Learn how to ask about someone's age
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| Hei, jeg heter Nora. Hi everybody! I’m Nora. |
| Welcome to NorwegianClass101.com’s “Norsk på tre minutter”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Norwegian. |
| In the last two lessons, we learned the main usages of the verb å være, which means “to be” in Norwegian. |
| In this lesson, we are going to learn a third practical usage of this verb. We will use å være to talk about your age. |
| It’s normal for young people in Norway to ask each other’s ages. Of course, it might be risky to ask people over 25! |
| If someone asks you Hvor gammel er du? just know that it means “How old are you?” in Norwegian. |
| [slowly] Hvor gammel er du? |
| Now you have to answer with your age! In Norwegian you use the same verb we learned in the two previous lessons, å være, to be. |
| Here are some examples. |
| “I am 18” is Jeg er atten. |
| “I am 20” is Jeg er tjue. |
| “I am 25” is Jeg er tjuefem. |
| “I am 40” is jeg er førti etc. |
| Can you see what is happening here? Let's look at the sentence Jeg er atten, “I am 18” |
| Jeg er means “I am”. This is the conjugated version of å være. |
| Atten is “18”. We learned about numbers back in lessons 6 and 7. |
| [slowly] Jeg er atten. |
| Usually Norwegians add two more words to this sentence to indicate that they are explicitly talking about age and not something else. |
| So you might hear Norwegians adding the words år gammel after the age like this- |
| Jeg er tjue år gammel |
| I am twenty years old. |
| [slowly] Jeg er tjue år gammel |
| The word år means “years,” and gammel means “old.” Let’s look at the sentence again. |
| Jeg er trettifire år gammel |
| [slowly] Jeg er trettifire år gammel |
| “I am 34 years old.” |
| Now it’s time for Nora’s Insights. |
| If you are asked your age but don’t want to tell you can simply say that “It’s a secret”. In Norwegian that is- |
| Det er en hemmelighet. |
| [slowly] Det er en hemmelighet |
| In this lesson, we learned how to talk about your age using å være. Next time we’ll learn how to use the verb å ha, “to have” for talking about possessions. |
| I'll be waiting for you in the next Norsk på tre minutter lesson. |
| På gjensyn! |
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