De begraver katten.

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.

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.

It can mean either, depending on context.

Norwegian present tense often covers both:

• simple present: they bury
• present progressive: they are burying

So De begraver katten could mean either of these in English:

• They bury the cat
• They are burying the cat

If Norwegian speakers want to stress that something is happening right now, they can use a longer expression such as:

• De holder på å begrave katten = They are in the process of burying the cat

But the plain present tense is very common.

Because katten is the definite singular form: the cat.

Compare:

• katt = cat (dictionary form / bare noun)
• en katt = a cat
• katten = the cat

So the ending -en is what makes it definite here.

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

So:

• cat → katt
• the cat → katten

That is why you do not see a separate word for the.

A very common pattern is:

• en katt = a cat
• katten = the cat

With adjectives, Norwegian often uses double definiteness, for example:

• den svarte katten = the black cat

So the language handles definiteness differently from English.

Katten is the direct object.

That means it is the thing receiving the action of the verb:

• de = the ones doing the burying
• begraver = the action
• katten = the thing being buried

So the structure is:

subject + verb + object

This sentence has the normal basic word order for a main clause:

• De = subject
• begraver = verb
• katten = object

So it is:

subject + verb + object

That said, Norwegian is a V2 language in main clauses. This means the finite verb normally stays in the second position.

For example:

• De begraver katten.
• I dag begraver de katten. = Today they are burying the cat.

When I dag is moved to the front, the verb begraver still stays second, so de moves after the verb.

In many varieties of Norwegian, de when it means they is often pronounced roughly like dee.

So even though it is written de, learners will often hear something close to:

• di

This can be surprising at first, because the spelling and pronunciation do not match what an English speaker might expect.

As always, pronunciation varies by dialect, but dee is a very useful approximation for many learners.

Yes. In Bokmål, katt is normally treated as a masculine/common-gender noun, so you get:

• en katt = a cat
• katten = the cat

The gender matters because it affects the article and the definite ending.

For this noun, the important forms are:

• en katt
• katten
• katter = cats
• kattene = the cats

So the form katten is exactly what you would expect for the cat.