Prøvesangen er kort.

The singing audition is short.

Breakdown of Prøvesangen er kort.

• være: to be
• kort: short
• prøvesangen: the singing audition

Questions & Answers about Prøvesangen er kort.

Why is prøvesangen written as one word?

Because Norwegian usually forms compound nouns as one word.

So prøvesangen can be broken down like this:

• prøve = test / trial / rehearsal / sample
• sang = song
• -en = the (definite singular ending)

So the core noun is prøvesang, and prøvesangen is the definite form of that compound noun.

English often writes similar ideas as two words, but Norwegian normally joins them.

Why isn’t there a separate word for the?

In Norwegian, the is often added to the end of the noun instead of being a separate word.

Here:

• sang = song
• sangen = the song

So:

• prøvesang = a test/rehearsal/sample song
• prøvesangen = the test/rehearsal/sample song

This is very normal in Norwegian. English uses a separate article; Norwegian often uses a suffix article.

What does prøve- mean here?