#40 "Normalest"? Or "mest normal"? - three rules of comparative and superlative use [grammatikk]]

We start with the quick foundation: how comparative and superlative forms work (think -ere and -est), and why the English habit of avoiding endings on “long words” doesn’t translate cleanly into Norwegian. From there, we move into the real skill: spotting the adjectives that refuse to inflect, so you can stop guessing and start sounding natural.

We also talk about why using mer and mest for everything can sound a bit off, how a dictionary can confirm what’s allowed, and how “less” and “least” push you straight into "mindre" and "minst". Stick around for a short quiz at the end to test your instinct and lock in the rules. If this helped, subscribe, share the show with a fellow Norwegian learner, and leave a review to boost the channel.

Transcript

Comparatives And Superlatives Basics

Silje 0:14

Hello, folkens. Comparative, superlative. What is that? We all like to compare things and people. We do it all the time. So these words are useful. We're mostly talking about adjectives and in some cases adverbs. And comparative is the version where you add in English ER, like nicer, better, wider, broader, quicker, quicker. And superlative is the form when you add EST in English. Finest, widest, longest, shortest, etc. And we have something very similar in the region. Instead of adding ER, we add ERE. And then instead of adding EST, well we add EST as well, in some cases only S T. And we also have a definite form where we add ESTE or STE. And of course we have some special comparatives and superlatives that could change c that change completely, like in English, good better best. Alright, you don't say good or bad gooder and goodest, but good better best. Had the same thing in Norwegian, of course. God bedre best. But that's not the subject of today. The topic today is when can you not add ER and EST or one of the other endings that are possible normally? If I remember correctly in English, you cannot add it if the word is very long. But the same rule does not apply in Norwegian. I could for instance say vanskel more difficult. So vanskeli is quite a long word. We can still add E R E. So the length of the word doesn't have much to say. It has a little bit to say because if the word is very long, then it might be because it's a compound word. And if that is the case, then you cannot add E R E and E S T. Then what do you add instead? You have to add mid and mess. More and most. So for instance, let's take the example of the colour blue blue. The colour in itself I can say bluer and blueest. Blå blåere blåest. But if I want to mix blue and green together, bloagren or turkis, as it's also called, then it's a compound adjective and I cannot I cannot inflect it with ERE and EST. I have to say mer blågrøln mest blågrønn. Same thing with for instance red I can say but what if I want to talk about a specific kind of red? What if I want to say vinrød, wine red. Vinrød I cannot say vinrødere vinrødest, it's not possible I have to say mer vinrød mest vinrød. Very weird example. But you get the logic. So that's one case where you cannot add EST or ERE. Cannot make comparative and comp you cannot make comparative and superlative in one go you have to add mer or mest in front. Another example are words that come and adjectives sorry uh another example are adjectives that come from verbs. And I think these are quite intuitive in English as well. You wouldn't add a comparative and superlative ending to them. Like for instance "optatt" which comes from oppta, to take up. Here you have to say mer opptatt mest optatt, and we have many verbs like that that are combined with prepositions or adverbs like å spise opp to eat to eat up or to finish eating, "oppspist" which means eaten "maten er oppspist", but I guess if some something is eaten up it cannot be more eaten up than eaten up so that might be a very interesting way to use it. But for instance, the typical example "fornøyd" means content comes from the verb å fornøye, which is not used a lot today, but it meant or it means but it's rarely used, it means to m to content someone, to make someone happy. More common is to use å glede, å glede noen, to make someone happy. But that's where it comes from, and that is the reason why you cannot say fornøydere fornøydest doesn't work. You have to say mer fornøyd, mest for nøyd. Okay, so adjectives adjectives originating from verbs. So when it comes to the verbs, what you can look for is that it would have the ending that you find in perfektum, for instance "har spist" so you it would contain the word "spist", has eaten, or the ending ENDE which is used when you talk about something that is doing something. For instance "spisende" eating, en spisende person, an eating person (a person who is eating). Another one that is m more common is "spennende" exciting which comes from the verb å spenne which can mean different things, but in this case it's uh to tense. That's a good translation, yeah, to tense something, to create tension. Any v uh adjectives or adverbs finishing with L I G can have endings, even if they come from a verb. And then the last category of uh adjectives that do not take the ending endings are foreign words, and that's a tricky category because Norwegian has a lot of foreign words. So how do we like what kind of foreign words are we talking about? Because a lot of the Norwegian words are not from Old Norse, some of them come from Danish, some of them come from German, yeah, from English, and then we have from Latin or or French more specifically. Words that come from Danish and German and Old Norse, of course, they are not considered foreign words because they've been there for a very, very long time. But English or the more modern words coming from English or words from Latin or French are the most common ones that you'll find, and they do not have any ending like normal original spesiell virtuell turkis. there we have to say mer normal mest normal mer original mest original. And what's the point of learning all this? Can't you just use mer and mest all the time? Sure, but it sounds a little bit weird if you use them. If you say mer and mest when you can actually just add er e or e s t sounds much better and it and it's easier to say as well. If you are unsure, just check in the dictionary and you'll see. If you do not find a table where you have comparative and superlative endings, then you know that that's not possible. You have to add mere or mest. And of course, this is for some for when you want to talk about something that is more of something or the most of something, right? But you can also make comparative and superlative the other way, when something is less and least, right? Mindre and minst, and then you don't have any options. It has to be with minre and minst. So you would have to say mindre grønn, minst grønn, less green, the least green. So it only goes for when you when you want to talk about something that is more of something or the most of something. Okay. I'm gonna give you three no I'm gonna give you four adjectives, and I want you to tell me which one of them can have an ending. And well the remaining ones cannot. So only one of these four adjectives can have the endings E R E and E S T. Ready? Let's go - Dansende - Dancing for instance en dansende hund - a dancing dog - kjedelig - boring - interessant- kaldblodig - in cold blood. Alright, that was it for today. I hope you learned something new and that now next time you are faced with an adjective or adverb that you don't know how to use, now at least you have three rules you can follow. Is it a compound adjective? Is it a conjugated verb or is it a foreign word? Takk for i dag! Vi høres! :)