quarta-feira, 15 de agosto de 2012

Common irregular verbs

In a previous post I have emphasized that the present tense in Norwegian is quite easy for regular verbs. To create the present tense you only add "-r" to the infinitive form, and the conjugation of the verb doesn't change based on who does the action. Example, Jeg spiser (I eat) han spiser (he eats).

Unfortunately not all verbs are regular and some of the verbs are impossible to avoid. Some very important irregular verbs are:
Å være (to be) - Er (present tense) - Var (past tense)
Å gjøre (to do) - gjør (present tense) - gjorde (past tense)
Å vite (to know) - vet (present tense) - visste (past tense)

In addition there are the "modalverbs", verbs that usually has an additional verb in the infinitive form. Example, jeg skal spise. "Skal" is the infinitive form of "skulle". However, these are the topic of another post.

Another language course Curso ingles Porto Alegre

quinta-feira, 2 de agosto de 2012

Speaking Norwegian

To properly pronounce Norwegian you will have to get used to certain "rules". One set of rule that causes some problem in the beginning, but soon is learned is the tendency of a vowel in front of a single consonant to become long, whereas it becomes short in front of a double consonant.

Samples of words with short vowel are: katt (cat), snakke (speak), spille (play), inne (inside)
Samples of words with long vowel are: mat (food), pen (pretty), hage (garden), hus (house)

To practise pronunciation the best is to use a Norwegian Teacher.