Norwegian adverbs: the complete guide

When you browse through the thousand most common Norwegian words, you come across verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and ... adverbs —Norwegian adverbs: that’s what we will discuss today.

Note that there are a few different forms of the Norwegian language, with Norwegian Bokmål being the most widely spoken. That is the form that is used in this guide.

Adverbs of place

Adverbs of place (or “Stedsadverb” as they are called in Norwegian) provide information about location. If you talk about your travels in Norwegian, you’ll use plenty of these.

Adverb translation
hit here
dit there (to that place)
her here
der there
overalt everywhere
annetsteds elsewhere
ingensteds nowhere
utenfor outside
underveis along the way
utenlands abroad
oppstrøms upstream

Adverbs of place work a bit differently in Norwegian compared to English. For instance, in the following two sentences “Kom hit!” (Come here!) and “Jeg er her” (I am here), the Norwegian adverbs “hit” and “her” both translate to the English adverb “here.”

So why are there two different ones? That’s because the adverb “hit” technically means “to here” and includes a sense of movement towards the speaker.

Old English had adverbs like “hither” (to this place) and “thither” (to that place). The Norwegian adverb “hit” basically translates to “hither.”

And the Norwegian adverb “dit” basically translates to “thither.”

Adverbs of frequency

From “alltid” (always) to “aldri” (never), Norwegian adverbs of frequency indicate how frequently an action occurs.

Adverb translation
alltid always
aldri never
tidvis occasionally
vanligvis usually
jevnlig regularly
engang once
periodevis periodically

Here are some example Norwegian phrases which illustrate the use of adverbs of frequency:

Remark: Norwegian and Swedish are similar languages. For instance, the adverb alltid is the same in Norwegian and in Swedish. And the adverb aldri in Norwegian corresponds to the Swedish adverb aldrig.

Adverbs of degree

In Norwegian, adverbs of degree are called “gradsadverb.” From “neppe” (hardly) to “aldeles” (absolutely), Norwegian adverbs of degree indicate to what extent something applies.

Table: Some examples of Norwegian adverbs of degree
Adverb translation
aldeles absolutely, completely
nesten almost, nearly
veldig very
meget a lot
altfor too much, overly
forholdsvis relatively
nokså rather, quite
temmelig rather, quite
nok enough
bare just, only
ganske quite
neppe hardly, barely
delvis partly, partially
massevis a lot

Here are some examples of Norwegian phrases which contain adverbs of degree:

Remark: Notice how some Norwegian adverbs end in “-vis”. This is a suffix that is used in Norwegian to form adverbs from nouns.

Adverbs of time

Adverbs of time are called “Tidsadverb” in Norwegian. They provide information about when an event occurs, or about how long it lasts. Here are some of the common ones:

Adverb translation
nettopp just recently
etterpå afterwards
straks immediately
årevis for years
allerede already
omsider finally
fortsatt still
fremdeles still
nylig recently
deretter afterwards, after that
hittil so far, until now

Remark: Many adverbs in Norwegian are similar to the corresponding Danish adverbs. For example, the adverbs “allerede” and “nylig” are the same in both languages. In the case of the Norwegian adverb “hittil” there is a minor spelling difference with its Danish counterpart which is “hidtil”.

Adverbs of manner

Adverbs of manner (or “Måtesadverb” as they are called in Norwegian) describe how an action is performed. Here are some examples:

Adverb translation
tilsammen together
alene alone
gjerne gladly, happily
vel well
vaktsomt cautiously, watchfully
besluttsomt decisevely
baklengs backwards

Remark: The Norwegian adverb “alene” comes from Middle Low German, and it is similar to the German adverb “allein”. In fact, there are a number of similarities between Norwegian and German.

Adverbs of probability

Adverbs of probability serve to describe how likely an event is to occur.

Table: Some examples of Norwegian adverbs of probability
Adverb translation
kanskje maybe, perhaps
sannsynligvis probably
trolig probably
muligens perhaps
helt sikkert certainly

Adverbs of evaluation

Adverbs of evaluation provide information about the writer’s (or the speaker’s) opinion. These are sometimes also called adverbs of comment, or adverbs of opinion.

Table: Some examples of Norwegian adverbs of evaluation
Adverb translation
dessverre unfortunately
uheldigvis unfortunately
heldigvis fortunately, luckily
forhåpentligvis hopefully

Conjunctive adverbs

Conjunctive adverbs are used to connect ideas, sentences, or clauses. Below is a list of some common Norwegian conjunctive adverbs:

Table: Some examples of Norwegian conjunctive adverbs
Adverb translation
dessuten besides, furthermore
ellers else, otherwise
derimot on the other hand, however
hvordan how
derfor therefore
likevel nevertheless
imidlertid however
altså so, accordingly
eksempelvis for example
allikevel anyway, nevertheless
dog however

Here are some example Norwegian phrases which illustrate the use of conjunctive adverbs:

More Norwegian adverbs

Here is a list of some additional adverbs which are commonly used in the Norwegian language.

Table: Some more examples of Norwegian adverbs
Adverb translation
også also, as well
now
her here
da then
hvor where
igjen again
slik thus, like this
der there
dermed thus
først first
kun only
nemlig in fact, namely
akkurat exactly
hvorfor why
ennå yet
helst preferably
sånn like this
omtrent approximately
nest second, next
riktignok indeed
noensinne ever
hit here
nødvendigvis necessarily
henholdsvis respectively
tydeligvis apparently, evidently
derfra from there
hvorav of which
herfra from here
halvveis halfway
utelukkende exclusively
visstnok allegedly
således thus
følgelig consequently
anslagsvis approximately
atter again
unntaksvis exceptionally
vekselvis alternately
især especially
Conclusion

Learning Norwegian involves memorizing vocabulary words from the different grammatical categories: nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc.

Knowledge of Norwegian adverbs will enable you to construct a wider range of Norwegian phrases.

Norwegian is one of the easiest languages for English speakers to learn. Norwegian is a language that evolved from Old Norse, the language spoken by the Vikings. Both Norwegian and English belong to the family of Germanic languages.