Breakdown of Barna får lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset, men bare én gang hver.
Questions & Answers about Barna får lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset, men bare én gang hver.
Få lov til å literally means “to get permission to / to be allowed to”.
- Barna får lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset
= The children are allowed to blow out the candle.
If you use kan, the focus is more on ability or possibility, not on permission:
- Barna kan blåse ut stearinlyset
= The children can blow out the candle (they are able to / it’s possible).
You often use få lov til å when there is some authority or rule involved (parents, teachers, etc.) granting permission.
Barn is an irregular noun in Norwegian:
- et barn = a child
- barn = children (indefinite plural – no article)
- barna = the children (definite plural – “the”)
So Barna får lov til ... means “The children are allowed to ...”, not just “children”.
If you said Barn får lov til ..., it would feel incomplete or very general, like “Children are allowed to ...” (in general), not specific children in a situation.
Å blåse = to blow (in general: wind blowing, blowing air, etc.)
To express blowing something out (like a candle), Norwegian uses a particle verb:
- å blåse ut = to blow out
The little word ut (“out”) changes the meaning, just like in English “to blow out (a candle)” vs “to blow (air)”.
So:
- å blåse ut stearinlyset = “to blow out the candle”
- å blåse på varm mat = “to blow on hot food”
Stearinlyset is a compound noun with a definite ending:
- stearin = paraffin/wax
- et lys = a light / a candle
- et stearinlys = a (wax) candle
- stearinlyset = the candle
So in the sentence, stearinlyset means “the candle”, singular and definite.
If there were several candles, you would say:
- stearinlysene = the candles (plural definite)
- å blåse ut stearinlysene = to blow out the candles.
Norwegian main clauses follow the V2 rule (verb-second): the finite verb usually appears in second position in the sentence.
- Barna (subject)
- får (finite verb – present tense of å få)
- lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset (rest of the predicate)
So the structure is:
[Subject] + [Verb] + [Rest]
= Barna får lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset.
If something else comes first (an adverb, for example), the verb still goes second:
- I dag får barna lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset.
(Today the children are allowed to blow out the candle.)
Men means “but”, just like English but. It joins two clauses:
- Barna får lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset
- men bare én gang hver
The second part is an elliptical clause, meaning some words are left out because they are obvious from context. A “full” version could be:
- ... men de får bare gjøre det én gang hver.
(... but they are only allowed to do it once each.)
Norwegian (like English) often drops repeated words when they are understood. So men bare én gang hver is natural and not “incorrect”; the verb and extra words are just implied.
In Norwegian:
- en is usually the indefinite article (“a / an”) and can also mean “one”.
- én with an accent is used when you want to stress the number “one” specifically, often to contrast with other numbers (two, three, etc.).
In men bare én gang hver, the accent clarifies:
- én gang = exactly one time, not more.
You could technically write en gang too, but én gang emphasizes the limit: only once.
Hver means “each” or “every”.
In the phrase én gang hver:
- én gang = one time
- hver = each (of them)
So together it means “one time each”.
Hver is an indeclinable form here – it doesn’t change for gender or number in this construction. You could spell it out more explicitly as:
- én gang hver av dem = one time each of them
…but Norwegian prefers the shorter form én gang hver.
You can say it, and people will understand you, but the nuance changes:
- får lov til å → emphasizes permission (they’re allowed to).
- kan → emphasizes possibility/ability (they can / are able to).
In a context where adults are deciding what is allowed, får lov til å is more natural.
Kan could sound a bit more neutral or less “rule-based”.
Both exist, but få lov til å is the most standard and clear form in writing.
- få lov til å gjøre noe – very common, standard Bokmål
- få lov å gjøre noe – also used, especially in speech and more informal writing
So in this sentence:
- Barna får lov til å blåse ut stearinlyset ... (safe, standard)
- Barna får lov å blåse ut stearinlyset ... (informal, but acceptable)
Pronunciation (approximate for standard Eastern Norwegian):
- stearinlyset ≈ steh-ah-REEN-lee-seh
Breakdown:
- stea-: two vowels, often pronounced like ste-ah merged smoothly
- -rin-: stressed syllable → -REEN-
- ly-: like lee (front rounded vowel in careful speech, but often close to English “ee”)
- -set: often -seh, with a soft t or almost no t at the end in casual speech
Primary stress: -RIN- → stea-RIN-lyset.
You would make stearinlys plural and definite:
Singular:
- et stearinlys = a candle
- stearinlyset = the candle
Plural:
- stearinlys = candles (indefinite)
- stearinlysene = the candles (definite)
So the sentence becomes:
- Barna får lov til å blåse ut stearinlysene, men bare én gang hver.
= The children are allowed to blow out the candles, but only once each.