Bra - Bedre - Best

First of all – the heading of this article is all wrong! It should really be God – Bedre – Best. Why – you would ask?

Because this article is about adjectives. God and Godt are adjectives, describing how something IS.

Bra, however, is an adverb, describing HOW something is DONE.  

Bra (adverb)

God (adjective)

 

Anyways, too late now, you’re already reading this and we’re well into the article…

Which is about the three "degrees" of adjectives.  

 

Positive – Comparative – Superlative

When teaching Norwegian classes I often say that adjectives are like groupies. Groupies of pop idols - the kind of people who like to “dress up” like their popular idols (the nouns/pronouns). Adjectives always “copy” the gender, the number and the definition of the noun they are standing next to.  

If a noun is intetkjønn, so is the adjective.

Et langt brev

  If a personal pronoun is plural, so is the adjective.

De ble veldig sinte

  And if the noun is in bestemt form, so will the adjective be (again by adding the letter "e").

Den store seieren

 

The jury has spoken

But where the adjectives really come into their own is when they measure qualities. Or compare, as it is called in English . In Norwegian we call it Gradbøyning. It’s like the adjectives become the jury, which has the power to say:  

This is fast

This is even faster

This is the fastest

 

The fast skier is likely to be wearing a bronze medal around their neck. the faster skier wins the silver. The fastest skier grabs the Gold.

  in Norwegian:  

rask raskere raskest

 

The formula

So here we have the formula:  

• Positive: the basic form of the adjective (so nothing is added)
• Comparative: -ere is added
• Superlative: -est is added

This is also very similar to the English comparison of adjectives, don’t you think?  

Oh, and just to be sure - to compare an adjective or to “bøye” as we say in Norwegian – simply means: to add something/change this word in a way that expresses a difference:  

 

Regular comparison

This is the one you saw above: all we do is add the endings -ere for komparativ and -est for superlativ.  

Rask

Raskere

Raskest

 

Irregular comparison

Happens when the change from positiv to komparativ or superlativ involves more than just adding -ere and -est.  

 

A few common examples:  

God

Bedre

Best

 

Liten

Mindre

Minst

 

Gammel

Eldre

Eldst

 

We see that we get entirely NEW words when we decline these adjectives – that’s why we call them irregular.  

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Continued luck learning Norwegian!