Irregular nouns

Yunha gets up and thinks out loud: ”Jeg har så lyst på en kopp
kaffe.” (I would really like to drink a cup of coffee.)

Yunha says ”en kopp” (masculine, singular, indefinite form) because

she introduces new information. Afterwards Yunha decides not to drink
coffee because Gabriele will probably offer her a cup, when they eat
breakfast together, so Yunha says: “Jeg dropper kaffen.” (I’m dropping
the coffee.).

Now she uses the definite form of the noun, “kaffen”, because she
already has said that she wants to drink a cup of coffee, so we already
know what is being referred to. So, we use the indefinite and definite
form of nouns often the same way that English does.

Suffix to indicate the definite form

On the other hand, it would be boring to copy English in everything so
to make Norwegian a bit more original, we use suffixes to indicate the
definite form, while English uses a separate word “the”. We talked
about these suffixes last week. Do you remember which suffixes we
use in the definite singular? Here is a hint:

Regular nouns: Indefinite and definite form

SINGUL SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
AR R

INDEFIN
DEFINITE INDEFINI DEFINITE
ITE
FORM TE FORM FORM
FORM
SINGUL SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
AR R

(M) en
gutten gutter guttene
gutt

(M) en
posen poser posene
pose

(F) ei kantina
(en) (kantine kantiner kantinene
kantine n)

(F) ei
senga
(en) senger sengene
(sengen)
seng

(N) et
kurset kurs kursene
kurs
SINGUL SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
AR R

(N) et
trollet troll trollene
troll

       

(N) et
bildet bilder bildene
bilde

(N) et
universit universit universitet
universit
etet eter ene
et

Does the grammar look familiar to you?

Yes, this is the indefinite and definite form of regular nouns, you learnt
it last week. Today we are going to talk about the indefinite and definite
form of irregular nouns. We can start with the nouns which are
irregular, but there are still a couple of rules to help us:
Irregular nouns: Indefinite and definite form

SINGULA SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
R R

INDEFINIT DEFINITE INDEFINIT DEFINIT

E FORM FORM E FORM E FORM

(M) en
sykkel sykkelen sykler syklene
(bicycle)

(M) en
hybel
hybelen hybler hyblene
(studio
flat)

(M) en
sommere somren
sommer somre
n e
(summer)

(M) en
vinter vinteren vintre vintrene
(winter)
SINGULA SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
R R

(M) en
tyskern
tysker tyskeren tyskere
e
(German)

(M) en
lærer læreren lærere lærerne
(teacher)

(N) et
studien
studium studiet studier
e
(studies)

(N) et
museen
museum museet museer
e
(museum)

Plural form of nouns

Yunha borrows a bicycle from Thiago and sykkel (bicycle) is one of the
words that end in -el and has a truncated form in the plural: sykler.

Some words that end in -er, like “sommer”, can get truncated forms
without -r in the indefinite form plural: somre. In addition, masculine
words that end in -erand refer to people, like “lærer” (teacher), take the
endings -e and -ne in the plural: lærere (plural, indefinite form)
and lærerne(plural, definite form).

“Studium” (studies) and “museum” (museum) end in -ium and

-eumand these endings disappear when
inflected: studiet and studier and studiene or museetand museer an
d museene.

Other nouns have plural forms that involve irregularities and therefore
it is useful to try to memorize them. Actually, this is a half-truth
because you can always check the forms in an online dictionary, too.

SINGULA SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
R R

INDEFINIT DEFINITE INDEFINIT DEFINIT

E FORM FORM E FORM E FORM

(M) en far
faren fedre fedrene
(father)

(M) en
brødren
bror broren brødre
e
(brother)
SINGULA SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
R R

(M) en
ting tingen ting tingene
(thing)

(M) en
mennen
mann mannen menn
e
(man)

(M) en
skoen sko skoene
sko (shoe)

(F) ei (en)
mora mødren
mor mødre
(moren) e
(mother)

(F) ei (en) søstera

søster (søsteren søstre søstrene
(sister) )
SINGULA SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
R R

(F) ei (en)
dattera
datter
(datteren døtre døtrene
(daughter
)
)

(F) ei (en)
tanna
tann tenner tennene
(tannen)
(tooth)

(F) ei (en)
boka
bok bøker bøkene
(boken)
(book)

(N) et
barn barnet barn barna
(child)

(N) et
sted stedet steder stedene
(place)
SINGULA SINGULA
PLURAL PLURAL
R R

klær
(N) - - klærne
(clothes)