# Norwegian: I've been learning Norwegian for eight days already



## Ptak

Please tell me if my sentence has mistakes!

Jeg lærer norsk ifra åtte dagene allerede.

Thank you.


----------



## Magb

I assume you meant to say "I've been learning Norwegian for eight days already."


First off, the verb form is wrong. The best way to express an unfinished action started in the past in Norwegian is with the past perfective, so a better verb conjugation would be _har lært_, "have learned". However, it sounds a bit odd to say that you "have learned" something for eight days (notice how in English you would use the past perfective progressive "have been learning", which Norwegian has no counterpart to). A better way to express this in Norwegian is to use the verb _studere_ "study". Hence, "Jeg har studert..."

The preposition _ifra_ ("in from") should be just _i_ ("in").

_Dagene_ is in the plural definite form, but should be plural indefinite, i.e. _dager_.

The rest is correct.

In conclusion,
"Jeg har studert norsk i åtte dager allerede."


----------



## Ptak

Dear Magb, thank you very much!  
Mange takk!


----------



## Ptak

I have some more question. 
Is the sentence "_I åtte dager allerede har jeg studert norsk_" correct? Is the word order correct?

Thanks in advance.


----------



## Lemminkäinen

The syntax (word order) is not correct. Remember that Norwegian is a V2 language, i.e. a language where the verb is placed as the second part of the sentence. Let's look at your sentence (with the various parts in different colours, and the verb in blue):

I åtte dager allerede har jeg studert norsk

I'm not really sure I can explain to you why, but the only variations I can see with these words (except for the one given in post #2 above) are these (there may be more):

Norsk har jeg allerede studert i åtte dager
Allerede har jeg studert norsk i åtte dager

However, for the majority of purposes (I'm not quite able to come up with contextes for those two), the #2 sentence will be the best and most neutral-sounding (with the subject in the first place).


----------



## oskhen

Hello

What about "Jeg har allerede studert norsk i åtte dager"?


----------



## Lemminkäinen

That variant actually sounds better than Magb's in my ears


----------



## Magb

Well, frankly there are many more possibilities. Like most languages, Norwegian can modify its basic constituent word order pragmatically in order to express different variations of the same idea:

Jeg har studert norsk i åtte dager allerede
Jeg har studert norsk allerede i åtte dager
Jeg har allerede studert norsk i åtte dager
Norsk har jeg studert allerede i åtte dager
Norsk har jeg studert i åtte dager allerede
Norsk har jeg allerede studert i åtte dager
Allerede i åtte dager har jeg studert norsk
Allerede har jeg studert norsk i åtte dager
I åtte dager allerede har jeg studert norsk

If you use commas (or, in speech, short pauses) the adverbial phrases in particular can be inserted almost anywhere:

Jeg, allerede, har studert norsk i åtte dager
Jeg har studert norsk i, allerede, åtte dager
...etc.

I'm not sure if these should be counted as being "valid" the same way as the ones above, since they're generally more of a product of imprecise speech and false starts and such than of actual pragmatic reordering.

This is a pretty complicated topic, but in general if a word is placed at the front of the sentence it's because it's being emphasized in some way. So in the sentences starting with "norsk" the speaker would probably be emphasizing that he's specifically been studying Norwegian, as opposed to some other language. For instance: "I've just started learning German, but Norwegian I've been learning for eight days already.

Another way of doing basically the same thing is leaving the word order alone but stressing one or more key words, i.e.:

_Jeg_ har studert norsk i åtte dager allerede
Jeg _har_ studert norsk i åtte dager allerede
Jeg har _studert_ norsk i åtte dager allerede
Jeg har studert _norsk_ i åtte dager allerede
Jeg har studert norsk i _åtte dager_ allerede
Jeg har studert norsk i åtte dager _allerede
Jeg _har studert _norsk_ i _åtte dager_ allerede
...etc.

So while it's true that Norwegian is for the most part an SVO language with V2 tendencies, there are many other word orders that may be appropriate in some context or other.


----------



## Ptak

Many thanks to all, especially to Magb.


----------

