Questions & Answers about Du er en kvinne.
Why does the sentence use en instead of ei for kvinne?
In Norwegian Bokmål, kvinne can take the feminine article ei, but many speakers and writers use the common gender article en. So both en kvinne and ei kvinne are possible in Bokmål. However, en is more common in many regions and is considered standard.
How do I pronounce Du er en kvinne correctly?
• Du is pronounced similarly to “doo” in English.
• er rhymes with “air.”
• en often sounds like “en” but can sometimes be reduced to just “’n.”
• kvinne is roughly “kvinn-eh”; the “k” is pronounced, and the stress is on the first syllable.
Is the word order important here?
Yes, Norwegian typically follows a Subject–Verb–Object (SVO) pattern, just like English. So in Du er en kvinne, Du (subject) comes first, er (verb) follows, and en kvinne (object/predicate) comes last.
When should I capitalize du?
Unlike “you” in English, du is usually not capitalized unless it begins a sentence or appears in a title. Norwegian reserves capital letters mainly for the beginnings of sentences, proper nouns, and certain acronyms.