Taxi-sjåføren venter ved flyplassen.

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Breakdown of Taxi-sjåføren venter ved flyplassen.

• vente: to wait
• flyplassen: the airport
• taxi-sjåføren: the taxi driver

Questions & Answers about Taxi-sjåføren venter ved flyplassen.

Why is taxi-sjåføren hyphenated, and what does the -en ending do?

The word taxi-sjåfør is a compound noun made from taxi (borrowed from English) and sjåfør (“driver”). In Norwegian:

• Compound nouns often combine elements directly, but when the first part is a foreign word, a hyphen is common to clarify the boundary: taxi-sjåfør.
• Definiteness is shown by a suffix, not a separate article. Common‐gender nouns take -en in the definite singular: • taxi-sjåfør = “(a) taxi driver”
  • taxi-sjåfører = “taxi drivers” (indefinite plural)
  • taxi-sjåføren = “the taxi driver”

How do I know taxi-sjåfør is common‐gender, and why does that matter?

Norwegian has two genders for most nouns: common (sometimes called masculine/feminine) and neuter. You can tell taxi-sjåfør is common‐gender because its definite singular ends in -en (neuter would take -et). Gender affects:

• The form of the definite suffix
• Which indefinite article you might use (en for common, et for neuter)

Why is flyplassen used instead of flyplass, and what role does it play?