The Focus of this Lesson is the Simple Past Tense and perfect present Tense
Joda, jeg har stått på.
"Well, I have been sweating!"

1. Jeg klarte seksten kroppshevinger.
   "I managed to do sixteen pull-ups."

In this lesson we'll cover some points that we have looked at in our earlier series. As mentioned at the beginning of this lesson, this lesson should help you remember some of the grammar we'll be focusing on going forward. The lesson should also work as a bar for those of you who are new to the Norwegian series.

In this lesson we're looking at simple past tense and perfect present tense. For those of you who don't know what the difference is, in English we say "I ate" which is the simple past tense of "to eat," and "I have eaten" which is the perfect present tense. In our dialogue we saw lots of past tense. But for the sake of it let's list a few in a table.

Don't get scared by this table, though. We'll explain what's going on from now on. First however let's look at our dialogue sentences and break them up.

Jeg klarte seksten kroppshevninger. The translation is "I managed to do sixteen pull-ups." This is a loose translation of the text and not a word by word translation so note that when we pick the sentence apart it will look quite different. The first word is the pronoun jeg meaning "I." It's followed by klarte which is the past tense of å klare, which means "to manage" or "to be able."

After this comes the number seksten, "sixteen," and finally the long plural noun kroppshevinger "pull-ups." The last noun translates directly as "body lifts." The essence of this sentence however is the word å klare which is seen in past tense here, klarte. In Norwegian, like in English, there are no auxiliary verbs used to denote simple past tense, the only change that occurs is to the verb itself. But there are several ways verbs are conjugated in simple past tense, and while some verb endings might seem common, the truth is it's not easy to conjugate to simple past tense without knowing how the verb changes. We'll take a deeper look at the different verb groups in the next lesson.

Next let's move on to our perfect present tense sentence: Joda, jeg har stått på. It translates again as "Well, I have been sweating." You could also translate this as "Well, I have worked hard."

Notice how this sentence also becomes perfect present tense in English as well. If we break up this sentence we'll see that Joda here translated as "well" is an interjection. Following is the pronoun jeg "I." Next follows har stått på which is the perfect present tense of å stå på which you saw in our vocab explanation section means something like "to work hard." Now notice that for the present perfect tense we have an auxiliary verb har or the infinitive version å ha "to have." This verb is added to all perfect present tense. In perfect present tense this verb is always in its present tense form, har. In fact this is almost just like the English "have" or "has."

Now let's look at some examples and see if you can guess which are in simple past tense and which are in perfect present tense.

1. Hun har kjørt langt.
   "She has driven a long way."
2. Mannen tok på seg jakken.
   "The man put on his jacket."
3. Jeg kom med bussen.
   "I came here by bus."

In our vocab we have a few words we should explain. We'll start with neimen. It means "wow," but it could be interpreted in different ways. Essentially it is an interjection on the same line as "wow" or "oh hey." The easiest way to explain its usage would be to provide you with some examples.

For example:

1. Neimen, hvordan står det til?
   "Hey, how's it going?"
2. Neimen, går det bra eller?
   "Hey, are you alright?"
3. Neimen, er det virkelig deg?
   "Wow, is that really you?"

Next we'll explain a phrase that was in our vocabulary, å stå på. This phrase works more or less as a single verb. It is however put together using the verb å stå ("to stand"), and på ("on"). What we meant by it being a single verb is that you can conjugate the verb å stå in any tense and it would still make sense. This phrase means "to keep fighting" or "to go strong." But it's better illustrated in some example sentences.

For example

1. Jeg ser du står på!
   "I see you're working hard!"
2. Jeg stod på, men til ingen nytte.
   "I fought hard, but to no avail."

The Importance of Health in Norway

As we might have mentioned in some other lessons, working out is a very important aspect of Norwegian daily life, though not for every Norwegian. However, it has gone from being a major trend in the early 2000s to becoming a focus of the spare time of many a Norwegian. For some, the goal is to become slim and have a fit body. The focus of the media has been on the general health of the population and that is probably why exercise has stayed around for longer. The consensus is that Norwegians are growing obese and having a less healthy life in front of the TV, so many people are exercising or focusing on losing weight to stay healthy.