Breakdown of Barna får bare lov til å bruke grillen når en voksen er på uteplassen.
Questions & Answers about Barna får bare lov til å bruke grillen når en voksen er på uteplassen.
Får lov til å literally means “get permission to / are allowed to”. It’s built from:
- får = get / receive
- lov = permission
- til å + infinitive = to + verb
So får lov til å bruke ≈ “get permission to use / are allowed to use”.
You could say Barna kan bruke grillen (“The children can use the grill”), but kan is more neutral: it can mean “are able to”, “can in principle”, or “may”.
Using får lov til å makes it very clear that this is about permission, usually based on a rule set by an authority (parents, adults, etc.). That fits the meaning of this sentence very well.
The word order is:
- Barna (subject)
- får (verb – in 2nd position, as required in main clauses)
- bare (adverb)
- lov til å bruke grillen (what they are allowed to do)
- når en voksen er på uteplassen (condition)
Here, bare (“only”) is modifying the permission, not the grill or the verb bruke directly. It tells us that they have permission only under the condition given in the når-clause.
Compare:
- Barna får bare lov til å bruke grillen når en voksen er på uteplassen.
→ They are only allowed to use the grill when an adult is on the patio.
If you move bare, the meaning changes:
- Barna får lov til bare å bruke grillen.
→ They are allowed to only use the grill (and not do other activities). - Barna får lov til å bruke bare grillen.
→ They are allowed to use only the grill (and not other equipment).
So the original word order is chosen to say: permission is restricted by that condition, not by which object they can use.
In standard Bokmål:
- en grill = a grill (indefinite)
- grillen = the grill (definite)
The sentence uses grillen because it’s talking about a specific, known grill (the family’s grill on the patio). Using the definite form is natural when both speaker and listener know which grill is meant.
Å bruke grill (without the article) would sound incomplete or odd in Norwegian here, because countable nouns normally need an article or a definite ending.
Grilla is dialectal / colloquial for “to grill, have a barbecue”. It would change the meaning to something like “are only allowed to barbecue”, not “use the grill (as an object)”.
So å bruke grillen = “to use the grill (that specific one)”.
Lov here is a noun meaning “permission” (not “law” in this context, even though it’s the same word).
The structure is:
- få (noe) = get (something)
- få lov til å (gjøre noe) = get permission to (do something)
So lov is the object of the verb får:
Barna får lov = “The children get permission”.
Then til å bruke grillen specifies what they get permission to do.
So the main idea is: They receive permission to do X.
In Norwegian:
når is used for:
- Present/future times (“when / whenever”)
- General or repeated situations / rules
da is used mainly for:
- A single event in the past (“when, at that time”)
The sentence describes a general rule about when the children are allowed to use the grill. It’s not talking about one specific past situation, so når is correct:
- Barna får bare lov til å bruke grillen når en voksen er på uteplassen.
= The children are only allowed to use the grill when/whenever an adult is on the patio.
If you said da en voksen var på uteplassen, it would sound like you’re telling a story about one particular time in the past, which is not what we want here.
Yes, voksen is originally an adjective (“grown, adult”), but in Norwegian adjectives can often be used as nouns to refer to “a person with that quality”.
Examples:
- en voksen = an adult (literally “a grown one”)
- en ung = a young person (less common, but possible)
- en fremmed = a stranger (from the adjective “fremmed” = foreign/strange)
In this sentence, en voksen functions exactly like “an adult” in English. You could also say en voksen person, but en voksen alone is completely normal and slightly more natural.
Uteplassen is a compound:
- ute = outside
- plass = place/spot
- uteplass = outdoor area (patio, terrace, small outside sitting area)
- uteplassen = the outdoor area / the patio
It refers to a specific outdoor area belonging to the home, typically a patio or terrace.
It’s in the definite form (-en) because the sentence is talking about the known, specific outdoor area of that house or apartment, not just any random outdoor spot.
So:
- på en uteplass = on an outdoor area / on a patio (indefinite)
- på uteplassen = on the patio (the one we have in mind)
In Norwegian, på is often used with:
- Surfaces (på bordet – on the table)
- Open areas (på torget – in the square, på stranden – on the beach)
- Certain fixed places (på skolen, på jobben, på kino)
Uteplassen is a kind of open area / surface (patio, terrace), so på uteplassen is natural and idiomatic.
If it were an enclosed space like a room or a garden with a more “inside” feeling, you’d more often see i:
- i hagen = in the garden
- i huset = in the house
But for patios, terraces, balconies, etc., Norwegian commonly uses på:
- på terrassen = on the terrace
- på balkongen = on the balcony
- på uteplassen = on the patio / in the outdoor area
Norwegian verbs do not change for person or number in the present tense:
- jeg får = I get
- du får = you get
- han/hun får = he/she gets
- vi får = we get
- dere får = you (plural) get
- de får = they get
Same verb form får for all subjects.
So Barna får is correct: barna is plural (“the children”), but the verb still stays får. There is no special plural ending.
Barn is a neuter noun with somewhat irregular forms:
- et barn = a child (indefinite singular)
- barnet = the child (definite singular)
- barn = children (indefinite plural – looks the same as singular!)
- barna = the children (definite plural)
In the sentence, we are talking about the children (a specific, known group, for example the children in this family), so the correct form is barna (definite plural).
If you wrote just Barn får bare lov …, it would be ungrammatical as a standalone sentence; you’d need an article: Barn får bare lov … could work only in certain headline/telegraphic styles, but not in normal full sentences.
Yes, you can say:
- Barna har bare lov til å bruke grillen når en voksen er på uteplassen.
This is grammatically correct and means almost the same thing.
Nuance:
- har lov til å = have permission to (more static: “their rights / allowed status”)
- får lov til å = are given permission to (more dynamic: being granted permission at a given time)
In a rule sentence like this, both are very natural. Får lov til å can slightly emphasize that every time they use the grill, they must get (or have) permission under that condition. But in everyday speech, most people wouldn’t feel a strong difference here.
Yes, you can front the når-clause. When you do that, the main clause must still respect Norwegian V2 (verb-second) word order, so the verb comes immediately after the subordinate clause:
- Når en voksen er på uteplassen, får barna bare lov til å bruke grillen.
Structure:
- Når en voksen er på uteplassen, (subordinate clause, comma)
- får (main verb in 2nd position)
- barna (subject)
- bare lov til å bruke grillen.
Meaning is unchanged. This version slightly emphasizes the condition (“When an adult is on the patio…”). Both orders are common and correct.