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Lesson Transcript

Hei, jeg heter Nora. Hi everybody! I’m Nora.
Welcome to NorwegianClass101.com’s “Norsk på 3 minutter”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Norwegian.
In the last lesson, we learned how to ask "Where" questions in Norwegian.
This time, we are going to ask "When" questions.
Let’s go! La oss begynne!
Imagine you want to ask when your roommate is coming back home. You will call him up and ask Når kommer du tilbake?
[slowly] Når kommer du tilbake?
So let’s break down this question.
First we had-
Når, which is the basic translation of "When" in Norwegian.
Kommer is the verb "to come", å komme in the present tense, as you might remember.
Then du, which is the word for "you".
And finally tilbake which is "back."
So, all together it is Når kommer du tilbake?
"When will you come back home?"
So in Norwegian, "When" is translated to Når. For example, if you want to ask "When were you born?" it would be Når ble du født?
[slowly] Når ble du født?
So let’s see another example.
How can you say "When did you arrive?"
It’s really simple since it is exactly the same pattern - Når kom du?
First we have Når, which is "When"
The second word is kom which is the verb å komme in past tense.
Finally, du is "you" as always.
If you want to ask a question about duration such as "Since when have you been a teacher?" Then you will have to say Siden når har du vært lærer?
Here too, it’s exactly the same as in English, because "since" is Siden. So Siden når? means "Since when?"
Let’s say you want to meet a friend, how would you ask "When shall we meet?" in Norwegian? It is very easy because you can translate it directly. It becomes Når skal vi møtes?
Here we use a verb you have already learned, skal, which is the present tense of å skulle. Then we have “we” which in Norwegian is vi. And finally møtes which is derived from the verb å møte which means “to meet”.
But of course there are other ways to ask about time. You can even be more specific by asking about the year, the date, or the hour.
For example, you can ask:
- Når på året begynte du å jobbe?" -- When this year did you start working?"
- Når i dag er det best for deg? -- "When today is it better for you?"
- Når i juni reiste du? -- "When in June did you travel?"
Now it’s time for Nora’s Insights.
To ask how long an action has been taking place in Norwegian, we say Hvor lenge. It sounds a lot like “how long” in English!
And the sentence is similar too in structure Hvor lenge har ...? As in Hvor lenge har du ventet? That is "How long have you been waiting?"
Ok, so in this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the question word når.
Next lesson we’ll learn more about asking questions, this time with "Who" in Norwegian.
I’ll be waiting for you in the next Norsk på tre minutter lesson.
Til neste gang!

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