Hengelåsen er tung.

Yes. In Norwegian, compound nouns are usually written as one word.

Hengelås is a compound:

• henge = to hang
• lås = lock

So the literal idea is something like hanging lock, which is the Norwegian word for padlock.

The -en is the definite ending, meaning the.

So:

• en hengelås = a padlock
• hengelåsen = the padlock

Norwegian often puts the at the end of the noun instead of using a separate word before it.

Hengelås is a common-gender noun in Bokmål.

That gives you:

• en hengelås = indefinite singular
• hengelåsen = definite singular

If it were a neuter noun, you would expect forms like et ... and often -et in the definite form, but that is not the case here.

Because in Norwegian, the definite article is usually attached to the noun itself.

So English the padlock becomes hengelåsen, not usually the + noun as two separate words.

A separate word such as den often appears when there is an adjective before the noun:

• den tunge hengelåsen = the heavy padlock

But in Hengelåsen er tung, the noun stands alone, so the ending -en is enough.

Er is the present tense of å være = to be.

So:

• jeg er = I am
• du er = you are
• han/hun er = he/she is

In this sentence, er simply means is.

Because the subject, hengelåsen, is singular and common gender.

The adjective tung changes form depending on gender and number:

• tung = common gender singular
• tungt = neuter singular
• tunge = plural, and also some forms before definite nouns

Examples:

• Hengelåsen er tung. = singular common gender
• Huset er tungt. = singular neuter
• Hengelåsene er tunge. = plural

A very important point: in a sentence like this, the adjective is predicative (after er), so it agrees with gender and number, not with definiteness. That is why hengelåsen still takes tung, not tunge.

When the adjective comes before the noun, the structure changes:

• en tung hengelås = a heavy padlock
• den tunge hengelåsen = the heavy padlock

So compare:

• Hengelåsen er tung. = The padlock is heavy.
• en tung hengelås = a heavy padlock

In other words:

• after er, you use a predicate adjective: tung
• before the noun, you use an attributive adjective, which may change form: tung/tunge

This sentence has very normal Norwegian word order:

• Hengelåsen = subject
• er = verb
• tung = adjective/complement

So it follows the basic pattern: Subject + verb + complement

It is very similar to English here: The padlock + is + heavy

A rough English-friendly guide would be something like:

HENG-eh-law-sen

A few useful points:

• ng sounds like the ng in sing
• å is roughly like the vowel in law or more for many English speakers
• the stress is on the first syllable

If you know IPA, it is roughly /ˈheŋəˌloːsən/ in careful pronunciation, though exact pronunciation varies.

Not always. Tung can also have broader meanings, such as hard, serious, or heavy in a non-physical sense, depending on context.

But in Hengelåsen er tung, the natural meaning is the physical one: the padlock has a lot of weight.

No. Unlike German, Norwegian nouns are not normally capitalized.

So:

• hengelås is lowercase
• tung is lowercase

The only reason Hengelåsen starts with a capital letter here is that it is the first word of the sentence.