Norsk grammatikk
Preteritum📕
PRETERITUM one of several verb tenses we use when we talk about the PAST. It is particularly difficult for many people to know when we use the PRETERITE and when we use the present perfect. Here we will explain the rules for when we use the PRETERITUM.
👉 We use the past tense when we refer to a specific time in the past: last year, yesterday, 3 hours ago
👉 We use the past tense when we refer to an action that has ended.
We can illustrate this by using the verb to move: " Jeg flyttet til Oslo for 12 år siden ." The situation only happened once, 12 years ago: " Jeg flyttet til Oslo ."
How do I make the past tense?
Here you see an overview of regular verbs. That a verb is regular means that it follows a certain system of rules.
Group 1 ( -et ): Verbs ending in 2 consonants + an infinitive get the ending -et in the past tense | å danse - dans et |
Group 2 ( -te ): Verbs ending in 1 consonant + an infinitive get the ending -te in the past tense | å reise - reiste |
Group 3 ( -de ): Verbs that have i, r, v, g before -e in the infinitive often get the ending -de in the past tense | å veie-veide |
Group 4 ( -dde ): Verbs with one syllable and ending in a vowel in the infinitive often end up in -dde in the past tense | to live - live dde |
🆘 Strong verbs 🆘
Verbs without an ending in the past tense are called STRONG VERB💪. We need to remember how they are inflected, for example:
to get - got
to go - went
to lie - lay
to take - took
