – meet someone special (a person)
oppleve noe spesielt – experience something special (a thing / event)

Is singel just the English word “single” borrowed into Norwegian? Are there other ways to say “single”?

Yes, singel is a loanword from English, adapted to Norwegian spelling and grammar. It’s very common in everyday speech for relationship status:

Jeg er singel. – I’m single.

Other options:

ugift – unmarried (more formal/legal; says nothing about whether you’re dating).
alene – alone (not the same as single, can mean physically alone).
enslig – single/alone, but more formal or used in official language (e.g. enslig forsørger – single provider / single parent).

For normal “I’m single (not in a relationship)” Norwegian speakers strongly prefer jeg er singel.

Could I also say Nå er jeg singel, men …? What is the difference from Jeg er singel nå, men …?

Both are correct; the difference is emphasis:

Jeg er singel nå, men …
- Neutral word order.
- Statement about your current status; nå simply adds the time frame.
Nå er jeg singel, men …
- Fronting nå puts more emphasis on now.
- Feels a bit more like a contrast with the past:
  - Now I’m single (as opposed to before), but …

In many contexts they are almost interchangeable, but Nå er jeg singel slightly highlights the change.

Why is there a comma before men? Is that a rule in Norwegian?

Yes. In Norwegian, men is a coordinating conjunction like but in English. The comma rule is:

Put a comma before men when it joins two main clauses:
- Jeg er singel nå, men jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell.
  - Clause 1: Jeg er singel nå.
  - Clause 2: Jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell.

If it only connects two words or short phrases, you usually don’t use a comma:

rik men ulykkelig – rich but unhappy (no comma)

Why is the verb in the present tense jeg gleder meg instead of something like a future form?

Norwegian often uses present tense for things that are:

planned in the future
or ongoing states, like “looking forward to”

So:

Jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell.
– Literally: I look forward to meeting someone special, but it corresponds to English I am looking forward to….

A future-like form jeg skal glede meg would sound strange here; it would mean I will (at that time) be looking forward to it, not I currently look forward to it. Present tense is the natural choice.

How do you pronounce the whole sentence?

Approximate pronunciation in IPA (standard East Norwegian):

Jeg er singel nå, men jeg gleder meg til å møte noen spesiell.
- /jæː eːr ˈsɪŋəl noː, mɛn jæː ˈɡleːdər mæɡ tɪl oː ˈmøːtə ˈnuːən spæˈsjɛl/

A rough English-based guide:

Jeg – like “yai” (one syllable)
er – like English “air” but shorter
singel – sing
- el (short i as in sit)
nå – like “no” but with a longer o
men – like English “men”
gleder – GLEH-der (first syllable a bit like “glare” without the r)
meg – like “my” (many say /mæi/ or /mæɡ/)
til – like “till”
å – like a long o in “go”
møte – MØH-teh (ø like the vowel in French peu)
noen – often NOO-en or quickly NOON
spesiell – speh-sye-ELL, stress on the last syllable.