Questions & Answers about Du er et barn.
Why do we use et here instead of en?
In Danish, nouns belong to one of two grammatical genders: common words use en and neuter words use et. The word for child, barn, is a neuter noun, so it takes et. There is no strict rule for which gender a word is, so it is best to memorize the article along with the noun!
Do I pronounce the 't' in et?
No, the 't' in the word et is usually silent in spoken Danish. It just sounds like a short, crisp 'eh' sound.
I learned that er means 'is'. Why does it mean 'are' in this sentence?
In Danish, verbs do not change depending on who is doing the action. The verb er is the present tense of 'to be' and covers 'am', 'are', and 'is'. So jeg er (I am), du er (you are), and han er (he is) all use the exact same word, making it much easier than English!
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