Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre planene sine. - The study advisor gets many students to change their plans.

Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre planene sine.

The study advisor gets many students to change their plans.

Breakdown of Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre planene sine.

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Questions & Answers about Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre planene sine.

What does “får … til å” mean in this sentence, and how does this structure work?

In this sentence, “får … til å + infinitive” is a causative construction. It means “makes / gets someone to do something.”

Structure:

Subject: Studieveilederen – the study adviser
Verb: får – “gets / makes”
Object (person caused to act): mange studenter – many students
“til å” + infinitive: til å endre – to change

So:

“Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre …”
= The study adviser gets / makes many students change …

Why do we say “til å endre” and not just “å endre” after “får”?

With “få” in the causative sense (“make / get someone to do something”), Norwegian normally uses “til å + infinitive”, not just “å + infinitive.”

So:

✅ få noen *til å gjøre noe – to get someone *to do something
❌ få noen *å gjøre noe* – wrong / not idiomatic

Some verbs that often take “til å + infinitive”:

få noen til å … – get someone to …
hjelpe noen til å … – help someone to …
lære noen til å … – teach someone to …

So “til” here is part of a fixed pattern after causative “få.”

Could I say “Studieveilederen gjør at mange studenter endrer planene sine” instead? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can:

Original:
Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre planene sine.
→ The adviser gets/makes many students change their plans.
Alternative:
Studieveilederen gjør at mange studenter endrer planene sine.
→ The adviser causes many students to change their plans / It results in many students changing their plans.

Difference:

“får … til å …”: slightly more direct, more about actively persuading or influencing the students.
“gjør at …”: more neutral; it just says that the adviser’s actions lead to this result, without as strong a feeling of “making them do it.”

Both are correct; the first is more typical when you focus on influencing people’s decisions.

Why is it “planene sine” and not “planene deres” for “their plans”?

Norwegian distinguishes between two kinds of “their”:

Reflexive possessive (sin / sitt / sine)
- Refers back to the subject of the clause
Non‑reflexive possessive (deres)
- Refers to someone else (not the subject), or is ambiguous

In this sentence:

Subject: Studieveilederen
Object: mange studenter
Possessed noun: planene (the plans)
Meaning: The students change their own plans.

Here, “their” refers to the object (mange studenter), not the subject (studieveilederen). In Norwegian, when the possessor is an argument inside the same clause (subject or object), you normally use the reflexive: sin/sitt/sine.

So:

“planene sine” → the students’ own plans (correct meaning here)
“planene deres” → someone else’s plans (e.g. the adviser’s plans, or other people’s plans)

Using “deres” here would usually be understood as:

The adviser gets many students to change other people’s plans, not their own.

How do “sin, sitt, sine” work, and why is it specifically “sine” here?

Sin / sitt / sine are reflexive possessive pronouns meaning “his/her/its/their (own)” depending on context. They agree with the gender and number of the thing owned, not with the owner.

Agreement:

sin – with en-words (masculine/feminine singular)
- boka si – her/his own book
- bilen sin – his/her own car
sitt – with et-words (neuter singular)
- huset sitt – his/her own house
sine – with plural nouns (regardless of gender)
- planene sine – their own plans
- vennene sine – his/her own friends

In the sentence:

Noun: planene (plural of plan → planer → planene)
So we must use sine (plural form): planene sine.

Could I say “endre sine planer” instead of “endre planene sine”?

Yes, both are grammatically correct, but there is a nuance:

“endre planene sine”
- Literally: “change the plans their-own”
- Feels more specific: their particular, already‑known plans.
“endre sine planer”
- Literally: “change their-own plans”
- Feels a bit more general or less anchored to specific plans already mentioned.

In everyday speech, “endre planene sine” is very natural here. “Sine planer” is also fine, just slightly different in emphasis.

What exactly is “studieveilederen” grammatically?

“Studieveilederen” is:

A compound noun:
- studie – “study / studies”
- veileder – “advisor, guide, counselor” → studieveileder – “study advisor / academic adviser”
In the definite singular form:
- Indefinite singular: en studieveileder – a study adviser
- Definite singular: studieveilederen – the study adviser

So:

“en studieveileder” = a study adviser
“studieveilederen” = the study adviser

The -en at the end is the definite article (“the”) for a masculine/feminine noun.

Why is there no article before “mange studenter”?

In Norwegian, when you use quantifiers like mange (many), få (few), noen (some), etc., you normally don’t use an article:

mange studenter – many students (no article)
noen bøker – some books
få timer – few hours

Compare:

Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å …
– The study adviser gets many students to …
Not: de mange studentene unless you specifically mean “the many students (already mentioned/specific group)”, which is a different nuance.

So “mange studenter” is just the normal, generic “many students”.

Can I change the word order, like “Studieveilederen får til å endre planene sine mange studenter”?

No, that word order is not natural in Norwegian.

The basic pattern for this causative construction is: > Subject – får – object – til å – infinitive – (rest of the predicate)

So:

✅ Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre planene sine.
❌ Studieveilederen får til å endre planene sine mange studenter.

The object (“mange studenter”) should come directly after “får” in standard word order. You could move some adverbials (time, place, etc.) around, but not break up the “får + object + til å + verb” unit in that way.

What’s the difference between “endre” and “forandre”? Could I use “forandre planene sine” here?

In many everyday contexts, “endre” and “forandre” can both mean “to change”, and both would be understood here:

endre planene sine – change their plans
forandre planene sine – change their plans

Typical tendencies:

endre
- Often more neutral, used in formal or written contexts
- Common in set phrases: endre planen, endre mening, endringer i systemet
forandre
- Sometimes feels a bit more “transform / alter”, can be more emotional or personal
- forandre livet sitt, forandre seg, forandre personligheten sin

In this specific sentence:

“endre planene sine” feels slightly more natural, especially in an academic or administrative context.
“forandre planene sine” is still correct and idiomatic, just a slightly different flavor.

How would I say this sentence in the past or future tense?

The verb that carries tense here is “får” (from “å få”). The rest (til å endre planene sine) stays in the infinitive.

Present (original):
Studieveilederen får mange studenter til å endre planene sine.
– The study adviser gets many students to change their plans.
Past (preterite):
Studieveilederen *fikk mange studenter til å endre planene sine.
– The study adviser *got many students to change their plans.
Present perfect:
Studieveilederen *har fått mange studenter til å endre planene sine.
– The study adviser *has gotten many students to change their plans.
Future (with “skal”):
Studieveilederen *skal få mange studenter til å endre planene sine.
– The study adviser *will get many students to change their plans.

Note: only få changes; til å endre planene sine remains the same.

Is “studenter” in some special case here (like accusative)? Does Norwegian still use cases?

In modern Norwegian, nouns like “studenter” do not change form for case in the way German or Icelandic do.

“mange studenter” is simply the plural indefinite form of student.
In this sentence, “mange studenter” functions as the object of the verb “får”, but there is no special object form.

Norwegian has:

Some case distinctions in pronouns (e.g. jeg / meg, vi / oss, han / ham)
But nouns generally have one form that covers subject and object roles, with changes only for number (singular/plural) and definiteness (en student / studenten / studenter / studentene).

So “studenter” is not a special case form; it’s just the regular plural noun used as an object.

Can “få” also mean “to receive” or “to get” in this position? How do I know it’s causative here?

Yes, “få” is polysemous; it has several meanings:

Receive / obtain
- Jeg fikk en gave. – I got/received a present.
Be allowed to
- Jeg får gå nå. – I’m allowed to go now.
Causative: make / get someone to do something
- Han fikk meg til å le. – He made/got me laugh.

In this sentence, it’s clearly causative because of the pattern:

få + person (object) + til å + verb

So:

får mange studenter til å endre …
→ must be “gets/makes many students change …”
Not “receives many students to change …” (which wouldn’t make sense).

Whenever you see “få” followed by a person + “til å” + infinitive, you can safely interpret it as “make / get someone to do something”.