Questions & Answers about Bestefar lever fortsatt.
In Norwegian, close family titles can be used like proper names when you’re referring to your own family member directly. Then they are often capitalized:
- Bestefar = Grandpa (as a kind of name)
- bestefar = a grandfather / the grandfather (more like a common noun)
So Bestefar lever fortsatt. is most naturally understood as “Grandpa is still alive.” rather than “A grandfather is still alive.”
You can say Min bestefar lever fortsatt. That’s perfectly correct and means “My grandfather is still alive.”
However, when talking about close family, Norwegian often drops the possessive (min, mi, mitt, mine) and uses the kinship word alone, especially when it’s clear from context:
- Bestefar lever fortsatt. = My grandfather is still alive.
- Mamma kommer i morgen. = My mom is coming tomorrow.
- Onkel jobber i Oslo. = My uncle works in Oslo.
So the “my” is simply understood from context.
Lever is the present tense of å leve, which means “to live / to be alive.”
In this sentence, lever means “is alive”, not “lives (somewhere)”:
- Bestefar lever fortsatt. = Grandpa is still alive.
Norwegian å leve focuses on being alive, being living:
- Han lever fortsatt etter ulykken. = He is still alive after the accident.
For “live” in the sense of reside somewhere, you normally use å bo:
- Han bor i Oslo. = He lives in Oslo (resides there).
So don’t mix up å leve (to be alive) with å bo (to live somewhere).
Norwegian doesn’t normally use a separate continuous form like English “is living / is working.” The simple present covers both:
- Han lever. = He lives. / He is living.
- Jeg jobber. = I work. / I am working.
So Bestefar lever fortsatt. is naturally translated as “Grandpa is still alive”, but grammatically it’s just a simple present in Norwegian. The context tells you whether English should use “lives” or “is living.”
No, “Bestefar fortsatt lever” is not natural word order in Norwegian.
In a normal main clause, Norwegian likes this pattern:
Subject – Verb – (Adverb) – Rest of the sentence
So:
- Bestefar lever fortsatt.
- Subject: Bestefar
- Verb: lever
- Adverb: fortsatt
Placing fortsatt before lever (Bestefar fortsatt lever) breaks that pattern. The adverb fortsatt usually comes after the finite verb in main clauses.
In this short sentence, the natural place is after the verb:
- Bestefar lever fortsatt.
If you add more information, fortsatt usually stays in the “middle field” after the finite verb:
- Bestefar lever fortsatt i Trondheim.
(Grandpa still lives / is still alive in Trondheim.)
You can move fortsatt to the very front for emphasis:
- Fortsatt lever bestefar. (poetic / very emphatic)
But everyday neutral Norwegian prefers:
- Bestefar lever fortsatt.
Fortsatt is most often used like “still” or “yet” in a time sense:
- Han jobber fortsatt der. = He still works there.
- Det er fortsatt kaldt. = It is still cold.
But it can also mean “continued / remaining” in some phrases:
- fortsatt utvikling = continued development
- fortsatt arbeid = continued work
In Bestefar lever fortsatt., it clearly means “still” / “yet” in the temporal sense: he is still alive now.
Yes. There are a few common alternatives:
- Bestefar lever ennå.
- Bestefar lever fremdeles.
These both mean “Grandpa is still alive.”
fortsatt, ennå, and fremdeles can often be interchanged when they mean “still (at this time).”
Rough guidance (Bokmål):
- fortsatt / fremdeles – very common, neutral “still”.
- ennå – also “still/yet,” often in more careful or written style.
- enda – often used in speech for “still,” but in standard writing many prefer ennå for time and enda for “even” (as in “even bigger”).
In everyday speech, you’ll hear all of them, with some regional and stylistic differences.
Yes, very close in meaning:
- Bestefar lever fortsatt.
- Bestefar er fortsatt i live.
Both mean “Grandpa is still alive.”
Nuance:
- lever focuses on the state of living (he lives / is alive).
- er … i live is literally “is alive,” slightly more explicit and a bit more formal or serious.
In most contexts, they’re interchangeable.
Common ways:
- Bestefar lever ikke lenger.
- Bestefar lever ikke mer.
Both mean “Grandpa is no longer alive.”
You can also say:
- Bestefar er ikke lenger i live.
- Bestefar er død. = Grandpa is dead. (more direct)
These are forms of the same noun:
- bestefar = grandfather / grandpa (indefinite, or used like a title)
- Bestefar lever fortsatt. = Grandpa is still alive.
- en bestefar = a grandfather (indefinite, with article)
- Han er en snill bestefar. = He is a kind grandfather.
- bestefaren = the grandfather (definite form)
- Bestefaren min lever fortsatt. = My grandfather is still alive.
When used like a name for your own grandpa, you often just use Bestefar with capital B, no article.
Approximate pronunciation in a neutral Eastern Norwegian accent (Bokmål):
Bestefar: [BEH-ste-far]
- Be- like beh in bed but shorter
- -ste- like ste in step (no strong “p”)
- -far like English far, but a bit flatter “a”
lever: [LEH-ver]
- le- like le in let
- -ver like vair in very, but shorter
fortsatt: roughly [FORT-satt]
- for- similar to for in fortune (short)
- -tsatt: ts
- sut (short and clipped)
- The t sound in fort- and s in -satt often blend into a sort of “t-s” cluster.
Said naturally: “BEH-ste-far LEH-ver FORT-satt.”