De er forlovet.

They are engaged.

Breakdown of De er forlovet.

• være: to be
• de: they
• forlovet: engaged

Questions & Answers about De er forlovet.

Is De here they or the formal you?

It can actually be ambiguous in writing, because the word is at the beginning of the sentence, where de would be capitalized anyway.

• If the meaning you were shown is they, then this is just ordinary de at the start of a sentence.
• If the intended meaning is formal you, that can also be written De in traditional polite style.

In modern Norwegian, the formal De is uncommon in everyday speech and writing. Most of the time, people use du instead.

Why is De capitalized?

At the start of a sentence, Norwegian capitalizes the first word, so de becomes De automatically.

That means capitalization alone does not prove that this is the formal pronoun. You need context or the provided meaning to know which one it is.

What does er mean here?

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

So the structure is very close to English:

• De er forlovet = They are engaged / You are engaged (formal)

What kind of word is forlovet?