Distansedriveren har en lang flygebane.

to have

Breakdown of Distansedriveren har en lang flygebane.

• en: a
• lang: long
• distansedriveren: the distance driver disc

Questions & Answers about Distansedriveren har en lang flygebane.

Why are distansedriveren and flygebane written as one word?

Because Norwegian usually writes compound nouns as a single word.

• distansedriveren = distanse
  • driveren
• flygebane = flyge
  • bane

This is very normal in Norwegian. English often uses two words where Norwegian uses one. So a learner might want to write distanse driveren or flyge bane, but that would be wrong.

Why does distansedriveren end in -en?

The ending -en marks the definite singular form, so distansedriveren means the distance driver.

Compare:

• en distansedriver = a distance driver
• distansedriveren = the distance driver

This is a very common pattern for singular common-gender nouns in Bokmål.

What does har mean here, and why is it not something different for he has?

Har is the present tense of å ha, which means to have.

Unlike English, Norwegian does not change the verb for different persons in the present tense:

• jeg har = I have
• du har = you have
• han har = he has
• de har = they have

So har works for all of them.