Taleforståelsen er bedre.

The speech perception is better.

Breakdown of Taleforståelsen er bedre.

• være: to be
• bedre: better
• taleforståelsen: the speech perception

Questions & Answers about Taleforståelsen er bedre.

What does taleforståelsen literally break down into?

It is a compound noun, which is very common in Norwegian:

• tale = speech
• forståelse = understanding, comprehension
• taleforståelse = speech comprehension / understanding of speech
• taleforståelsen = the speech comprehension / the understanding of speech

So Norwegian packs the idea into one long noun instead of using a phrase like understanding of speech.

Why is there no separate word for the?

Because Norwegian usually puts the definite article at the end of the noun.

So:

• en taleforståelse = a speech comprehension / an understanding of speech
• taleforståelsen = the speech comprehension / the understanding of speech

That final -en is doing the job that the does in English.

Why does it end in -en and not -et?

That is because forståelse is a common-gender noun in Bokmål.

A simplified pattern is:

• common gender: en ... / ...en
• neuter: et ... / ...et

Since the head of the compound is forståelse, the whole compound takes the same gender:

• en forståelse
• forståelsen

and therefore:

• en taleforståelse
• taleforståelsen