Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt. - Despite it being summer, we fire a little in the wood stove when it gets cold.

Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.

Despite it being summer, we fire a little in the wood stove when it gets cold.

Breakdown of Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.

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Questions & Answers about Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.

What does “til tross for at” mean, and is it the same as “selv om”?

Til tross for at literally means “in spite of the fact that” / “despite the fact that”. It introduces a whole clause:

Til tross for at det er sommer, ...
= In spite of the fact that it is summer, ...

Selv om means “even though” / “although”, and is usually a bit more neutral / common in everyday speech:

Selv om det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.

In most everyday contexts here, you can swap:

Til tross for at det er sommer → a bit more formal or emphatic
Selv om det er sommer → very common and neutral

You cannot drop “at” in til tross for at when it’s followed by a clause.

Why do you say “det er sommer” and not just something like “er sommer” or “er sommeren”?

Norwegian, like English, normally needs a subject in the sentence. In det er sommer, det is a dummy/expletive subject, similar to “it” in “it is summer”.

Det er sommer. = It is summer.

You can’t say:

✗ Er sommer. (missing subject)
✗ Er sommeren. (“is the summer” – ungrammatical as a sentence like this)

So det here doesn’t really mean anything concrete; it just fills the subject slot, just like English “it” in “it is cold”, “it is late”, “it is summer”.

What exactly does “fyrer” mean here? It looks like “fire”.

The verb å fyre in this context means to heat / to put on a fire / to run the stove. It’s used especially about stoves and fireplaces:

å fyre i vedovnen – to heat with / burn wood in the wood stove
å fyre opp i peisen – to light a fire in the fireplace

So:

fyrer vi litt i vedovnen
= we heat a bit with the wood stove
= we make a small fire in the wood stove / burn a bit of wood

It does not mean “to set something on fire” in a destructive way (that would be å sette fyr på noe).

Why is it “fyrer vi litt” and not “vi fyrer litt” after the comma?

This is Norwegian V2 word order: in a main clause, the finite verb must be in second position.

The sentence starts with a subordinate clause:

Til tross for at det er sommer, ...

After that clause, the next element in the main clause must be the verb:

fyrer (verb, 1st position in the main clause)
vi (subject, 2nd element)
litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt (the rest)

So:

Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen ... ✅
✗ Til tross for at det er sommer, vi fyrer litt i vedovnen ... ❌ (breaks V2 rule)

If you didn’t move the subordinate clause to the front, the order would be Vi fyrer litt i vedovnen til tross for at det er sommer.

What is the function of “litt” here? Does it mean “a little” literally?

Yes, litt literally means “a little / a bit”, but it often softens the statement:

fyrer vi litt i vedovnen
= we heat a bit with the wood stove
= we put the stove on a little / we make a small fire

Nuances:

It suggests not a lot, maybe just enough to take the chill off.
It also makes the sentence sound more casual and modest, not like a big operation.

Without litt, the sentence is still correct:

Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.

…but it can sound more like a general habit without the “just a bit” nuance.

Why is it “i vedovnen” and not “på vedovnen”?

In Norwegian, you normally use i (“in”) with things that you burn fuel inside:

fyre i vedovnen – heat in the wood stove
fyre i peisen – burn in the fireplace
fyre i ovnen – heat in the oven/stove

På (“on”) would be used for something on top of a surface:

på bordet – on the table
på ovnen – on the stove (on its surface, not inside)

So i vedovnen is “inside the wood stove”, which is what you want here.

Why is it “vedovnen” (definite form) and not “en vedovn”?

Vedovn is a masculine noun:

en vedovn – a wood stove
vedovnen – the wood stove

We use the definite form when both speaker and listener know which stove is meant—typically the stove in the house they’re talking about.

fyrer vi litt i vedovnen
= we heat a bit in the (our/the) wood stove

If you said:

fyrer vi litt i en vedovn
it would sound like you’re introducing some random or unspecified wood stove, which is less natural in this context.

What is the difference between “når det blir kaldt” and “hvis det blir kaldt” here?

Both are possible, but they have different nuances:

når det blir kaldt = when it gets cold
- implies that cold weather does happen, more like a regular or expected event.
hvis det blir kaldt = if it gets cold
- more hypothetical; maybe it will, maybe it won’t.

In this sentence:

Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.
suggests that on those summer days that become cold, we tend to do this.

Using hvis would sound more like a conditional plan:

... fyrer vi litt i vedovnen hvis det blir kaldt.
= if it gets cold, then we (will) heat a bit…

Why do we say “når det blir kaldt” and not “når det er kaldt”?

Both are grammatical, but the aspect is a bit different:

når det blir kaldt – when it gets cold
- Focus on the change from not-cold to cold.
- Suggests: as soon as it starts to become cold, we fire up the stove.
når det er kaldt – when it is cold
- Focus on the state of being cold.
- More like: whenever it’s (already) cold, we have the stove going.

The original sentence emphasizes the moment it turns chilly, so blir fits nicely.

What does the “det” stand for in “når det blir kaldt”? Is it like English “it”?

Yes. Here det is again a dummy/expletive subject, like English “it” in “when it gets cold”.

It refers to the weather / general conditions, not to a specific noun:

Det blir kaldt. – It is getting cold. (general weather)
Det regner. – It’s raining.
Det snør. – It’s snowing.

You could say:

når vi blir kalde – when we get cold (we = specific people)

…but that would change the meaning from “when the weather gets cold” to “when we personally feel cold.”

Is the comma before “fyrer vi litt …” required?

Yes. Norwegian punctuation rules put a comma after a subordinate clause when it comes first:

Til tross for at det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen …

You generally:

Mark the end of the initial subordinate clause with a comma.
Then start the main clause (with V2 word order).

If the subordinate clause comes after the main clause, there’s usually no comma:

Vi fyrer litt i vedovnen til tross for at det er sommer.

Could I say “Til tross for sommeren” instead of “Til tross for at det er sommer”?

Yes, but it changes the structure slightly:

Til tross for sommeren, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.
= Despite the summer, we heat a bit…

Here til tross for is followed by a noun (sommeren).
In the original:

Til tross for at det er sommer, ...

it is followed by a clause (det er sommer), so you must have at there.

Both are correct; the original is a bit more explicit and common in speech.

Is there a more everyday way to say this than “til tross for at det er sommer”?

A very natural alternative is:

Selv om det er sommer, fyrer vi litt i vedovnen når det blir kaldt.

Selv om is extremely common in everyday speech and usually sounds a bit less formal than til tross for at, while meaning essentially the same here: “even though it’s summer”.