Subordinate Clauses
Welcome again to Language Features!
We thought to start the week by resuming our last conversation about Subordinate Clauses.
You might watch the video from Course 2 again just to refresh the topic and then read this complementary note on the matter.
Subordinates can be difficult beasts to tame, so we will try to make this overview simple and practical.
We have different type of Subordinates, here we take a closer look at two of them, Relative Clauses with SOM and Subordinates of time with NÅR and DA.
Relative clauses with SOM
| Jeg har en bror. Han er 30 år gammel. | I have a brother. He is 30 years old. |
→ Jeg har en bror SOM er 30 år gammel. (I have a brother who is 30 years old.)
| Jeg har en katt. Den er søt. | I have a cat. It is cute. |
→ Jeg har en katt SOM er søt. (I have a cat which is cute.)
| Jeg har en bil. Den er ny. | I have a car. It is new. |
A relative clause is a subordinate clause, and therefore adverbs like ikke are placed in front of the verb:
| Jeg har en bil SOM IKKE er ny. | I have a car which is not new. |
In the examples above, SOM is also the Subject of the relative clause. Right?
When SOM is not the Subject of the relative clause, the real Subject will come directly after SOM, as for any other subordinating conjunction:
| Jeg har en bil SOM JEG kjøpte i juni. | I have a car which I bought in June. |
Subordinates with DA and NÅR
We use da about a single occurrence or a completed action in the past.
| Alex traff Jens da han begynte i barnehagen. | Alex met Jens when he started in kindergarten. |
| Jeg bodde i Frankrike da jeg var barn. | I lived in France when I was a child. |
We use når for customary or repeated actions, even for repeated actions in the past:
| Jeg liker å slappe av når jeg kommer hjem fra jobben. | I like to relax when I come home from work. |
| Jeg likte alltid å slappe av når jeg kom hjem fra jobben. | I always liked to relax when I came home from work. |
We also use når for actions in the future:
| Jeg skal ta eksamen når kurset er ferdig. | I will take the exam when the course is finished. |
We hope this overview was useful.
You can try to make your own examples if you think that will make it easier for you to learn.
And of course you always have this week’s grammar exercises to practise more.
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