Breakdown of Barna blir mer stille når de ser på film.
Questions & Answers about Barna blir mer stille når de ser på film.
The noun barn (child) is irregular:
- Singular indefinite: et barn (a child)
- Singular definite: barnet (the child)
- Plural indefinite: barn (children)
- Plural definite: barna (the children)
There is no form barnene in standard Norwegian.
So barna is the correct and only definite plural form for barn.
Bli means to become / to get in this context.
Barna er stille.
The children are quiet. (a state)Barna blir mer stille.
The children become / get quieter. (a change of state)
Because the sentence talks about what happens when they watch a film (they change and become quieter), Norwegian uses blir rather than er.
Both are actually possible:
- Barna blir mer stille når de ser på film.
- Barna blir stillere når de ser på film.
They both mean “The children become quieter when they watch a film.”
About the forms:
- stille has two syllables (stil-le), so it’s natural to form the comparative with mer:
- stille → mer stille
- Many adjectives can also add -ere:
- stille → stillere
In everyday speech you will hear both.
Stillere is a bit more compact and common, but mer stille is also correct.
In Norwegian, after verbs like være (be), bli (become), se ut (look), etc., you use an adjective, not an adverb:
- Barna blir stille.
The children become quiet.
Here stille is an adjective describing the children, not the verb.
You are not saying “they become quietly”; you are saying “they become quiet”.
Norwegian usually does not add -t to make an adverb form the way English adds -ly, and with bli you want the adjective form anyway.
In this sentence:
når means when in a general / repeated / present or future sense:
- Barna blir mer stille når de ser på film.
The children become quieter when(ever) they watch a film. (whenever this happens)
- Barna blir mer stille når de ser på film.
Differences:
når
- Used for time, in general or repeated situations, and also for the future.
- Also used in questions: Når kommer du? (When are you coming?)
da
- Used for one specific event in the past:
- Barna ble mer stille da de så på film.
The children became quieter when they watched a film (on that particular occasion).
om
- Means if (and sometimes “about” in other uses), not “when” in this meaning:
- Barna blir mer stille om de får is.
The children become quieter if they get ice cream.
So here, når is correct because the sentence describes a repeated or typical situation.
Because når here introduces a subordinate clause (a dependent clause).
Word order rules:
In a main clause (independent sentence), Norwegian typically has verb in second position (V2):
- De ser på film. (They watch a film.)
- I kveld ser de på film. (Tonight they watch a film.)
In a subordinate clause introduced by når, the order is:
- [subordinator] + [subject] + [verb] ...
- når de ser på film
So:
- Correct: når de ser på film
- Incorrect: når ser de på film (that would be a main-clause-like word order, and would only work as a question if når were a question word at the front of the sentence: Når ser de på film? – When do they watch a film?)
All of these exist, but they have slightly different uses:
ser på film
- Very common, often means “to be watching films / a movie” as an activity:
- Vi pleier å se på film på fredager.
We usually watch movies on Fridays.
ser en film
- Focuses more on one specific film:
- Vi ser en film i kveld.
We’re watching a (one) film tonight.
ser film
- Also possible, but less idiomatic than se på film for the general activity.
- More common in some fixed expressions or with certain adjectives, but se på film is safer for general “watch movies”.
In this sentence, ser på film is a natural, general way to say “when they are watching a movie / movies.”
The preposition på is used with many kinds of media and activities:
- se på film – watch a movie
- se på TV – watch TV
- høre på musikk – listen to music
- spille på data – play on the computer
Here, på doesn’t translate directly to a separate English word; it’s just part of the natural verb–preposition combination se på (film/TV).
So think of se på film as a fixed pattern: “watch film” rather than literally “look on film”.
Norwegian distinguishes subject and object forms, similar to they / them in English:
- de = they (subject form)
- dem = them (object form)
In the clause når de ser på film:
- de is the subject of the verb ser.
- Therefore, you must use de, not dem.
Examples:
- De ser på film. – They watch a movie. (subject form)
- Jeg ser på dem. – I look at them. (object form)
Norwegian does not have a separate grammatical continuous tense like English “are watching”.
The present tense can cover:
- Simple present:
De ser på film hver dag. – They watch a movie every day. - Present continuous:
De ser på film nå. – They are watching a movie now.
In når de ser på film, it can be understood as “when(ever) they watch a movie” or “when they are watching a movie”, depending on context. The form ser stays the same.
Yes, that is perfectly correct and very natural:
- Barna blir mer stille når de ser på film.
- Når de ser på film, blir barna mer stille.
Both are fine.
Note the word order in the main clause after you move the når-clause to the front:
- Når de ser på film, blir barna mer stille.
Norwegian keeps the verb in second position in the main clause:
- [når-clause] = one big element in first position
- then blir (the finite verb)
- then barna mer stille
You can, but the meaning changes slightly:
- stille – quiet, silent (focus on not making noise)
- rolig – calm (focus on not being restless / agitated)
So:
Barna blir mer stille når de ser på film.
The children become quieter (they speak less, make less noise).Barna blir rolige når de ser på film.
The children become calm (they stop running around, settle down).
Both are correct Norwegian; you just choose the one that best matches what you want to say.