Hospitalet er stort.

Because Danish usually adds the definite article to the end of the noun.

• et hospital = a hospital
• hospitalet = the hospital

So -et here is the definite singular ending for a neuter noun.

Danish nouns have grammatical gender. A noun is usually either:

• common gender: takes en
• neuter: takes et

Hospital is a neuter noun, so you say:

• et hospital
• hospitalet

This is something learners usually have to memorize with each noun.

Because the adjective has to agree with the noun.

Since hospital is a neuter noun (et hospital), the adjective stor becomes stort in the singular.

Compare:

• en bil er stor = the car is big
• et hospital er stort = a hospital is big

So in Hospitalet er stort, stort matches the neuter noun hospitalet.

Store is used in other situations, especially:

• with plural nouns: Hospitalerne er store
• before a definite noun: det store hospital

But here the adjective comes after er and describes the subject. In that position, Danish uses the form that agrees with gender and number:

• common gender singular: stor
• neuter singular: stort
• plural: store

So Hospitalet er stort is correct because hospitalet is singular and neuter.

It often does not need one. In Danish, the is very often built into the noun itself.

English uses a separate word:

• the hospital

Danish often uses an ending instead:

• hospitalet

This is one of the big structural differences between English and Danish.

Er is the present tense of være, which means to be.

So er can mean:

• am
• is
• are

depending on the subject.

Examples:

• jeg er = I am
• han er = he is
• de er = they are

In this sentence, er means is.

No, this is the normal basic word order for a simple statement:

• subject + verb + complement

So:

• Hospitalet = subject
• er = verb
• stort = complement/adjective

This is very similar to English:

• The hospital is big

Because this is a different structure.

In Hospitalet er stort, the adjective comes after er because it is part of the predicate: it tells you what the hospital is like.

But when the adjective is directly attached to the noun, it comes before the noun:

• et stort hospital = a big hospital

So compare:

• Hospitalet er stort = The hospital is big
• et stort hospital = a big hospital

You would say:

• et stort hospital

Here is the pattern:

• et hospital = a hospital
• et stort hospital = a big hospital

Notice that stort still has -t because hospital is a neuter noun.

It is capitalized only because it is the first word of the sentence.

Unlike German, Danish does not capitalize all nouns. So in the middle of a sentence, it would normally be written:

• hospitalet

not Hospitalet.

In the plural, both the noun and the adjective change:

• Hospitalerne er store = The hospitals are big

Compare the forms:

• singular indefinite: et hospital
• singular definite: hospitalet
• plural indefinite: hospitaler
• plural definite: hospitalerne

And the adjective becomes store in the plural.