Nouns: Gender

01

Feminine Nouns and the Article en

Written Bokmål allows feminine nouns to take the masculine article and endings. en bok and ei bok, boken and boka are both correct. Many people use the masculine forms in writing and the feminine forms in speech, and for a learner the main distinction to get right is between neuter and everything else.

• Vi leser en bok.

  We are reading a book.

• Hun leser boka.

  She is reading the book.

02

What Gender Changes

The gender runs through the whole phrase. Compare a masculine and a neuter noun:

• en ny bil - et nytt hus (a new car, a new house)
• bilen - huset (the car, the house)
• bilen min - huset mitt (my car, my house)
• Den er ny. - Det er nytt. (It is new.)

• Jeg har en hund og en katt.

  I have a dog and a cat.

• Dette er en dør, og det er et vindu.

  This is a door, and that is a window.

• Dere har et veldig fint hus.

  You have a very nice house.

03

Gender Does Not Follow Meaning

Words for male and female people usually match their meaning, but many words do not: et barn (a child) is neuter, and so is et menneske (a human being). For things, the gender has to be learned with the noun. The surest habit is to learn every noun together with its article: not hus, but et hus.

• Jeg har to barn, en sønn og en datter.

  I have two children, a son and a daughter.

04

Endings That Give a Clue

A few endings point reliably to one gender.

• -ing: feminine, e.g. ei melding (a message), ei regning (a bill)
• -het: feminine, e.g. ei leilighet (an apartment)
• -sjon: masculine, e.g. en stasjon (a station), en nasjon (a nation)
• -um: neuter, e.g. et museum (a museum), et sentrum (a centre)

05

Compounds Take the Gender of the Last Part

Norwegian builds long nouns by joining shorter ones. The last part decides the gender of the whole word.

• en buss + en holdeplass → en bussholdeplass (a bus stop)
• skrive- (write) + et bord → et skrivebord (a desk)
• kjøle- (cool) + et skap → et kjøleskap (a fridge)

• Nøkkelen er under skrivebordet.

  The key is under the desk.

06

The Most Common Gender

Masculine is by far the largest group, and neuter is the second. A noun of unknown gender is most likely masculine, which is also the form every feminine noun accepts.