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

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 

Chapters

• 0:13 Introduction to Norwegian Verb Pairs
• 1:30 Transitive vs Intransitive Verbs Explained
• 3:38 Lying vs Putting: å ligge and å legge
• 7:30 Sitting vs Placing: å sitte and å sette
• 9:52 How to Remember Which Verb to Use
• 15:20 Conjugating These Tricky Verbs
• 21:50 Tips for Mastering These Verb Pairs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hello and welcome back to today's episode Last time. If you haven't listened to it, I suggest you start with episode 8, where I talk about the verbs å lägge, å sätta and å putta. And I told you last time that it's important to know that these verbs are what we call transitive verbs. Call transitive verbs, which mean that you have to have an object, like a noun or a pronoun, afterwards, or else they don't make any sense. And this might sound a little bit weird, like why is it so important to remember that? It makes sense? The reason is because we also have two verbs that are intransitive, which means that you should not put an object afterwards, and they're very, very easy to mix with the verbs that I talked about last time, and these verbs are "å ligge with an I and å sitta with an I also.

Speaker 1: 1:30

So we have what is called parverb couple verbs, literally because you have two verbs that are very similar. Sometimes they are exactly the same but they are conjugated differently. That's the concept of parverb. So they look similar, maybe they are the same but conjugated differently, but they don't behave the same way in a sentence, so grammatically we don't use them exactly the same way. So one of them will be transitive, the other one intransitive. So one takes an object, the other one doesn't.

Speaker 1: 2:11

So an example of that if you just use an example in English I'm not going to translate it to Norwegian, but just to get the if you say I burn something, that's an transitive way of using the verb burn. So you burn something, there's an action happening to something else. Whereas if I say something burns or something is burning, then there's no. That's intransitiveitive. Same verb, but it's used in two different ways. And in the second case, when you say something burns, you don't add an object and nothing is happening towards something else. You're talking more about a state. Nothing changes, it's burning, okay. Whereas when I say I burned something, I'm doing an action towards something else, so I'm changing something. So that's the difference. And, just like in English, sometimes you can use the same verb two ways. You can choose, and it doesn't really matter, because you would conjugate the same way and the sentence in itself would show if it's transitive or intransitive. Right, so I burn something or something burns. The verb burns looks exactly the same way in both cases.

Speaker 1: 3:38

Now let's go back to my examples with lägge å lägge, which means to put something somewhere, and å ligge, which means to be lying, to lie. So ligge is the state, okay, nothing is changing, it's stable and it's intransitive. So I would say, for instance, jeg ligger, jeg ligger, it could be Jeg ligger I senga or "Jeg ligger I sofan I'm lying in the bed or I'm lying in the couch. So the intransitive one, the one where there's no change happening, has an I. That's the only difference between the two verbs. It has an I, whereas the other one has an I. So jag ligger I sofan. That's the state.

Speaker 1: 4:46

Now, if I want to say that I lie down so I'm talking about the change of states, I'm going from standing to lying, for instance then I would have to use the transitive one with the I. So I would say jag lägger mig. You see, I have to add mig, jeg legger mig. Jeg legger mig I senga, I lay down in the bed. "Jeg legger mig I sofaen, I lay down in the sofa. And the reason why I'm emphasizing the difference and the fact that it's transitive is that when it's transitive in Norwegian, you have to put something after the verb an object. So I cannot just say An object, so I cannot just say I have to say, whereas in English you would just say I lie down. You don't say I lie myself down. So that's different and the same logic with å sitta, jeg sitter with an I.

Speaker 1: 6:09

"Jeg sitter means I am sitting, jeg sitter, I am sitting. So there is no change of state, it's the same state. I'm just saying what I'm already doing. Jeg sitter Intransitive, no object, "jeg sitter, jeg sitter I sofaen, jeg sitter på stolen, I sit in the couch, I sit on the chair. But then if I want to talk about the change so going from standing to sitting, for instance then I have to use the transitive one, the one where I have to add mig. I sit down, I sit down, jeg setter mig. Jeg setter mig på stolen. I sit down on the chair, jeg setter mig I sofaen, I sit down in the couch. So in English, you would show that there's a transitioning by adding down. Okay, when you don't add down, you don't know if there's a change of state or not. Okay, and so this is for people when you use jag sitter, it means I'm sitting, jeg ligger, I'm lying, and last time we talked about objects, when you place objects right, we used the verb å legge with an I and å sette with an I. Jeg legger boka på bordet, I lay down the book. Or I put the book on the table. Jeg setter koppen på bordet, I'm putting the cup in a standing position on the table. So here you see for objects, the result of that action is not the same as for people. So when I am placing myself, when I use the verb å legge, "jeg legger mig, I lay down. Then the result is jeg ligger, that's the state, jag ligger. So first is the action, the change jag lägger mig. You always have to do that first, right, you have to lay down before you can be lying.

Speaker 1: 8:55

he "jag lägger mig, jag ligger, I lay down, I am lying. Same thing with å sätta, jeg setter mig. Result jeg sitter, I sit down. Result I am sitting. Very logical, very straightforward. But with things it's a little bit different. Så jeg legger boka på bordet. Result boka ligger på bordet. I put the book on the table. Result the book is lying on the table. Here it's the same as for people. But for the verb å sette it's different Because, as I mentioned last time, things cannot sit because they don't have a butt right, like the definition of sitting is to be on your butt.

Speaker 1: 9:59

So what do we do? So in the Norwegian vision of things, then things have a head sort of, and they have feet, so they can stand or they can lie down. So if I use the verb "å sætte, the result is not gonna be å sitta. I'm gonna give an example. Jeg sätter koppen på bordet. Result Koppen står på bordet. Result Koppen står på bordet. I put the cup on the table. The cup is standing on the table. Okay, so this is the nuance. Jeg setter meg. Result Jeg sitter. I'm sitting down, res sitter. I'm sitting down. Result I'm sitting. But Jeg setter koppen på bordet. I put the cup on the table. Koppen står på bordet. I cannot say Koppen sitter på bordet. That is weird. You can say it, but it's weird. So that's a nuance to know.

Speaker 1: 11:18

Now I know these are super hard to remember which one is which right. When do you use "ligger? When do you use "legger? When do you use sitter? When do you use "setter "? They're very similar.

Speaker 1: 11:32

So what I suggest you do is to associate something with the letter I and the letter E so that it's easier to remember. So you can say, for instance, " so jag sitter is inactive, so I for inactive, right, you're not moving, nothing is changing, it's just a state, it's stable, no change. So inactive, um, yeah, and then the E would be yeah. Well, you can associate with the Norwegian word "bevegelse, which actually has four E's in it Bevegelse. Not sure if it's going to help, but the word "bevegelse means movement, so that's also an option. Or just remember letter " for inactive. So if you remember that you know inactive, no movement, no change, it's passive.

Speaker 1: 12:58

And the other one "jeg setter mig, jeg legger mig, bevegelse, movement, bevegelse set, bevegelse, sätter legger. There's a change Jag sätter mig, I sit down, jag legger mig, I lay down. And then you might ask but how do I say that I stand up? That's also movement. Well, the verb å stå can be both in transitive and transitive, so you can use them as both. But you wouldn't say jag står mig. You would say, as in English, jag står upp, I stand up, and then you would understand that there is a movement. So jag står upp Transitive change I stand up, I get up, whereas if I say jag står, that's intransitive, no movement State, just like in English I stand up, I stand or I am standing. So that's quite straightforward.

Speaker 1: 14:11

Now, this is the easy part. Now it gets harder because you also have to conjugate these verbs, and they don't. Of course they don't. They're not conjugated the same way. For this I suggest two things.

Speaker 1: 14:29

Oh, and before I dive into this, I want you to know that Norwegians make a lot of errors here, and in Bergen, where I come from, people use them the wrong way. I hear a lot of people use sitta and ligga instead of using sätta and lägga, like they only use that verb for everything, for transitive sentences and intransitive ones. This is something you can see in the language in general. For some verbs we had two versions before, one transitive one and one intransitive one, and they have disappeared or they're not so commonly used anymore. So this is a natural, I would say, evolution of the language, and maybe in 50 years there is no difference anymore between the two. So who knows?

Speaker 1: 15:24

But let's go back to how to conjugate these verbs. Of course you can just look in the dictionary and find them out, and that's maybe the easiest way to remember them. It depends on how you work. One thing you can do is just repeat them many times so that you associate the conjugations with the beginning verb. So, for instance, å ligge to be lying, å ligge, ligger, lå, har ligget. Å ligge, ligger, lå, har ligget. So you could repeat that to you many times, you could write it down and test yourself regularly and see if you're able to remember it. And then same thing for å sitta. So å sitta and å ligge. They are both intransitive and they have something in common which is very nice. They both have like a regular ending in perfektum. You just add et. So remembering them together will make it easier to remember them. Så å ligge, ligger, lå, har ligget. Å sitte, sitter, satt, har sittet. Så har ligget, har sittet. They both have the same logic in perfektum. So the most difficult conjugation to learn is preteritum.

Speaker 1: 17:05

Okay, okay, now for å legge enn å sette. The conjugation is å legge, legger, la, har lagt, å legge, legger, la, har lagt, and that's what I did when I learned English. We learned a lot of irregular verbs just like that, just by repeating them, and I still sometimes I have to check with myself how do I conjugate that verb? So we learned patterns like swim, swam, swam, begin, began, begun to be, was, been, and stuff like that. So it can be quite useful when learning irregular verbs, but that's totally up to you.

Speaker 1: 17:53

So the last one Å legge, legger, la, har lagt. Å legge, legger, la, har lagt. So that's to lay down. And å sette setter, satte har satt, and it becomes like a song, yeah, and the other option is to write down some sentences that you remember by heart, because then you will feel what is right. So, for instance, some sentences you could remember are "Jeg legger mig nå. I lay down now. Jeg la mig klokka ti. Jeg la meg klokka ti. I lay down. Or I went to bed at ten. "Barna har lagt seg, barna har lagt seg. The kids have gone to bed. Or they have laid down To say I used legger la har lagt, legger la har lagt.

Speaker 1: 19:31

Jeg legger meg. Jeg la meg klokka ti. Barna har lagt seg. Jeg legger meg. Jeg la meg klokka ti. Barna har lagt seg. Jeg legger meg. Jeg la meg klokka ti. Barna har lagt seg. So that was å legge. I could use the same thing for a thing Jeg legger boka på bordet. Jeg la boka på bordet. Okay, I lay. Or I put the book on the table. I put again the book on the table and I have put the book on the table. Okay, and you can, you can, yeah, I'm not going to make sentences for all of them, because it's going to be a lot. But I really suggest you do that. Write down some sentences with them, easy ones, not, not a super long one, just a very, very short one, and then you just read it out loud, because then you'll remember that whenever you have la, you have to put something after it. You can't just say jæ la, that doesn't work, but you can say "jeg ligger and then nothing more. I'm lying, jeg lå, or jeg lå I senga. I was lying in the bed, jeg har ligget I senga, I have been lying in the bed. And yeah, yeah. So just do that. Make many sentences with all of the different conjugations, all of the tenses, so that you remember which one needs to have an object and which doesn't. And it can be good to start with the transitive ones. So you start with transitive ones and then you write the result next to it. So, for instance, if I have the sentence jag lägger mig I lay down then the result will be jag ligger, jag lägger mig, jag ligger, and then same thing for past tense. Or just I lay down Result, because then you don't only remember the pattern, how you should use them, but also what they mean when you see them together. Like that, it's easier to remember the difference in meaning. So give that a go. I hope that was useful and, honestly, if you, if you master this, then you're really good, because it's, yeah, norwegian struggle with this and all of the students I've ever had have struggled with this. It's really just yeah, you just have to repeat and remember the structure, even either by just repeating the conjugation, but maybe even more useful it can be to to make small sentences, because then your brain doesn't have to to to think about the grammar, it just has to repeat the pattern that it has seen before. So, but that's up to you, and maybe you even want to do both, who knows? Lykke till, tack för idag. Vi hörs you.