#47 Infinitive and present tense: the explanation you were waiting for! [grammatikk]

That one little choice between infinitive and present tense van be tricky. We sit down and untangle the confusion from the ground up, because most learners were taught a shortcut that works… until it doesn’t. If you’ve ever stared at a verb and thought, “Do I add R or not?” this is the reset you need.

We explain what infinitive really is: the dictionary form that sits outside time. Once you understand that, the sentence logic gets simpler. You hear why infinitives usually cannot follow a subject directly, how an infinitive phrase can act like a noun, and how that mental model helps you build correct Norwegian word order without guessing. We also talk about why English can hide the difference between forms, and why French and other Latin languages can push you toward the wrong pattern.

Then we hit the big exception: modal verbs. We unpack why modal verbs are “special”, and why the infinitive marker is skipped after modals. 

Finally, we tackle the listening trap: the final written R in present tense is not always pronounced, depending on what comes next, so spelling and pronunciation don’t always match. We end with a practical mini-exercise to translate and to write what should be written, not only what you think you heard.

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Transcript

Why This Grammar Keeps Tripping You

Silje 0:16

We need to talk about infinitive and present tense or infinitive and presence. Because I know a lot of you struggle with this even after having studied in region for many many years. So we need to have a serious talk about this. I know you don't like grammar, not all of you at least. So let's start from scratch. This episode is especially for you who have English as a mother tongue or French or any other Latin language. And there are different reasons why you struggle with this. If English is your mother tongue, the diff the distinction between infinitive and present tense is not very clear because you don't hear it in English, not always. And in French, you might be confused because in French and other Latin languages you have an R in the end of infinitive, whereas in region you have the R in the end of present tense. In general, but not always. So what you have probably learned is that when you want to make present tense, you put an R in the end. And when you don't want to have present tense, when you want to have infinitive, you take away the R. Infinitive is the version of the verb that you find in the dictionary. Cool. That's great. But it's not true. Well, the the last part was true. The infinitive is the version of the verb that you find in the dictionary. But it's not as simple as that. You don't always have r in the end of infinitive. No, sorry. You don't always have r in the end of present tense. And it's not always enough to just take away the r to make infinitive. An infinitive doesn't always end with e. In most cases it does, like in most verbs, but not in not necessarily in most cases, because there are verbs that we use a lot that do not have e ending or r ending. Like the modal verbs. "Må", "kan", "skal", "vil", and then we have "bør" which does end with an R, but apart from that none of them end with R, but they are all present tense. We have the verb "vet", "know", "jeg vet", "I know", no R, but it's present tense. We have a lot of verbs finishing with S, "jeg synes", "vi møtes", "det finnes". These verbs end with S both in present tense and in infinitive. So the rule that you've learned is true in most cases, but not always. So if that is the rule you follow, it will not always help you. You will still need to know what does it mean? What is infinitive, what is present tense, and not only how do they look. So in English, very often present tense and infinitive look exactly the same. I like that's a present tense. To like that's infinitive. Like,

What An Infinitive Really Is

Silje 3:58

like. So let's look first at infinitive. Infinite. The infinitive is out of time. It's not a verb that you have put in time, it's the concept of the verb, it's the activity, maybe. It is something that has not yet been done, or maybe it has, we don't know. Out of context, we have no idea if the verb has been done or will be done. Uh we don't know because it doesn't tell you anything about the time. So if I just tell you to like, to dance, to be, it doesn't tell you anything about when it happened, if it has happened, if it will happen, if it is happening. We don't know. It's just it is the verb. That's it. It is just the verb without any information about time. So you cannot use it directly after a subject in a sentence because we want to put some time aspect in here. We need that. So the rule is that when you have a subject, so person or thing who's doing something or who is being something who has a certain position, so something that we're describing, we need time aspect, whether it's present tense or past. We need one of those. So I couldn't just say I to like, right? I to like, I to dance, I to be, I be. Be is a good example because with the verb be, it's very obvious that that's infinitive. Right? You wouldn't say I be, you would say I am. But with like it's very it's the same. To like, I like. You could use them. Um you could use the infinitive without anyone noticing that it's infinitive and not present tense. So that's the rule with infinitive. You need to have a verb in between before you introduce the verb in infinitive, or else infinitive in itself could actually be the subject. You can treat it like a thing. I will give you two examples. I like to dance. Here, to dance is a thing, a concept, right? I can exchange it with a with a physical thing. I like chocolate. So the function of it is as if it was a thing. Abstract, of course, but still a thing. So you could play take the place of a noun in a sentence. Not all sentences, it depends on the verb you have in front, but in many cases.

Infinitive As A Thing In Sentences

Silje 7:05

One exception is the modal verbs, right? That's that's what is special about the modal verbs. After a modal verb, you need to have a verb. That's like the grammar rule. So with other verbs, you can very often change the noun with a verb or a verb with a noun. Okay, where was I going with this? Yeah, and the other example that I wanted to give you is a sentence where the verb with the infinitive is actually the subject in the sentence. I can say for instance "å danse er fint". To dance is nice. Just like I could describe a noun, I could say "sjokolade er fint" or "godt" chocolate is nice or good, but in general, the infinitive finishes with an e but it's not always the case. So you have to check. If you're not sure, you have to check. It could finish with another vowel, many short verbs finish with another vowel like "se", "si", oh yeah, "se" is a bad example. si, gå, få, ha, ta, gi, tro, bo, snø. You see, there are many examples where they don't finish with an e. And the examples I mentioned before with an s, the modal verbs. So take that, as we say, with a with a pinch of salt. Doesn't always finish with an e. Alright, so infinitive, that's the that's the dictionary form that you find of the verb. Sometimes you have the art the particle" å" in front of it, but not always. Just like in English, you can have the particle "to" in front of it, but not always. After modal verbs, you will not have that particle. Just like in English, or almost like in English. So you would say I must go, right? You don't say "I must to go", but it's still infinitive. "Jeg må gå." Modal verbs can be tricky because modal verbs also do not really tell you anything about time. You can talk about future, that's possible. But the future is not known. We don't know if it will happen, right? So it's just an indicator. But when I say yeah, I must go, it just tells you the modalities around the verb. We don't know if it's gonna happen, but well, I must do it, but that doesn't mean I will do it. So whenever you have a modal verb, that can feel a little bit weird because you you feel that you can still feel that ah, this verb has not really been placed in time. Is a modal verb really a verb? It is a verb, but it's a special kind of verb. And we have five of them. "Vil", "kan", "skal", "må", "bør". Vil, kan, skal, må, bør. Those five. They can be confusing, but they are verbs. If we have them, the next verb in your sentence should be an infinitive and you skip "å", always. You never put "å" in between a modal verb and infinitive.

Modal Verbs Break The Usual Pattern

Silje 10:52

Write them down, five. Just remember them, repeat them. Vil, kan, skal, må, bør. Vil,kan, skal må, bør. If you don't know what they mean, you will figure it out sooner or later. Vil, kan, skal, må, bør. Okay? Let's move on. So we've

Present Tense Without Two Forms

Silje 11:15

talked about infinitive. Now present tense should be easy to get. Present tense means that something is happening in the present. And what does that actually mean? In English, you have two ways of talking about present tense. You have something that I think is called continuous present. That's like when you say I am no, maybe it's the other way around. It doesn't really matter. So when you say I am doing this and that, I am eating, you're talking about what is happening right now. That's one kind of present tense. And then you have another one where you talk about what happens in general. I eat every Friday, I go out every morning, or I go out tomorrow. So maybe it could be a specific day also in the future. You can use present tense also to talk about the future, actually. Might be weird, but we do that quite often in English and in Norwegian. So in all of these three cases, whether you're talking about something that is going on right now, something that happens in general, or something that happens in the future. In Norwegian, we only use one kind of present tense. So it's super easy. In general, not always, but in general, you just add an R to your infinitive. And I my way of trying to help my students remember this is to say that it's R for per present. R for present. Yeah, and of course, not all verbs finish with an R in present tense, but most of them do. So if you understand the principle of what present tense is, you only need one word to talk about the present. One word only. We don't say I am eating we say I eat in both cases. So "jeg spiser" I eat, I am eating. "jeg snakker " I cannot say "jeg snakke" without an R. That is like saying "I to speak". Or I "I speaking". I don't know, it it it's it's not grammatically correct, and it makes ma of course people would understand you, but it's not, it's weird.

When The Final R Disappears

Silje 14:00

But then you might say, but I don't always hear people pronounce that R. It's so hard. When you write it, you should write it with an R, but that doesn't mean that that R is always pronounced. That's the tricky part. Whether or not you should pronounce the R in the end of present tense depends on what comes after in that sentence. I have an episode on this, uh I think it's episode 41 or 42, around there, somewhere, 43, uh one of those. About not only how to pronounce the R, but also when is it pronounced and when does it affect how the other letters in your sentence is pronounced. So that's one thing. You might not always hear it because in a sentence uh we don't always pronounce every single letter, and all the let all the different sounds in a sentence will affect, can affect each other. So just to give you an example, if I have a consonant after R, the R is not pronounced. So I would say, huh. Well, I would say [jei he-te shil-je] (jeg heter Silje). Uh because my name starts with an S, R and S together becomes shh, like in Noshk. Um if I speak with a dialect that has a rolled R. If you don't have that rolled R, if you have a French R, then you're good. You can pronounce all the R's. I would say "Jeg kommer i morgen". I'm coming tomorrow. Here I would pronounce the R because I have a E after or I after "r". But I would say "jeg kommer på fredag" [jei ko-me på fre- dag]. Jeg kommer på fredag. I would write that "Jeg kommer på fredag". But the R is not pronounced because there is a P after it. So pronunciation and writing doesn't always correspond. That can be confusing. And another thing, two other things that can be confusing that I know of, they're probably there are languages where there is no difference at all in present tense and infinitive, and even in tenses at all. So that then it can be quite a big struggle. In Latin languages, very often it's the opposite. You have R in the end of infinitive and not in present tense. So you have to switch how you think. And in I know in British English, very often the R's are not pronounced in the end of words, but you might feel that you pronounce them. So it can be confusing. You might think that you pronounce it in Norwegian, but you don't, or you think you hear it, but actually there is no R there. So you might have to train your ear a little bit if you speak British or any English version where the R is not really pronounced in the end of words. So you might want to think about that. How does it work in my language? Do we differentiate between infinitive and present tense? How do you do it? So, all that being said, I hope I covered everything I wanted to say. This is a topic that comes up very often during my classes. So if you struggle with this, remember you're not the only one. I have had students who are at a very high level but still struggle with this. So I thought it was an important topic to cover. I wish you good luck.

Mini Exercise To Test Yourself

Silje 17:43

Oh, yeah, uh, as always, of course, we need to have a small exercise. I will first say two sentences in English that I would like you to translate into Norwegian. And then I will pronounce two sentences where not all the R's are pronounced, and I would like you to type down not what you hear, but what should be written in Norwegian. Okay, so first the two English sentences. I want to live in Norway. I want to live in Norway. That was the first one. Second one. I like to eat pizza and to drink coffee. I like to eat pizza and to drink coffee. Okay, those were the English ones. So try to see if you're able to write that in Norwegian. And then two sentences. Where the Rs will not all be naturally pronounced. And you tell me how this should be written. This one you already know, but I want you to pay attention to how it's pronounced. The second sentence is *I like to eat pizza and (I) drink coffee every day* That one might be tricky and there might be actually two possibilities here. I'm curious to know what you wrote. Good luck with that! Takk for i dag! Vi høres!