Nouns in the plural form
In Norwegian, most nouns end in -er when they are in the plural form:
| Gender: | Singular | Plural |
| Masculine | en gutt (a boy) en skole (a school) en jente (a girl) | gutter (boys) skoler (schools) jenter (girls) |
| Feminine | ei jente (a girl) ei dør (a door) | jenter (girls) dører (doors) |
| Neuter | et eple (an apple) | epler (apples) |
Some exceptions:
If a noun ends with -e, we only add -r:
- en skole – skoler (a school – schools)
Short neuter nouns, that have only one syllable, do not have any ending in the plural:
- et språk (language) – språk (languages)
Nouns that describe people, their nationalities or professions and end with -er will get another -e in plural:
- en lærer – lærere (a teacher – teachers)
- en amerikaner – amerikanere (an American – Americans)
Practice
Example: en skole – skoler
Hi
Can you explain why in another lesson there were two examples of girl? (masculine and feminine)
I can give a simple explanation here.
In Norwegian, there are a lot of dialects, and especially for feminine nouns, they can also be masculine. This means that you can choose. Here are some examples:
Ei jente – en jente
Ei kone – en kone
Ei lampe – en Lampe
Ei uke – en uke
What you choose depends on your dialect:)
Thank you, in Volda I believe they share the dialect of Oslo, so would that mean I can just stick to the masculine.
I did not understand the second exception; why dont we use the same word “dør” as the plural form? Isn’t it a short noun with one syllable? and many thanks, obviously:)
It’s only for short neuter nouns, ‘dør’ is a masculine noun:)
Hei,kan du gi flere eksempler på dette?
Hei.
Flere eksempler er:
en sak – flere saker
en telefon – flere telefoner
et hus – flere hus
et egg – flere egg
en maler – flere malere
en tysker – flere tyskere
Or is something specific you wanted an example of?
Hi, Thanks for the reply.
It will be great if i can have a good list of masculine,feminine and neuter nouns with their plurals.This will help for sentence creation better.
Kelner is the same as if we refer to a waitress?
Yes, you can use that. The most correct word would be servitrise (female ) and servitør (male). ‘Kelner’ is an old word for servitør, mostly used on male.