Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Jeg er vant til å være pendler mellom en liten forstad og sentrum. - I am used to being a commuter between a small suburb and the city center.

er vant til å = am used to (doing)
- Focus: habit that you’re already comfortable with; you’re accustomed to it.
pleier å = usually / generally do
- Focus: what is typical or regular, without necessarily saying you are used to it.

Compare:

Jeg er vant til å være pendler.
→ I am used to being a commuter (it feels normal/familiar to me).
Jeg pleier å være pendler.
→ I usually am a commuter. (This sounds odd in both languages; you’d more likely say Jeg pleier å pendle / “I usually commute.”)

So er vant til å is the natural choice to express being used to something.

Why do we have both til and å in vant til å være? Isn’t that like “used to to be”?

It looks redundant from an English perspective, but til and å have different jobs:

vant til is a fixed expression:
- vant = “used/accustomed” (adjective)
- til belongs with vant and means “to” as in “accustomed to”.
å is the infinitive marker before a verb: å være = “to be”.

So structurally it’s:

er vant til (is accustomed to)
å være pendler (to be a commuter).

You can think of it as:

Jeg er vant til [å være pendler].
= I am used to [being a commuter].

Norwegian just happens to use til with vant and å with infinitives, and both are needed here.

Is vant a verb form, like a past tense or participle? Why do we say er vant and not har vant?

Vant here is an adjective, not a verb form.

There is a verb å venne (seg) til = “to get used to”.
- Past participle of venne is vent (rarely used in everyday speech).
Vant is an adjective meaning “accustomed / used to”.

Adjectives in Norwegian combine with å være (to be):

Jeg er trøtt. – I am tired.
Jeg er vant til å pendle. – I am used to commuting.

That’s why the pattern is er vant (til …), not har vant.
Har would go with real past participles (e.g. har vent seg til det – “has gotten used to it”), but that’s a different construction with the verb å venne.

What exactly is pendler here – a verb or a noun?

In this sentence, pendler is a noun meaning “commuter”.

Noun pattern:
- en pendler – a commuter
- pendleren – the commuter
- pendlere – commuters
- pendlerne – the commuters
Verb pattern (å pendle – to commute):
- jeg pendler – I commute
- jeg pendlet – I commuted
- jeg har pendlet – I have commuted

Here we have å være pendler = “to be (a) commuter”, so pendler is clearly a noun describing a role/identity, not the action.

Could I say Jeg er vant til å pendle instead of Jeg er vant til å være pendler? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say both, but there is a small nuance difference:

Jeg er vant til å pendle.
– I am used to commuting (focus on the activity itself: travelling back and forth).
Jeg er vant til å være pendler.
– I am used to being a commuter (focus a bit more on the role or lifestyle of commuting).

In everyday speech, Jeg er vant til å pendle is slightly more common and sounds a bit more natural, but å være pendler is perfectly correct and emphasizes your identity as “a commuter” rather than just the motion.

Why is it en liten forstad and not simply liten forstad?

Norwegian normally uses an indefinite article with a singular, countable noun when you introduce it in a general way:

en forstad – a suburb
forstaden – the suburb

So:

mellom en liten forstad og sentrum
= between a small suburb and the city center

If you dropped the article (liten forstad), it would sound incomplete or like part of a list after another article. You need en here for normal grammar.

The structure is:

en (indefinite article)
liten (adjective “small”)
forstad (noun “suburb”)

Why is it liten forstad and not lite forstad?

The form of the adjective depends on the gender and number of the noun.

forstad is a masculine noun.
The masculine singular form of “small” is liten.

Main forms of “small”:

en liten by – a small town (masc.)
ei lita bygd – a small village (fem.)
et lite hus – a small house (neut.)
små byer – small towns (plural)

Since forstad is masculine, we use:

en liten forstad – a small suburb.

Why is there no article before sentrum? Why not sentrumet or et sentrum?

Sentrum often behaves like a kind of place name / unique place when you talk about “the city centre” in general. In that usage it very often appears without an article, especially in expressions about movement or position:

Jeg bor i sentrum. – I live (in) downtown / in the city centre.
Vi drar til sentrum. – We’re going to the city centre.

In your sentence:

mellom en liten forstad og sentrum
≈ “between a small suburb and (the) city centre”

Here sentrum is understood as “the central part of the city”. Native speakers usually don’t say sentrumet in this general sense.

You could say mellom en liten forstad og bysentrum or og byen (“and the city”), but og sentrum is very idiomatic.

Why is it mellom en liten forstad og sentrum and not fra en liten forstad til sentrum?

Both are grammatically correct, but they describe the relationship in different ways:

mellom X og Y = between X and Y
- Neutral relationship: you operate in both places or your life is split between them.
fra X til Y = from X to Y
- Directional: movement starting in X, ending in Y.

As a commuter, you usually go both ways regularly, so mellom en liten forstad og sentrum (“between a small suburb and the city centre”) fits nicely: it suggests your life is divided between two locations.

fra en liten forstad til sentrum would emphasize one direction of the commute (from suburb to centre).

Why do we say Jeg er vant til å være pendler and not Jeg er vant med å være pendler?

Both vant til and vant med exist, but they are used somewhat differently and vant til (å …) is the standard pattern with verbs:

er vant til å + infinitive
- Jeg er vant til å stå opp tidlig. – I am used to getting up early.
- Jeg er vant til å pendle. – I am used to commuting.

Vant med is more often followed by a noun or pronoun, especially in colloquial speech:

Jeg er vant med det. – I’m used to it.
Hun er vant med barn. – She is used to (being around) children.

You might hear vant med å + verb in spoken Norwegian, but vant til å + verb is the more neutral and recommended form in writing:

Jeg er vant til å være pendler. ✅
Jeg er vant med å være pendler. (heard, but less standard)

Why does the verb er come right after Jeg? Is that a word-order rule?

Yes. Norwegian is a V2 language in main clauses: the finite verb (here: er) usually comes in second position.

In Jeg er vant til å være pendler mellom en liten forstad og sentrum:

Jeg – subject (1st position)
er – finite verb (2nd position)
Everything else follows: vant til å være pendler mellom en liten forstad og sentrum

If you move something else to the front, the verb still stays second:

I helgene er jeg vant til å være hjemme.
(“On weekends, I am used to being at home.”)

So the placement Jeg er … is exactly what the general word-order rule requires.

Could I say Jeg er vant til pendling mellom en liten forstad og sentrum instead of å være pendler?

Yes, that’s also possible:

pendling is a noun meaning “commuting” (the activity).
Jeg er vant til pendling mellom en liten forstad og sentrum.
= I am used to commuting between a small suburb and the city centre.

Nuance:

å pendle / pendling – focus on the activity of commuting.
å være pendler – focus a bit more on your role / lifestyle as a commuter.

All of these are acceptable and natural:

Jeg er vant til å pendle mellom en liten forstad og sentrum.
Jeg er vant til pendling mellom en liten forstad og sentrum.
Jeg er vant til å være pendler mellom en liten forstad og sentrum.

The version with å pendle is probably the most common and neutral in everyday speech.