Gull er dyrt.

Because gull is being used as a material noun in a general sense, like gold in English.

• Gull er dyrt. = Gold is expensive.
• You are talking about gold as a substance in general, not one specific piece of gold.

This is why Norwegian does not use et here.

Compare:

• Gull er dyrt. = Gold is expensive.
• Gullet er dyrt. = The gold is expensive. / That gold is expensive.

Yes. Gull is a neuter noun, so its indefinite form is et gull.

Even though the article is omitted here, the noun still counts as neuter for grammar purposes. That is why the adjective becomes dyrt.

Because adjectives in Norwegian often agree with the noun’s gender and number.

Here, gull is:

• singular
• neuter

So the adjective dyr takes -t and becomes dyrt.

A quick comparison:

• en dyr bil = an expensive car
• et dyrt hus = an expensive house
• gull er dyrt = gold is expensive
• bilene er dyre = the cars are expensive

In Gull er dyrt, the adjective is used predicatively (after er), but it still agrees with the noun.

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

So:

• å være = to be
• er = is / are / am, depending on context

In this sentence:

• Gull er dyrt. = Gold is expensive.

Norwegian uses the same present-tense form er for all subjects.

It is the predicative form of the adjective dyr.

That means the adjective comes after a verb like er and describes the subject:

• Huset er dyrt. = The house is expensive.
• Gull er dyrt. = Gold is expensive.

This is different from an attributive adjective, which comes before the noun:

• et dyrt hus = an expensive house

So dyrt can appear both:

• before a neuter noun: et dyrt hus
• after er: Huset er dyrt

Yes, but it means something slightly different.

• Gull er dyrt. = Gold is expensive.
  
  • general statement about gold as a material
• Gullet er dyrt. = The gold is expensive.
  
  • specific gold that both speaker and listener know about

So the sentence without -et is more general.

No. This is a common point of confusion.

There are two different words spelled dyr:

1. dyr as a noun = animal
2. dyr as an adjective = expensive

In Gull er dyrt, dyrt comes from the adjective dyr meaning expensive, not the noun animal.

This is standard Norwegian statement word order:

• subject + verb + complement

So:

• Gull = subject
• er = verb
• dyrt = adjective describing the subject

This is very similar to English:

• Gold is expensive.

If you wanted to make it a yes/no question, Norwegian usually puts the verb first:

• Er gull dyrt? = Is gold expensive?

Yes. Dyrt usually means expensive, but depending on context it can also be understood as:

• costly
• pricey

In this sentence, expensive is the most natural translation.

Yes. The form of the adjective depends on the noun.

For example:

• Sølv er dyrt. = Silver is expensive.
• Olje er dyrt. = Oil is expensive.
• Mat er dyr. — actually, this would usually be dyr only if the noun behaves as a common-gender singular noun in a specific structure; in many general statements with mass nouns, usage can vary by noun and idiom.

The safest pattern to remember from this sentence is:

• if the noun is neuter singular, use -t
• if it is plural, use -e

Examples:

• et dyrt metall = an expensive metal
• metallene er dyre = the metals are expensive

So in Gull er dyrt, the -t matches the neuter noun gull.