Hun forteller legenden.

she

Breakdown of Hun forteller legenden.

• fortelle: to tell
• legenden: the legend

Questions & Answers about Hun forteller legenden.

Why is hun used here, and does it always mean she?

Yes, hun is the subject pronoun meaning she.

In this sentence, hun is doing the action, so it works just like English she:

• Hun forteller legenden. = She tells the legend.

A few useful comparisons:

• hun = she
• han = he
• jeg = I
• du = you

In modern spoken Norwegian, some speakers may also use ho in dialects, but standard Bokmål uses hun.

What form is forteller?

Forteller is the present tense of the verb å fortelle = to tell.

So:

• å fortelle = to tell
• forteller = tell / tells / am telling / is telling / are telling, depending on context

Norwegian verbs do not change by person the way English verbs do. That means the same present-tense form is used with all subjects:

• jeg forteller = I tell / I am telling
• du forteller = you tell / you are telling
• hun forteller = she tells / she is telling
• vi forteller = we tell / we are telling

Why is there no special -s ending for she tells, like in English?