How do I know which version of ‘you’ to use?

13 comments
  1. Subjekt vs object. Like she vs her or he vs him. I believe it used to be thou (du) and thee (deg) in English.
    Also check out r/norsk

  2. ‘du’ is like in ‘Hey, you there!’, and ‘deg’ is like in ‘i love you’

    so if you for example were to say “would you like to go out with me?” in norwegian it would be “Vil *du* gå ut med meg?”

  3. We use “du” when you is the subject of the sentence(when the sentence is telling something about you), and we use “deg” when you is the object in the sentence(when the action is happening to you).

  4. “Du” corresponds to “he”, “she” or “we”.
    “Deg” corresponds to “him”, “her” or “us”.

    Saying “we need she” rather than “we need her” (hopefully) sounds wrong to you, and this is the exact same thing. You are very much used to that distinction in English, you just don’t use it for the word “you”.

  5. The English ‘you’ is actually four different words in one.

    Try the they/them swap test. If you were to swap the ‘you’ in the sentence for ‘they’ or ‘them’, which word would you choose?

    they => du (if one person)

    them => deg (if one person)

    they => de (if 2 or more ppl)

    them => dem (if 2 or more ppl)

    Edit: correction: Replaced ‘dere’ with ‘de’.

  6. Most pronouns have separate nominative (subject) and oblique (object) forms – just like in English and other Germanic languages.

    The subject is the part of the sentence performing an action.
    The object is the part of the sentence being performed an action upon.
    Example: “Eg slår deg” (= I hit you), here *eg* is performing the action of *hitting* the object *you*.

    **Nynorsk**

    ||Singular|||Plural|||
    |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
    ||Subject|Object|Possessive|Subject|Object|Possessive|
    |1st person|Eg|Meg|Min – Mi – Mitt – Mine|Me|Oss|Vår – Vårt – Våre|
    |2nd person|Du|Deg|Din – Di – Ditt – Dine|De|Dykk|Dykkar|
    |3rd person|Han – Ho – Det |Han – Henne – Det|Hans – Hennar – Dess|Dei|Dei|Deira|
    |Reflexive||Seg|Sin – Si – Sitt – Sine||||

    **Bokmål**

    ||Singular|||Plural|||
    |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
    ||Subject|Object|Possessive|Subject|Object|Possessive|
    |1st person|Jeg|Meg|Min – Mitt – Mine|Vi|Oss|Vår – Vårt – Våre|
    |2nd person|Du|Deg|Din – Ditt – Dine|Dere|Dere|Deres|
    |3rd person|Han – Hun – Det|Ham – Henne – Det|Hans – Hennes – Dets|De|Dem|Deres|
    |Reflexive||Seg|Sin – Sitt -Sine||||

  7. We use the subject form when the pronoun is subject in the sentence. We use the object form when the pronoun is an object or comes after a preposition.

  8. du is subject and dig is object. if the “you” is receiving the verb then it’s dig. if they are “do”ing the verb then it’s du

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