Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Kafeen er åpen i kveld.

In Norwegian Bokmål, the definite article is usually a suffix added to the noun instead of a separate word like English the. So kafeen already means the café; you never say den kafeen in a simple sentence like this (that would be more like “that café”).

Why is it kafeen and not kaféen? Which spelling is correct?

Both kafeen and kaféen are accepted in Bokmål, but:

kafé is the original borrowed form (from French café).
kafe (without the accent) is a fully Norwegianized version.

In practice, you will see:

en kafé – kaféen
en kafe – kafeen

They mean the same thing. Modern usage often drops the accent, especially in informal writing, but many signs and menus still use kafé.

Why is it er åpen and not something like er åpne?

Åpen is an adjective in its basic (masculine/feminine singular) form, agreeing with kafeen, which is a singular masculine noun.

Adjective agreement pattern in Bokmål (for this word):

Masculine / feminine singular: åpen
Neuter singular: åpent
Plural (all genders): åpne

So:

Kafeen er åpen. – The café is open. (one café)
Huset er åpent. – The house is open. (neuter noun)
Kafeene er åpne. – The cafés are open. (plural)

Since kafeen is singular masculine, åpen is the correct form.

Is there a difference between er åpen and har åpent for a place of business?

Yes, there is a nuance:

Kafeen er åpen.
Literally: The café is open.
This can mean the door is open or the café is open for business right now. Very natural on a sign or in casual speech.
Kafeen har åpent i kveld.
Literally: The café has open (hours) tonight.
This is a very common and idiomatic way to talk specifically about opening hours. It emphasizes that the café will be operating / serving customers this evening.

In your sentence, Kafeen er åpen i kveld is understandable and fine, but if you are talking about business hours, many Norwegians would naturally say Kafeen har åpent i kveld.

Why is it åpen and not something like åpnet?

åpen is an adjective = open (state).
åpnet is a past participle of the verb å åpne = opened.

So:

Kafeen er åpen. – The café is open (its state right now).
Kafeen åpnet i går. – The café opened yesterday.
Døren er åpnet. – The door has been opened. (focus on the action having been done)

In your sentence, you want the state, not the action, so you use åpen.

What exactly does i kveld mean? Is it “this evening” or “tonight”?

I kveld literally means “in the evening”, but in modern Norwegian it usually corresponds to English “this evening” or “tonight”, depending on context.

So:

Kafeen er åpen i kveld.
= The café is open tonight / this evening.

Note that you do not normally add i dag here; “i dag kveld” is not idiomatic in standard Norwegian. You simply say i kveld.

Why is it i kveld and not på kveld or i kvelden?

Time expressions in Norwegian use different prepositions, and some combinations are just fixed phrases:

i kveld = this evening / tonight
i morgen = tomorrow
i dag = today
på mandag = on Monday

So you need to memorize i kveld as a set phrase.

Also, you don’t use the definite form kvelden in this expression. I kvelden would be incorrect in standard Norwegian for “this evening”; always say i kveld.

Can I move i kveld to the beginning, like I kveld er kafeen åpen?

Yes, that’s perfectly correct, and very natural.

Norwegian has the V2 word order rule: the verb (here er) usually comes in second position in main clauses. Both versions respect that:

Kafeen er åpen i kveld.
(Subject – Verb – Complement – Time)
I kveld er kafeen åpen.
(Time – Verb – Subject – Complement)

Both mean the same; starting with i kveld just emphasizes “this evening” a bit more.

Could I say En kafé er åpen i kveld instead of Kafeen er åpen i kveld?

You can, but it changes the meaning:

Kafeen er åpen i kveld.
= The café is open tonight. (a specific café, known from context)
En kafé er åpen i kveld.
= A café is open tonight. (some café, not specified which one)

So grammatically both are fine, but they answer different questions. Your original sentence clearly refers to a particular café.

Why is there no separate word for “the” in Kafeen er åpen i kveld?

Norwegian usually attaches the definite article to the noun instead of using a separate word like English the.

Pattern for this noun:

en kafé = a café (indefinite)
kafeen = the café (definite)

So kafeen already contains “the”. You simply say Kafeen er åpen, not Den kafé er åpen. (You can say Den kafeen er åpen when you mean that café specifically.)

Does Kafeen er åpen i kveld refer to the present or the future?

Formally it’s in the present tense, but with a time expression like i kveld, it naturally gets a future meaning:

Kafeen er åpen i kveld.
= The café will be open tonight. (arrangement for later today)

This is similar to English saying “We’re open tonight” about a future period later the same day. Context makes the future meaning clear.

How do I pronounce åpen and kveld?

Approximate pronunciation (Bokmål, standard Eastern accent):

åpen: [OH-pen]
- å like the aw in English “law”, but shorter
- stress on the first syllable: Å-pen
kveld: [kvel]
- kv pronounced together, like kv in “kvetch” (or “k” + “v”)
- e like the e in “bed”
- final ld is often pronounced like a light l (the d is very weak or silent): roughly kvel

Together, a natural rhythm is: KA-fe-en er Å-pen i KVELD (main stress on KA- and KVELD).

Why is it åpen and not open (with an “o”)?

Norwegian uses its own vowel system:

The letter å is a separate vowel, not an a with a circle.
It often corresponds to English aw / o sounds (like in “law”, “off”, “more” depending on accent).

So åpen is the Norwegian spelling of open. Writing open would be incorrect in Norwegian.

In Nynorsk (another written standard), the same adjective is spelled open, but the sentence would then be:

Kafeen er open i kveld.

Your sentence is in Bokmål, where åpen is the normal form.