Participles: smilende, stengt, lukket
Norwegian has two participles: the present participle (-ende) and the past participle (stengt, lukket, skrevet). Both can work as adjectives.
We teach Bokmål, the written standard most people in Norway use.
Rules
- Present participle: infinitive + -nde: smile → smilende (smiling), gå → gående (walking), sove → sovende (sleeping).
- It never changes: en smilende gutt, et smilende barn, smilende mennesker.
- Use it as an adjective (et sovende barn – a sleeping child, kommende uke – next week), after komme for movement (Hun kom løpende – she came running), and in fixed phrases (Det er overraskende – it's surprising).
- Do not use -ende for ongoing actions the way English uses -ing: Jeg leser nå / Jeg holder på å lese – I am reading (not: Jeg er lesende).
- The past participle used as an adjective agrees like any other adjective:
- Group 2 (-t): en stengt butikk (a closed shop) – et stengt vindu – den stengte butikken – de stengte butikkene.
- Group 1 (-et): en lukket dør (a closed door) – et lukket vindu – det lukkede vinduet – lukkede vinduer.
- Groups 3/4 (-d): en prøvd metode (a tried method) – prøvde metoder; en bebodd øy (an inhabited island) – bebodde øyer.
- Strong verbs: en stjålet sykkel (a stolen bike) – stjålne sykler; et skrevet brev – skrevne regler (written rules). Stjålne, skrevne are formal; in speech you'll also hear stjålete.
- After være and bli: Butikken er stengt. Butikkene er stengt (in the plural after er the -e is usually dropped). Vinduet ble lukket.
Examples
- Butikken er stengt på søndager.The shop is closed on Sundays.
- Vi gikk forbi de stengte butikkene i sentrum.We walked past the closed shops in the centre.
- Det lukkede vinduet ga ingen frisk luft.The closed window let in no fresh air.
- Politiet fant den stjålne bilen i går.The police found the stolen car yesterday.
- Ikke vekk den sovende babyen!Don't wake the sleeping baby!
- Hun kom løpende ned trappa.She came running down the stairs.
- Møtet er flyttet til kommende fredag.The meeting has been moved to next Friday.
- Vi kjøpte en brukt sofa på Finn.We bought a second-hand sofa on Finn.