En gate er bred.

A street is wide.

Breakdown of En gate er bred.

• være: to be
• en: a
• gaten: the street
• bred: wide

Questions & Answers about En gate er bred.

Why is the indefinite article en used with gate, and can I use ei instead?

Gate is a feminine noun, but in Bokmål you have the option to treat feminine nouns as common‐gender. That means you can say ei gate (feminine) or en gate (common) interchangeably. Both are correct, though many speakers default to en gate in everyday speech and writing.

Why is the adjective bred not inflected with an ending here?

Because bred is used predicatively (after the verb er). Predicative adjectives in Norwegian agree only in gender and number:

• Common‐gender singular → no ending (bred)
• Neuter‐gender singular → -t ending (e.g. stort)
• All plurals → -e ending (e.g. store)
  Since en gate is common‐gender singular, the bare form bred is correct.

How would I say “a wide street” when the adjective comes before the noun?

In attributive position (adjective + noun), you still inflect for gender and number. For a common‐gender noun you get:

• en bred gate (or ei bred gate)
  If it were a neuter noun, you’d add -t, for example et bredt hus (“a wide house”).

How do I say “the street is wide” (definite form)?