Causative Constructions in Norwegian

In Brief

Norwegian commonly uses få noen til å + infinitive to get or cause someone to do something, la noen + infinitive to let someone do it, and be noen om å + infinitive to ask someone to do it. Notice the key contrast: få takes til å, be takes om å, but la is followed directly by the infinitive without å.

Overview

A causative construction presents one person or event as bringing about another action. Instead of saying only that someone laughed, for example, you can say who caused the laughter: Jeg fikk ham til å le (“I got him to laugh” or, depending on context, “I made him laugh”). Norwegian often expresses this meaning with a short chain of verbs rather than with one special causative verb form.

At B2, the important task is not simply memorizing three phrases. You need to choose a construction that reflects how much control, permission, or persuasion is involved. Få noen til å gjøre noe focuses on successfully bringing about an action. La noen gjøre noe gives or does not prevent permission. Be noen om å gjøre noe reports a request; it does not by itself say whether the request was obeyed.

For an English-speaking learner, the meanings of “get,” “make,” “let,” and “ask” are useful starting points, but they do not map word for word. English “make someone do” has no to, while Norwegian uses til å after få. Conversely, Norwegian la resembles English “let”: both are followed by a bare infinitive, meaning the basic verb form without an infinitive marker.

How It Works

The person who initiates the situation is the causer. The person who performs the second action is sometimes called the causee (the person caused, allowed, or asked to act). In these Norwegian patterns, that person normally appears as the object (the person affected by the first verb).

Getting or causing someone to act: få noen til å

The core pattern is:

subject + få + person/thing + til å + infinitive

• Jeg fikk ham til å le. — I got him to laugh / I made him laugh.
• Hvordan får vi barna til å spise grønnsaker? — How do we get the children to eat vegetables?

The verb få changes for tense; the final verb stays in the infinitive:

Time/form	Form of få	Norwegian example	English meaning
Present	får	Hun får meg til å tenke.	She makes me think.
Past	fikk	Hun fikk meg til å tenke.	She made me think.
Present perfect	har fått	Hun har fått meg til å tenke.	She has made me think.
Infinitive	få	Det kan få folk til å reagere.	That can make people react.
Imperative	få	Få ham til å ringe!	Get him to call!

In many contexts, få noen til å suggests persuasion, prompting, or some other effective influence. It can translate both English “get someone to” and “make someone,” so context shows whether the pressure was gentle or strong. To state outright coercion, Norwegian can use more explicit verbs such as tvinge noen til å (“force someone to”).

The object pronouns take their object forms: meg (me), deg (you), ham/han (him), henne (her), oss (us), and dem (them).

• De fikk oss til å bli med. — They got us to come along.
• Kan du få henne til å svare? — Can you get her to answer?

Allowing an action: la noen + infinitive

The pattern with la is:

subject + la + person/thing + bare infinitive

“Bare infinitive” means an infinitive used without å.

• Hun lot barna leke. — She let the children play.
• La henne komme inn. — Let her come in.

The main forms are la in the infinitive and imperative, lar in the present, and lot in the past. The perfect is har latt.

Form	Norwegian	English
Present	Jeg lar ham velge.	I let him choose.
Past	Jeg lot ham velge.	I let him choose.
Present perfect	Jeg har latt ham velge.	I have let him choose.
Imperative	La ham velge.	Let him choose.

Do not insert å before the second verb: la dem gå, not la dem å gå. The construction may express active permission or simply a decision not to interfere. Hun lot døren stå åpen means “She left the door open,” literally allowing it to remain open; the object does not have to be a person.

Making a request: be noen om å

The request pattern is:

subject + be + person + om å + infinitive

• Vi ba dem om å vente. — We asked them to wait.
• Jeg ber deg om å være stille. — I ask you to be quiet.

The forms are be (infinitive), ber (present), ba (past), and har bedt (present perfect). In this construction, om belongs with be, and å marks the following infinitive.

A request is not the same as a successful cause. Compare:

• Jeg ba ham om å rydde kjøkkenet. — I asked him to clean the kitchen. We do not know whether he did it.
• Jeg fikk ham til å rydde kjøkkenet. — I got him to clean the kitchen. The result was achieved.
• Jeg lot ham rydde kjøkkenet. — I let him clean the kitchen. He was permitted to do it.

With a noun rather than an action, be om means “ask for”: Hun ba om hjelp (“She asked for help”). There is no å because no infinitive follows.

Negation and sentence adverbs

In an ordinary main clause, ikke normally follows the finite verb (the verb carrying tense):

• Jeg får ikke barna til å sovne. — I cannot get the children to fall asleep.
• Hun lot ikke elevene gå. — She did not let the pupils leave.
• Vi ba ikke ham om å vente. — We did not ask him to wait.

Negation can also belong to the second action, and that changes the meaning:

• Jeg ba ham om ikke å si noe. — I asked him not to say anything.
• Jeg fikk henne til ikke å gi opp. — I got her not to give up.

The first sentence negates the request itself when ikke follows ba; the second placement makes “not doing” part of what was requested or caused. In everyday Norwegian, speakers may rephrase a heavy or potentially unclear sentence, for example: Jeg ba ham om å la være å si noe (“I asked him to refrain from saying anything”).

Questions and subordinate clauses

Questions place the finite verb before the subject:

• Fikk du henne til å bli med? — Did you get her to come along?
• Lar de barna være alene? — Do they let the children be alone?

In a subordinate clause (a clause that depends on another part of the sentence), ikke normally comes before the finite verb:

• Jeg vet at hun ikke lar barna være alene. — I know that she does not let the children be alone.
• Han sa at de ikke hadde fått ham til å endre mening. — He said that they had not got him to change his mind.

Examples in Context

Norwegian	English	Note
Jeg fikk ham til å le.	I made him laugh.	A result caused successfully
Hvordan får vi flere til å ta bussen?	How do we get more people to take the bus?	Common question about influencing behavior
Nyheten fikk henne til å ombestemme seg.	The news made her change her mind.	A thing or event can be the causer
De har fått oss til å se saken annerledes.	They have made us see the matter differently.	Present perfect of få
La henne komme inn.	Let her come in.	Imperative; no å
Hun lot barna leke i hagen.	She let the children play in the garden.	Past tense lot
Vi lar kundene velge selv.	We let customers choose for themselves.	Present tense lar
Ikke la maten bli kald.	Do not let the food get cold.	Negative imperative
Vi ba dem om å vente.	We asked them to wait.	Past tense ba
Kan jeg be deg om å lukke vinduet?	Can I ask you to close the window?	Polite request framed as a question
Hun har bedt naboen om å vanne plantene.	She has asked the neighbor to water the plants.	Perfect form har bedt
Læreren ba oss om ikke å bruke telefonene.	The teacher asked us not to use our phones.	Negation belongs to the requested action
Fikk du teknikeren til å sjekke anlegget?	Did you get the technician to check the system?	Yes/no question
Jeg tror ikke de lar hunden gå løs her.	I do not think they let the dog run loose here.	la with an animal as object

Common Mistakes

Copying English “make someone do” too closely

• Wrong: Jeg fikk ham le.
• Right: Jeg fikk ham til å le.
• Why: Norwegian få requires til å before the second infinitive. English “make” does not provide a safe word-for-word model here.

Adding å after la

• Wrong: Hun lot barna å leke.
• Right: Hun lot barna leke.
• Why: La takes a bare infinitive. There is no å between the object and the action.

Leaving out om after be

• Wrong: Vi ba dem å vente.
• Right: Vi ba dem om å vente.
• Why: When be introduces the action requested, the standard pattern is be noen om å gjøre noe.

Using a subject pronoun as the object

• Wrong: De fikk jeg til å bli med.
• Right: De fikk meg til å bli med.
• Why: The person after få, la, or be is the object, so use meg, not the subject form jeg.

Treating a request as proof of a result

• Misleading: Jeg ba henne om å ringe, if you mean that you successfully got her to call.
• Better: Jeg fikk henne til å ringe.
• Why: Ba ... om å reports only the request. Fikk ... til å says that the action came about.

Using the wrong past form

• Wrong: Hun ladde ham gå or Hun fådde ham til å gå.
• Right: Hun lot ham gå / Hun fikk ham til å gå.
• Why: These are irregular verbs: la–lar–lot–har latt and få–får–fikk–har fått.

Usage Notes

Strength and politeness

Få noen til å is neutral about the exact method. It may describe persuasion, encouragement, manipulation, or an external trigger. English translations therefore range from “get” to “make.” If the difference matters, choose a more specific Norwegian verb: overtale noen til å means “persuade someone to,” while tvinge noen til å means “force someone to.”

Be noen om å can be direct, but it is not automatically rude. Questions with a modal verb often soften requests: Kan jeg be deg om å sende dokumentet på nytt? (“Could I ask you to send the document again?”). An imperative with la can sound like a firm instruction—La meg være! (“Leave me alone!”)—or an inclusive suggestion—La oss begynne (“Let’s begin”). Tone and context matter.

Pronoun variation

Both ham and han are widely encountered as object forms in contemporary Bokmål, though ham makes the object role especially clear in a grammar example. Learners should recognize sentences such as Jeg ba han om å vente in speech and informal writing. Using ham is a safe, unambiguous choice in careful written Bokmål.

Bokmål forms in this article

The forms here follow Bokmål. Norwegian has substantial accepted variation, and Nynorsk uses some different forms and conventions. The underlying meaning contrast—causing, allowing, and requesting—remains useful, but do not assume every Bokmål form transfers unchanged to Nynorsk.

Beyond the Basics: Results, Reflexives, and Impersonal Causes

Norwegian can omit the person after få when the context supplies a general audience or when the focus is on succeeding with a task:

• Jeg får ikke bilen til å starte. — I cannot get the car to start.
• Kan du få dette til å virke? — Can you make this work?

Here the “causee” is a thing rather than a person. The construction is especially common for machines, systems, plans, and changes of state.

A related result construction is få + object + past participle. A past participle is a verb form used in expressions such as English “repaired” or “written.” It often says that the subject arranges for something to be done:

• Jeg fikk bilen reparert. — I had the car repaired / got the car repaired.
• Hun fikk rapporten oversatt. — She had the report translated.

This differs from Jeg fikk mekanikeren til å reparere bilen, which explicitly names the person persuaded or engaged to do the work. The participle construction focuses on the completed result, not the worker.

With a reflexive pronoun—a form referring back to the subject—la seg can describe allowing oneself to be affected or something being possible:

• Han lot seg overtale. — He allowed himself to be persuaded / He was persuaded.
• Problemet lar seg løse. — The problem can be solved.

The second pattern is idiomatic and more advanced. It does not literally describe the problem granting permission; lar seg + infinitive presents something as feasible or possible. You will see it in formal explanations, reports, and careful prose: Dette lar seg ikke gjøre means “This cannot be done.”

Causation can also come from an event rather than a deliberate person:

• Kulden fikk vannet til å fryse. — The cold caused the water to freeze.
• Kommentaren fikk alle til å tie. — The comment made everyone fall silent.

These examples show why få ... til å should not always be understood as persuasion. Sometimes it simply links a cause to its result.

Finally, conditional forms help you discuss hypothetical causes and requests:

• Jeg ville ha bedt henne om å hjelpe hvis hun hadde vært her. — I would have asked her to help if she had been here.
• Det kunne ha fått flere til å delta. — That could have caused more people to participate.

The causative pattern itself stays intact inside the conditional structure: bedt henne om å and fått flere til å.

Practice Tips

1. Build three versions of one situation. Start with an action such as Han ryddet rommet (“He cleaned the room”), then write: Jeg fikk ham til å rydde, Jeg lot ham rydde, and Jeg ba ham om å rydde. Explain how the relationship changes each time.
2. Learn each connector as part of the verb. Say the complete frames aloud: få noen til å gjøre noe, la noen gjøre noe, be noen om å gjøre noe. This is more reliable than trying to choose til, om, and å separately.
3. Retell real requests and outcomes. At the end of the day, make two lists: what you asked people to do (ba ... om å) and what you actually got them to do (fikk ... til å). This trains the crucial request-versus-result distinction.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Conditional Mood — helps you place requests and caused results in hypothetical situations with forms such as ville ha bedt and kunne ha fått.