#9 Å legge/ligge, å sette/sitte: two tricky verb pairs demystified [vokabular] [grammatikk]

Send us a text

Norwegian features tricky verb pairs that confuse even native speakers: intransitive "å ligge/å sitte" (describing states) versus transitive "å legge/å sette" (describing a change of state). These verb pairs follow different rules but look similar.

• Transitive verbs (å legge, å sette) require objects afterward and describe actions or changes.
• Intransitive verbs (å ligge, å sitte) describe states and don't take objects.
• To say "I lie down" in Norwegian, you must use the reflexive construction "Jeg legger meg".
• Similarly, "I sit down" becomes "Jeg setter meg" - you must include the reflexive pronoun.
• In Norwegian, objects can only "stand" (stå) or "lie" (ligge) - they cannot "sit" because they lack a "butt".
• When you place a cup on a table, the result is "koppen står på bordet" (the cup stands on the table).

* Comments after listening to the epsiode:

1. I am sorry, I mistakenly said that "å stå" can be both transitive and intransitive. that is wrong. It is always intransitive, which means that it can not have an object attached to it (like "boka" or "meg"). But it can be used in two ways, with two meanings, just like sette/sitte, legge/ligge: it can both talk about the state of standing and the change into this state.

2. I use the word "object" with two different meanings: one is the equivalent of "thing", and the aother is the grammatical term "object", meaning a word (noun or pronoun) recieving the action of a verb (for instance: in the sentence "Jeg spiser mat", "mat" would be the grammatical object, "jeg" would be the grammatical "sucject",).

3. I just realized I did not know how to conjugate the English verb "to lie (down)" properly! And that is not a lie. Now I know it's "I lay" and not "I lied". See, there are a million ways to learn languages - one can be to make a podcast ;) And you will never stop learning :P

Support the show

Do you like the podcast? :)

Feel free to buy me a coffee :)

buymeacoffee.com/thenorwegianpuzzle

....

This podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Youtube, Deezer and Podcast Addict.

....

Transcript available here: https://the-norwegian-puzzle.buzzsprout.com

....

Questions? Feedback? Get in touch!

[e-mail]

....

Other places to find me:

www.norsk-med-silje.com

www.facebook.com/norskmedsilje

www.instagram.com/norskmedsilje

www.linkedin.com/in/silje-linn-moss