Nouns, Cases, Articles and Demonstratives

Nouns & Cases

Nouns in Norwegian (Bokmål) have two genders, masculine and neuter, which adjectives must agree with when modifying nouns. Technically there is a third gender, feminine (which Nynorsk retains), but since feminine nouns can be written as masculine nouns, I'm including feminine nouns in the masculine category. There are two indefinite articles that correspond with these genders: en for masculine nouns and et for neuter nouns. In the vocabulary lists, a noun followed by (n) means that it is a neuter noun and it takes the indefinite article et. The majority of nouns in Norwegian are masculine, so they take the indefinite article en.

The only case of nouns that is used in Norwegian is the genitive (showing possession), and it is easily formed by adding an -s to the noun. This is comparable to adding -'s in English to show possession. However, if the noun already ends in -s, then you add nothing (unlike English where we add -' or -'s). Olavs hus = Olav's house

Articles & Demonstratives

There are two indefinite articles (corresponding to a and an): en and et. En is used with most of the nouns (words denoting people almost always use en), but you will just have to learn which article goes with which noun. The definite article (the) is not a separate word like in most other languages. It is simply a form of the indefinite article attached to the end of the noun. Note that en words ending in a vowel retain that vowel and add an -n instead of adding -en. And et words ending in -e just add -t. Furthermore, the t of et as an indefinite article is pronounced; however, the t is silent in the definite article -et attached to the noun. (For feminine nouns, the indefinite article is ei and the definite article that is attached to the noun is -a. In theory, this gender does still exist in Bokmål, but in practice, it is rarely used and the feminine nouns are inflected like masculine nouns, i.e. add -en instead of -a for the definite form.)

Articles

En words (masculine)				Et words (neuter)
Indefinite		Definite		Indefinite		Definite
en fisk	a fish	fisken	the fish	et vindu	a window	vinduet	the window
en baker	a baker	bakeren	the baker	et barn	a child	barnet	the child
en hage	a garden	hagen	the garden	et hus	a house	huset	the house

Demonstrative Adjectives

masculine	denne dressen	this suit	den dressen	that suit
neuter	dette skjerfet	this scarf	det skjerfet	that scarf
plural	disse skoene	these shoes	de skoene	those shoes

Notice that the noun that follows a demonstrative adjective must have the definite article attached to it.
(The feminine form of demonstratives is identical to the masculine; denne and den.)