En lampe lyser under sengen.

a

Breakdown of En lampe lyser under sengen.

• sengen: the bed
• under: under
• lampen: the lamp

Questions & Answers about En lampe lyser under sengen.

What does en mean in En lampe lyser under sengen.?

En is the indefinite article for common-gender nouns in Norwegian, equivalent to English a or an. It tells you that you’re talking about “a lamp” rather than “the lamp.”

Why is it en lampe and not et lampe?

Norwegian nouns have two natural genders in Bokmål: common and neuter. Lampe is a common-gender noun, so it takes en (or optionally ei in more traditional feminine usage), not et, which is reserved for neuter nouns like et hus (“a house”).

Could I also say ei lampe?

Yes. Lampe is grammatically feminine, so you can use ei: ei lampe. Many Norwegians use en universally for common-gender nouns, but using ei lampe is equally correct and signals a feminine form.

How do you form the definite “the bed” from seng?

You add -en to the noun (seng → sengen) to make it definite singular. So sengen = “the bed.” This suffix-based system replaces the separate “the” used in English.