"I fjor skrev hun en bok."

Translation: Last year she wrote a book.

[RobertEddy]

And how does "I fjor" mean last year? That's not expected or explained.

[Anandamid]

That is the correct way to say it, though.

I fjor, i år, neste år.
(Last year, this year, next year.)

Technically, the direct translation is "forrige år" ('forrige' literally meaning '(the) last' or 'preceding' -- pronounced "for-jeh"), but you wouldn't normally say that as last year widely is talked about as "i fjor".

Forrige is more commonly used for other purposes, for example:

• Forrige gang du var her, [...]. (the last time you were here, [...].)
• Den forrige husverten jeg hadde. (The last landlord I had.)
• Min forrige lege. (My last/previous doctor/GP.)
• I mitt forrige hus. (In my last/previous house.)
• I den forrige boken hun skrev.. (In the last book she wrote)

[Ricky827716]

Such a great explanation. Thanks! :D

[Athalawulfaz]

It's a contraction of the cognate words for 'fore-year'.

[Wengusflengus]

the recording is so bad one cannot say wether it's a 'hun' or a 'han'

[Ravnin]

It's a little oddly pronounced, but I can still hear 'hun'.

[jar30pma23]

Yes! In other Duolinos the speaker assumes one is a fluent speaker and listener!! Ain't so! I have mange tiden bypassed the speaker!!

[Ravnin]

Did you mean 'many times' ? : )

Should be 'mange ganger' in that case.

[maehovland]

Does it matter if i fjor is at the beginning or the end of the sentence?

[Wengusflengus]

but don't forget to change the word order if you so: I fjor, skrev hun en bok. / Hun skrev en bok i fjor.

[Deliciae]

No, they both sound natural.

[Qothrunnada]

Would it make a difference if it said "...hun skrev..." instead of "...skrev hun..." ???

[Josh_Overlien]

I notice a pattern with this. When you establish the setting with the very first words of a sentence (ie today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc), the verb comes next followed by the subject pronoun. You could say, "Hun skrev en bok i fjor." This is different because when she wrote it comes at the end of the sentence. I could list more examples, but... nå er det nok.

[Denis999129]

"I fjor skrev" should "s" in "skrev" be pronounced as "sh" sound because the last latter in previous word was "r". I know about the rule, but is this an exception or voice said it incorrectly ?

[SansEspoir83]

No, for some reason it's not common to use the sh-sound after "fjor" even though it ends in R.

Not sure if I can explain why, I just grew up with it and thought it was natural for everyone to hear that it's unnatural to do that.