Jeg teller til hundre.

Jeg means I.

It is the Norwegian subject pronoun used when talking about yourself.

Examples:

• Jeg leser. = I read / I am reading.
• Jeg kommer. = I’m coming.

Teller comes from the verb å telle, which means to count.

Even though teller looks a bit like English tell, it does not mean tell here. It is a false friend for English speakers.

So:

• å telle = to count
• teller = count / am counting

Examples:

• Jeg teller penger. = I count money.
• Hun teller til ti. = She counts to ten.

Til here means to in the sense of up to a number.

In English, we say count to one hundred. Norwegian uses til in the same kind of structure:

• telle til ti = count to ten
• telle til hundre = count to one hundred

So in Jeg teller til hundre, til shows the endpoint of the counting.

Hundre means hundred.

In Norwegian, it is very normal to say just hundre when you mean one hundred, especially in this kind of sentence.

So:

• til hundre = to one hundred

You may also hear ett hundre, but hundre by itself is very natural and common.

Compare:

• Jeg teller til hundre. = I’m counting to one hundred.
• Det koster hundre kroner. = It costs one hundred kroner.

It can mean both, depending on context.

Norwegian present tense often covers both:

• a habitual meaning: I count to one hundred
• an ongoing meaning: I am counting to one hundred

This is very common in Norwegian. The language usually does not need a separate form like English am counting.

If you want to make the ongoing meaning extra clear, context usually does the job.

Teller is the present tense form of å telle.

A quick overview:

• å telle = to count
• teller = count / am counting
• talte = counted
• har talt = have counted

So in this sentence, the action is in the present.

Yes, in this simple sentence the word order is very similar to English:

• Jeg = subject
• teller = verb
• til hundre = prepositional phrase

So the structure is:

Subject + Verb + Prepositional phrase

That makes it quite straightforward for English speakers:

• Jeg teller til hundre.
• I count to one hundred.

A rough guide for English speakers is:

yai TEL-er til HUN-dre

A few notes:

• Jeg is often pronounced something like yai in many varieties of Norwegian.
• teller has a clear t and stress on the first syllable: TEL-ler
• til is short
• hundre is roughly HUN-dre, with stress on the first syllable

Pronunciation varies somewhat by dialect, but this is a useful starting point.

Yes, depending on context, forms related to telle can also be used in the sense of matter or be counted.

For example:

• Det teller. = It matters.

But in Jeg teller til hundre, the meaning is clearly count because of til hundre.

Yes, you might hear teller opp til hundre, but Jeg teller til hundre is the simplest and most standard way to say I count to one hundred.

Adding opp can emphasize the idea of counting upward, but it is not necessary here.

So for a learner, the safest version is:

Jeg teller til hundre.

Norwegian often does not use an article where English does.

English says:

• to a hundred or more naturally
• to one hundred

Norwegian simply says:

• til hundre

So this is normal Norwegian usage, not something missing from the sentence.

You would usually say:

Jeg teller fra én til hundre.

Breakdown:

• fra = from
• én = one
• til hundre = to one hundred

So:

• Jeg teller til hundre. = I’m counting to one hundred.
• Jeg teller fra én til hundre. = I’m counting from one to one hundred.