Learn About Norwegian Adjectives Part 1 – Hankjønn

As you already must know, an adjective tells something more about a noun or a pronoun. Adjectives as known as adjektiv in Norwegian.

Enough of the boring stuff. Here are some examples to get your feet wet. The first is an example of using an adjective with a noun. The second is an example of using an adjective with a pronoun.

Norwegian	English
En sint mann	An angry man
Den er gammel	It is old

Now comes the tricky part about them. Do you remember the post, Learn about nouns in Norwegian? There is a reason why I keep stressing on the importance of learning the gender of the nouns. It’s because the grammar is a bit different based on the gender. Confused? Don’t be because it’s simple though you need to spend some time learning it.

It’s better to take it nice and slow. So we will start looking at how the Norwegian adjectives are used with the hankjønn nouns.

An example:

Ubestemt Entall (Indefinite Singular)

Norwegian	English
En fin bil	A nice car

This is easy to understand as it is very similar to English.

 

Bestemt Entall (Definite Singular)

Norwegian	English
Den fine bilen	The nice car

As you may have noticed, the bestemt entall form is a bit different when nouns are combined with adjectives.

Two rules can be learnt from this:

1. For the hankjønn nouns, we add a Den before the adjective and an en attached after the noun (learn more here).

Den fine bilen.

2. Marked in yellow, notice that we add an e to the adjective.

Den fine bilen.

 

Ubestemt Flertall (Indefinite Plural)

Norwegian	English
mange fine biler	Many nice cars

This follows the similar rule to the bestemt entall form where an e is attached to the adjective.

 

Bestemt Flertall (Definite Plural)

Norwegian	English
de fine bilene	The nice cars

This is also a bit similar to the bestemt entall form where:

1. For the hankjønn nouns, we add a De before the adjective and an ene attached after the noun (learn more here).

De fine bilene.

2. Marked in yellow, notice that we add an e to the adjective.

De fine bilene.

 

Here are a few more adjectives along with a hankjønn noun to get you more comfortable. The English definition of the adjective is in the brackets.

Entall (Singular)		Flertall (Plural)
Ubestemt (Indefinite)	Bestemt (Definite)	Ubestemt (Indefinite)	Bestemt (Definite)
en fin(nice) bil	den fine bilen	mange fine biler	de fine bilene
en ny(new) bil	den nye bilen	mange nye biler	de nye bilene
en gammel(old) bil	den gamle bilen	mange gamle biler	de gamle bilene
en rød(red) bil	den røde bilen	mange røde biler	de røde bilene
en hvit(white) bil	den hvite bilen	mange hvite biler	de hvite bilene
en dyr(expensive) bil	den dyre bilen	mange dyre biler	de dyre bilene
en billig(cheap) bil	den billige bilen	mange billige biler	de billige bilene
en moderne(modern) bil	den moderne bilen	mange moderne biler	de moderne bilene
en norsk(Norwegian) bil	den norske bilen	mange norske biler	de norske bilene
en stor(big) bil	den store bilen	mange store biler	de store bilene
en liten(small) bil	den lille bilen	mange små biler	de små bilene

Notice the last entry in the table of adjectives above. liten is a special adjective that changes form a bit differently than the rest of the adjectives as seen.

Entall (Singular)		Flertall (Plural)
Ubestemt (Indefinite)	Bestemt (Definite)	Ubestemt (Indefinite)	Bestemt (Definite)
en liten(small) bil	den lille bilen	mange små biler	de små bilene

Hope this post was able to get you started to learn the Norwegian adjectives. Subscribe to this blog and you will keep getting more useful lessons.