"I know the city."

Translation: Jeg kjenner byen.

[deactivated user]

Why can you not say vet?

[griffindd]

because vite is for facts; kjenne is for familiarity

[En-tyskr-i-Norge]

"Hesten kan veien" but "Jeg kjenner byen" Why is it like that this time?

[Adrian442793]

Non-native here, and this is a guess. Kjenner is more like know/have personal experience of. Vet is more like intellectually know. Kan is more like have the ability of/be capable of.

[LINHARS]

"Jeg kan norsk" is not a good sentence to say on your first trip to Norway.

Better to say: ""Jeg snakker (litt) norsk."

[En-tyskr-i-Norge]

"Jeg kan (litt) norsk" is perfectly fine and is used by natives aswell. I've already heared "Jeg kan litt tysk" / "Jeg kan ikke tysk" from natives.

[LINHARS]

"Jeg kan litt norsk." is fine, much better than to say: "Jeg kan norsk" and you have just arrived in Oslo. People will be more helpful and they will speak slowly.

If you say: "Jeg kan norsk." and you can some Norwegian but not enough to have a normal conversation, people will be less helpful.
I say this from my own experience in France.

[Josh_Overlien]

So, if it comes to language would you say, "Jeg kjenner norsk."?

[Deliciae]

"Jeg kan norsk", or just "Jeg snakker norsk".

[NorskSpiller]

In context can you go further into why jeg kan norsk works, because it doesn't really make sense in english.

[Jan_D_13]

"I can (speak) norwegian" makes perfect sense in english. In norwegian, it is possible to omit the "speak".

"Jeg kan" means "I am able to do something".

[Adrian442793]

Hey Jan, minor correction. Someone corrected me on this a while back, so apologies that I’m paying it forward!

In “Jeg skal til byen”, you’re leaving out a verb like “å dra” after an auxiliary. So far, so good.

But Norwegian tends to do this mainly with verbs of motion. What’s happening in “Jeg kan norsk” is actually something slightly different.

In “Jeg kan norsk”, “å kunne” is a fully fledged verb in its own right. If you look it up in a dictionary, it will have a separate listing. It’s not an auxiliary with some other verb implied. “Å kunne” in the sense of “to be able” and in the sense of “to have practical knowledge of” came from the same root verb, but evolved into different words.

Compare the verb “to ken” used in Scots. You can say things like “I ken mathematics well”.

[Jan_D_13]

I think it's the same as the german "können" (which "å kunne" also translates to). At least it's used the same way, AFAIK.