Mandolinjen er tydelig; droppsonen for den saks skyld.

to be

Breakdown of Mandolinjen er tydelig; droppsonen for den saks skyld.

• tydelig: clear
• for den saks skyld: for that matter
• mandolinjen: the mandatory line in disc golf

Questions & Answers about Mandolinjen er tydelig; droppsonen for den saks skyld.

Why are mandolinjen and droppsonen written as one word each?

Because Norwegian normally writes compound nouns as a single word.

So instead of separating the parts, Norwegian joins them:

• ...linjen
• droppsonen

The last part is the main noun, and the earlier part modifies it. This is very common in Norwegian, much more so than in English.

A useful rule:

• English often allows noun + noun as two words
• Norwegian usually prefers one compound word

The final part also decides the gender and inflection of the whole compound.

What does the ending -en mean in mandolinjen and droppsonen?

The ending -en marks the noun as definite singular.

So Norwegian often expresses the by adding an ending to the noun instead of using a separate word:

• linje → linjen = the line
• sone → sonen = the zone

That is why there is no separate word for the before these nouns.

Why is there no separate word for the before mandolinjen?

Because the definiteness is already built into the noun itself.

In English:

• the line

In Norwegian:

• linjen

So mandolinjen already includes the meaning of the ... line. Adding a separate article would normally be wrong here.