Learn how to ask "When?"
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| 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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