De begraver katten.

They bury the cat.

Breakdown of De begraver katten.

• de: they
• katten: the cat
• begrave: to bury

Questions & Answers about De begraver katten.

What does de mean here? Is it just they?

Here de is the subject pronoun and normally means they.

A useful extra note:

• In older or very formal Norwegian, De can be a polite form of you.
• But in modern everyday Norwegian, that use is rare.
• Because this word is at the start of the sentence, it is capitalized anyway, so the capital D does not by itself prove it is the polite form.

So in normal modern Norwegian, learners should read De begraver katten as they bury / they are burying the cat.

Why is the verb begraver and not begrave?

Because begraver is the present tense form of the verb.

The infinitive is:

• å begrave = to bury

The present tense is:

• begraver = bury / buries / am-is-are burying depending on context

Norwegian verbs do not change for person the way English sometimes does. So you get:

• jeg begraver
• du begraver
• han/hun begraver
• de begraver

The verb form stays the same.

Does begraver mean bury or ?