Hi Teja!
 
Sounds like you're asking two questions wrapped in one here!  Let's look at nouns first.
 
Nouns refer to things - either people, ideas or objects.
Verbs refer to actions which are performed by the nouns.
 
Nouns can be either masculine, feminine or neuter; singular or plural.  For example,
konungr is a masculine noun meaning king.  Laug is a feminine noun, meaning bath.  Orð is a neuter noun, meaning word.
 
As well as masc, fem, neut singular and plural, nouns have cases to show whether they are the subject of the sentence or not.
 
Verbs on the other hand do not have gender.  They can be either present or past and their form changes depending on whether "I" do the action, or "you, he/she/it, we, you (plural) or they".  For example, the verb "to call" is
  ek kalla
  þú kallar
  hann kallar
  við kollum   (the o should have a little hook under it to show
  þið kallið             it is pronounced slightly differently, sorry,
  þeir kalla             can´t do this with my keyboard!)
 
This is in the present tense, past is slightly different.
 
Probably the best thing to help you is to have a look at Haukur´s lessons on www.hi.is/~haukurth/norse
and then buy a copy of Barnes "A New Introduction to Old Norse" ISBN 0 903521 45 8
 
Hope this is helpful.
Good luck with your studies, it´s surprisingly addictive isn´t it?!!
 
Sarah.
----- Original Message -----
From: Teja Johnson-Lewis
To: Norse Course
Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2003 12:31 AM
Subject: [norse_course] another question

How do you decline feminine nouns and verbs?  Same for neuter?  AND, past tense?  (For that I need masculine too.)
I ask because this is my roadblock to learning this language.
THANKS!!!



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