Learn about using the Norwegian word that means "should" in English
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina:Hi, I am Gina. |
| Nora:Hi, and I am Nora. |
| Gina:And welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Beginner season 1, Lesson 6 - Getting Help with Your Norwegian Homework. |
| Nora:In this lesson, you’ll learn about Skal and Skal ikke. |
| Gina:Meaning you’ll learn about affirmative questions. Namely “should I?”-type questions. |
| Nora:These are often used by Norwegians since they prompt a positive response, even though that might not always be the case. |
| Gina:If you live in Norway you’ll hear these types of questions often, whether it is “should I help you with your luggage” or “should I help you make dinner?” |
| Nora:In the conversation, we are introducing another character - Ada, Kjersti and Espen’s young daughter. Ada is in elementary school and has lots of homework. |
| Gina:And Kjersti, being a nice mom, offers to help with it. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina:Raising children in Norway is quite a different story from many other countries. |
| Nora:Why do you say that, Gina? |
| Gina:Well. Improvements in the situation for parents in Norway are gradually being pushed by the governments. |
| Nora:Yes, that’s true. But working hours and stances on work and private life are still quite conservative in general. |
| Gina:Indeed. But the availability of kindergartens, free public schooling, public parenting compensation paid to parents, and strict laws on parenting leave, are pointing to a serious focus on parenting in Norwegian society. |
| Nora:Well that’s for certain. Few people have problems raising their children properly, and there are big safety nets for economical hurdles, disabled children, and treating childhood illnesses. |
| Gina:Right! In other words Norway is the place to raise your children! Okay, now let’s move on to the vocab. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina:Let’s take a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Nora:First up let’s talk about the word “Jippi”. |
| Gina:It’s an exclamation you say in excitement, or when you’re very happy. |
| Nora:So it isn’t a countable noun, like a “hurra” or in English |
| Gina:“Hurrah”! |
| Nora:Because the more i’s you add to the end of jippi, the more happy you seem. |
| Gina:And if you translate it to English, it would be quite similar to how “woohoo” is used to express joy. Let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:“Jippi! Jeg fikk det til!” |
| Gina:“Yay! I finally did it!” |
| Nora:“Jippi! Endelig ferdig på jobb” |
| Gina:“Woo! I finally got off work!” So much joy! |
| Nora:Next we have “å sette”. |
| Gina:Which means “to sit”. |
| Nora:It is very similar to å sitte, which also means “to sit”. |
| Gina:In fact, English uses the same word for both actions. |
| Nora:And by both actions, we mean the action of sitting still, and the action of putting something down or sitting down. |
| Gina:To explain it more thoroughly, in English you make the distinction between “to sit down” and “to put something somewhere”. But in Norwegian both these actions are expressed through the word... |
| Nora:“å sette.” |
| Gina:Let’s look at some examples. |
| Nora:“Sett deg ned her du” |
| Gina:“Sit down here” |
| Nora:Sett baggen fra deg på bordet |
| Gina:“Leave the bag on the table” |
| Nora:Got it? Just remember not to confuse it with “å sitte” which means “to sit”, as in the action of sitting. |
| Gina:Okay, now let’s move onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
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| Gina:In this lesson, we’re going to look at the verb å skulle. It means “should” or “going to”. This verb, apart from being a helping verb in terms of tense, is also a helping verb in terms of being a modal verb. |
| Nora:It is the same in English, so this shouldn’t be too hard, but let’s just quickly explain what a modal verb is. |
| Gina:A modal verb helps indicate or ask for possibility or likelihood of something. |
| Nora:In our previous lesson, we were talking about det går an |
| Gina:“it is possible”. This phrase is a modal phrase. |
| Nora:In this lesson, however, we’ll explain just how å skulle works as a modal verb. |
| Gina:A quick fact first. You might have noticed how in English there is no infinitive of “should”. This is the case for many auxiliary verbs in English. |
| Nora:But in Norwegian, there is not a single verb without an infinitive. This should make it easier for you to grasp each verb and its conjugation. |
| Gina:To start off, let’s break down our sentence. |
| Nora:Skal jeg hjelpe deg med leksene, Ada? |
| Gina:This sentence translates as “Should I help you with your homework, Ada?”. This is a more or less straightforward translation, so the explanation should be quite easy. |
| Nora:Our first word is the present tense skal, of the verb å skulle |
| Gina:“should”. |
| Nora:This is followed by jeg |
| Gina:The pronoun “I”. |
| Nora:Next we have the infinitive of the verb that is coupled with the modal skal, hjelpe |
| Gina:this means “to help”. Next we have a passive pronoun |
| Nora:deg meaning “you”. It is followed by med |
| Gina:meaning “with”, a conjunction. |
| Nora:After this follows the plural noun leksene |
| Gina:Which means “homework”. |
| Nora:And finally we have the proper noun, Ada. |
| Gina:The sentence should be quite easy. Just watch out for the parts that might be tricky for English-speakers. |
| Nora:Like the passive pronoun deg. Deg can never be the subject of the sentence - it is always the direct or indirect object. |
| Gina:Ok, now that we have that down, let’s move on. |
| Nora:Next is å skulle. When å skulle is used as a modal verb in a question, the verb coupled with it will always come after the subject, and the subject always comes after å skulle. Just like this- Skal vi komme over? |
| Gina:“Should we come over?” But when... |
| Nora:å skulle... |
| Gina:is used in an affirmation, the verb being coupled with the modal verb always comes after the modal verb, unless there are adverbs. Let’s look at a sentence with an adverb. |
| Nora:Han skulle bare ha hjulpet. |
| Gina:“He should have just helped”. Now you notice that the English and Norwegian starts to look very different. |
| Nora:This is mainly because English uses the copula verb “to be” which is hardly used in Norwegian. |
| Gina:Now, here comes the complex part of this verb. |
| Nora:When used in an affirmative sentence as a modal verb, it doubles as a helping verb for tense. |
| Gina:That means that in English we differentiate between “I am going” and “I should”. The former is a helping word for future tense, the latter a modal verb. |
| Nora:But in Norwegian, å skulle is the most common future tense verb as well as being a modal verb. |
| Gina:So it becomes hard to draw a line between whether it acts as a modal verb in a sentence, or makes the sentence future tense. |
| Nora:The difference is largely based on the context of the rest of the sentence. |
| Gina:Listen to our examples and tell us which is which. Modal or future tense? |
| Nora:Han skal kjøre barna til skolen |
| Gina:(pause)"He is going to drive the kids to school" |
| Nora:Barna skulle hjelpe til |
| Gina:(Pause) “The children were going to help” |
| Nora:(pause) Jeg skulle ha spist |
| Gina:“I should have eaten” |
| Nora:How did you go, listeners? |
Outro |
| Gina:Well, that’s all for this lesson. |
| Nora:Don’t forget to read the lesson notes. |
| Gina:And also leave a comment in the comment section if you have any questions or comments! |
| Nora:And we’ll see you next time! |
| Gina:Thanks for listening, bye! |
| Nora:Ha det |
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