De vil ansette eksperten.

In this sentence, De is most naturally understood as they.

A common source of confusion is that De with a capital D can also be an old-fashioned or very formal way to say you in Norwegian. But here, the word is capitalized simply because it starts the sentence. If this same sentence appeared in the middle of a sentence, it would usually be de vil ansette eksperten.

So for normal modern Norwegian, you should read de here as they.

Vil can mean either will or want to, depending on context.

In many everyday sentences, vil often means want to:

• De vil ansette eksperten = They want to hire the expert

In some contexts, it can also sound more like a future meaning:

• They will hire the expert

So the exact nuance depends on the situation. Learners often meet vil first as a modal verb that can express either desire/intention or future.

Because vil is a modal verb, and after modal verbs in Norwegian, the next verb normally appears in the infinitive without å.

So:

• De vil ansette eksperten not
• De vil å ansette eksperten

This is similar to English:

• They want to hire but
• They will hire

Norwegian modal verbs such as vil, skal, kan, må, bør are followed directly by the infinitive.

Ansette is the infinitive form of the verb, meaning to hire / to employ.

Some common forms are:

• å ansette = to hire
• ansetter = hires / is hiring
• ansatte = hired
• har ansatt = have/has hired

In your sentence, it stays in the infinitive because it follows vil.

Eksperten is the definite singular form, meaning the expert.

In Norwegian, definiteness is often shown by adding an ending to the noun:

• en ekspert = an expert
• eksperten = the expert

So the ending -en marks the noun as definite.

This is one of the big differences from English: Norwegian often attaches the to the end of the noun instead of using a separate word.

Yes. This is standard Norwegian main-clause word order:

De + vil + ansette + eksperten
subject + finite verb + infinitive + object

This is completely normal for a simple statement.

A useful thing to notice is that the finite verb (vil) comes early in the sentence, which is a very important pattern in Norwegian main clauses.

You would usually put ikke after the finite verb:

• De vil ikke ansette eksperten.

That means They do not want to hire the expert or They will not hire the expert, depending on context.

This placement is very typical in Norwegian:

• subject + finite verb + ikke
  • rest of sentence

You usually make a yes/no question by putting the finite verb first:

• Vil de ansette eksperten?

This means:

• Do they want to hire the expert? or
• Will they hire the expert?

So the statement:

• De vil ansette eksperten.

becomes the question:

• Vil de ansette eksperten?

A learner-friendly approximation is:

eks-PER-ten

The stress is on the second syllable: -per-.

A few pronunciation notes:

• x in ekspert sounds like ks
• the r is pronounced in Norwegian, though how it sounds depends on the dialect
• the ending -en is the definite ending meaning the

So even if your accent is not perfect, stressing per correctly will help a lot.

This is standard Bokmål.

A Nynorsk version would more likely be:

• Dei vil tilsetje eksperten.

So:

• De, vil, ansette, eksperten = normal Bokmål forms

This is useful because most beginners learn Bokmål first.