Questions & Answers about Jeg ville ringe deg i går, men telefonen var ødelagt.
Why does it use ville ringe instead of ringte?
Jeg ringte deg i går means you did call yesterday (completed action).
Jeg ville ringe deg i går means you intended/wanted to call yesterday, but (usually) didn’t manage to—here, because telefonen var ødelagt.
So ville + infinitive often expresses an unrealized intention in the past.
What exactly does ville mean here—“would” or “wanted to”?
In this sentence, ville is best understood as wanted to / was going to / intended to. Norwegian ville can correspond to English want to (desire/intention) or would (conditional/habit), but the context men telefonen var ødelagt strongly points to intention that couldn’t be carried out.
Why is it ringe and not å ringe?
After modal verbs like vil/ville/kan/skal/må, Norwegian uses the bare infinitive (infinitive without å):
- Jeg ville ringe deg. (correct)
- Jeg ville å ringe deg. (incorrect)
Is ringe specifically “to call on the phone”? Could it also mean “to ring (a bell)”?