Norwegian noun gender and articles: en, ei, et, definite forms and plurals

Norwegian has three grammatical genders, each with its own word for “a/an”: en for masculine, ei for feminine and et for neuter. English has no grammatical gender, so the gender has nothing to do with meaning: a house is neuter (et hus) and a book is feminine (ei bok).

• en bil

  a car

  Masculine, the most common gender.

• en gutt

  a boy

  Masculine.

• ei jente

  a girl

  Feminine; also “en jente”.

• ei bok

  a book

  Feminine; also “en bok”.

• et hus

  a house

  Neuter.

• et eple

  an apple

  Neuter.

Ei sounds roughly like the “ay” in “say”. In et you do pronounce the t.

You form “the” by adding an ending to the noun: -en for masculine, -a for feminine and -et for neuter. If the word already ends in -e, you just add -n or -t, or swap the -e for -a.

The general rule is -er for the indefinite plural and -ene for the definite plural, whatever the gender: biler (“cars”), bilene (“the cars”). Words ending in -e only add -r: epler, jenter.

• One-syllable neuter nouns usually take no ending in the indefinite plural: et hus – hus, et år – år (“year”), et barn – barn, a bit like English “sheep”.
• Neuter definite plurals sometimes end in -a instead of -ene. Barna (“the children”) is the usual form, and for some words, such as husa, it is an accepted alternative.
• Nouns in -er for people: en lærer – lærere – lærerne.
• Irregular plurals with a vowel change, much like man/men or foot/feet: en mann – menn, ei/en bok – bøker, ei/en hånd – hender (“hand”), en fot – føtter (“foot”).

Yes: in bokmål every feminine noun can also be treated as masculine, so en bok, boken is as correct as ei bok, boka. The plural is the same either way (bøker, bøkene). That is why many formal texts effectively use just two genders: common (en) and neuter (et).

In speech, however, many Norwegians use the -a forms with everyday words, so you should recognise them even if you write -en:

• jenta / jenten

  the girl

• boka / boken

  the book

• hytta / hytten

  the cabin

  The classic Norwegian holiday cabin.

• døra / døren

  the door

• gata / gaten

  the street

Norwegian drops the article with professions, nationalities and things you “have” in general, where English uses “a”. This is one of the most common mistakes English speakers make.

• Jeg er sykepleier.

  I am a nurse.

• Hun er engelsk.

  She is English.

• Har du bil?

  Do you have a car?

• Jeg drikker kaffe.

  I drink coffee.

With an adjective in front, Norwegian marks “the” twice: den store bilen (“the big car”), det nye huset (“the new house”). There is more on this in Norwegian adjectives.

The most effective method is to learn every noun with its article and definite form (et hus – huset), never the bare word. Some endings also give you fairly reliable clues:

• -het and -sjon are masculine: en mulighet (“a possibility”), en stasjon (“a station”).
• -er for people is masculine: en lærer, en baker.
• -eri, -um and -ment are neuter: et bakeri (“a bakery”), et museum, et dokument.
• Compound words take the gender of their last part: et barn + en hage = en barnehage (“a nursery”).
• If in doubt, go for en: masculine is the most common gender.