Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Barna i blokken leker i hagen. - The children in the apartment building play in the garden.

Most nouns use -ene for definite plural (e.g. bøker → bøkene, hus → husene), so learners often expect barnene, but barnene is non‑standard. The correct definite plural is barna.

What does i blokken literally mean, and why is it blokken and not something like blokka?

Literally, i blokken means in the block, but in everyday Norwegian blokk usually means apartment building / block of flats, not a city block or a cube.

Blokk is a feminine noun that in Bokmål can be treated as either:

masculine: en blokk – blokken
or feminine: ei blokk – blokka

Both i blokken and i blokka are grammatically correct Bokmål.
Which one you choose is mostly a matter of style and dialect. Standard written Bokmål often prefers -en forms (blokken), while in many spoken varieties you’ll hear blokka.

Why is it leker and not spiller for "play"?

Norwegian distinguishes between two main verbs for play:

å leke – to play in the sense of children playing / playing with toys / imaginative play
- Barna leker i hagen. – The children are playing in the garden.
å spille – to play a game, a sport, or an instrument
- spille fotball – play football
- spille gitar – play the guitar
- spille sjakk – play chess

In Barna i blokken leker i hagen, we’re talking about kids just playing around, so leker is the appropriate verb. Using spiller here would sound wrong unless you specify a game or sport (spiller fotball i hagen, for example).

Is leker present tense, or does it mean "toys"?

It can be both, depending on context.

As a verb (from å leke, to play):
- leker is present tense:
  - Barna leker i hagen. – The children are playing in the garden.
As a noun (plural of en lek, a play/game; in practice more like "toys/games"):
- leker can mean toys / games:
  - Barna har mange leker. – The children have many toys.

In your sentence, leker is clearly the verb, because it comes in the verb slot after the subject and agrees with the meaning "are playing".

Why is it i hagen and not på hagen or just i hage?

Three separate points:

Preposition – "i" vs. "på"
- i is used when you are in/inside a space or area:
  - i hagen, i huset, i byen – in the garden, in the house, in the city
- på is more like on / at and tends to be used for surfaces and certain fixed expressions:
  - på bordet (on the table), på skolen (at school), på jobben (at work)
Being in a garden is conceptualized as being inside that area, so i hagen is normal.
Definite form – "hage" vs. "hagen"
- en hage – a garden
- hagen – the garden
In the sentence we are talking about a specific garden, presumably the one that belongs to that building, so it’s i hagen.
Why not i hage?
Norwegian generally uses the definite form in contexts like this where English uses "in the garden" (with the). Saying i hage would sound like "in a garden" in a very general sense, and it’s not idiomatic here.

Why are both blokken and hagen definite (with "the")?

Norwegian marks definiteness directly on the noun with a suffix:

blokk → blokken – the block / the apartment building
hage → hagen – the garden

In Barna i blokken leker i hagen, we’re talking about:

a particular group of children: barna (the children)
in a specific building: i blokken (in the building they live in)
playing in a specific garden (most likely the shared garden for that building): i hagen

So all three are specific, known to the speaker and listener, which is why all three are definite. This matches English quite closely: The children in the block are playing in the garden.

Why is the word order Barna i blokken leker i hagen and not I blokken barna leker i hagen or something else?

The basic word order in a neutral Norwegian main clause is:

Subject – Verb – (Object/Other info)

In this sentence:

Subject: Barna i blokken
Verb: leker
Place adverbial: i hagen

So the structure is: [Barna i blokken] [leker] [i hagen].

Inside the subject phrase, barna is the head noun, and i blokken is a prepositional phrase describing which children:

barna – the children
i blokken – (who are) in the block (apartment building)

Putting i blokken directly after barna is the normal way to attach that description.

You can front the place phrase for emphasis or style:

I hagen leker barna i blokken. – In the garden, the children in the block are playing.

But then the garden is what you’re highlighting, not the children. The original word order is the most neutral.

Does i blokken mean "who live in the block" or just "who are currently in the block"?

Literally it just means "in the block/apartment building", and grammatically it only expresses location.

However, in real usage, if you say barna i blokken, people will typically understand this as "the children who live in that apartment building", not children who just happen to be inside it at this moment. Context usually implies residence.

If you really wanted to stress residence, you could say:

Barna som bor i blokken – the children who live in the block

But most of the time barna i blokken is enough and idiomatic.

Could you say ungene i blokken instead of barna i blokken?

Yes, you could:

Ungene i blokken leker i hagen.

The difference is in tone/register:

barn / barna – neutral, standard, works in both written and spoken language.
unge / ungene – more colloquial/informal, often used in spoken Norwegian, roughly like "the kids" in English.

So barna ≈ "the children" (neutral),
and ungene ≈ "the kids" (more informal).

How are barna, blokken, leker, and hagen pronounced? Any common traps for English speakers?

Approximate IPA and tips (Eastern Norwegian pronunciation):

barna – /ˈbɑːɳɑ/
- r + n often merges into a retroflex /ɳ/ (tongue curled back).
- Sounds roughly like "BAAR-na", with a long a in the first syllable.
blokken – /ˈblɔkːən/
- Double kk = a long k sound: a clear stop.
- The o is more like British "o" in "not", not like "oh".
- Roughly "BLOCK-ken" (but shorter and crisper).
leker – /ˈlèːkər/ (often written /ˈleːkər/)
- First e is long, like "ay" in "lay", but a bit more closed.
- Roughly "LAY-ker", but with a cleaner e vowel, not a diphthong.
hagen – /ˈhɑːgən/
- h is pronounced (unlike in some English words like "honor").
- Long a again, similar to "hah", then a soft g and schwa.
- Roughly "HAH-gen", but with a longer a.

Common traps:

Forgetting the retroflex sounds like in barna.
Making vowels too diphthong-y (like English "ay", "oh") instead of the purer Norwegian vowels.
Not lengthening the right consonants or vowels (length is meaningful in Norwegian).

Can the sentence be rephrased to change the emphasis, and does the meaning change?

Yes, you can reorder some elements for emphasis without changing the core meaning. For example:

I hagen leker barna i blokken.
Emphasis on the garden – you’re highlighting where they’re playing.
Barna i blokken leker.
You drop the garden detail; now you’re just saying they are playing.
Det er barna i blokken som leker i hagen.
Clef tconstruction emphasizing it’s the children in the block (and not others) who are playing in the garden.

The basic propositional meaning (those children are playing, and it happens in that garden) stays the same, but the focus and information structure change with word order.