Learn Hardcore Norwegian: Foreldrene hennes har vært gift i tretti år. - Her parents have been married for thirty years.

You do not say hennes foreldrene. That order is ungrammatical. When the possessive comes after the noun, the noun must be in the definite form (foreldrene).

What is the difference between foreldrene hennes and hennes foreldre?

Both can be translated as “her parents”, but there are some nuances:

Position and form
- foreldrene hennes
  - Noun is definite: foreldrene (the parents)
  - Possessive after the noun
- hennes foreldre
  - Noun is indefinite: foreldre (parents)
  - Possessive before the noun
Style and emphasis
- foreldrene hennes is more common and neutral in everyday Norwegian, especially in speech.
- hennes foreldre is more formal/literary and can put a bit more emphasis on her rather than on the parents.

In most contexts, both are understood simply as “her parents”, and the choice is about style and slight emphasis rather than a big meaning difference.

Why is it hennes and not sine here?

Norwegian has two kinds of third-person possessives:

hans / hennes / deres = his / her / their (neutral, can refer to someone other than the subject)
sin / sitt / sine = his/her/their own, referring back to the subject of the clause

In the sentence:

Foreldrene hennes har vært gift i tretti år.
Her parents have been married for thirty years.

The subject of the clause is foreldrene hennes (her parents). So sin/sitt/sine would refer back to the parents, not to “her”. We want to say that these parents belong to her, so we must use hennes.

Example contrast:

Hun savner foreldrene sine. – She misses her (own) parents.
Here hun is the subject of the clause, so sine can refer back to hun.

In our sentence, there is no subject like hun above it that sin/sine could refer back to, so hennes is the correct choice.

What is the difference between hennes and henne?

hennes = her as a possessive (shows ownership)
- foreldrene hennes – her parents
- boka hennes – her book
henne = her as an object pronoun
- Jeg ser henne. – I see her.
- Han snakker til henne. – He talks to her.

In Foreldrene hennes har vært gift i tretti år, we need the possessive form, so we use hennes, not henne.

Why is it har vært gift (“have been married”) and not just er gift (“are married”)?

Both can be correct, but they say slightly different things:

er gift = are married (focus on the state right now)
- Foreldrene hennes er gift. – Her parents are married.
har vært gift = have been married (focus on the duration up to now)
- Foreldrene hennes har vært gift i tretti år.
  = Her parents have been married for thirty years (up to now and still are).

Because the sentence talks about how long they’ve been married (for thirty years), Norwegian, like English, prefers the present perfect (har vært) to express a state that started in the past and continues into the present.

Why do we say i tretti år and not use for like in English (for thirty years)?

In Norwegian, the usual way to express duration is:

i + time expression

So:

i tretti år = for thirty years
i to dager = for two days
i mange år = for many years

Using for in this sense (for thirty years) is not natural Norwegian; for has other uses (e.g. for deg = for you). So you say:

Foreldrene hennes har vært gift i tretti år.
Her parents have been married for thirty years.

What exactly is gift here, and why is it used with være/har vært?

Gift here is an adjective meaning “married”.

å gifte seg = to get married
å være gift = to be married
har vært gift = have been married

So:

De er gift. – They are married.
De har vært gift i tretti år. – They have been married for thirty years.

Note: gift also means “poisonous” in other contexts (e.g. en gift slange – a poisonous snake), but here the meaning is clearly “married”.

Why is the verb har in second position in the sentence?

Norwegian main clauses generally follow the V2 rule (verb-second):

Some element (often the subject) comes first.
The finite verb (here, har) comes second.
The rest of the sentence follows.

In our sentence:

Foreldrene hennes – subject (first position)
har – finite verb (second position)
vært gift i tretti år – rest of the predicate

So the order Foreldrene hennes har vært gift i tretti år follows the standard Norwegian word order rule for main clauses.

Why does år not change form after tretti? Why not something like årer?

År (year) is an irregular noun:

et år = a year
to år = two years
tretti år = thirty years
årene = the years (definite plural)

The indefinite plural of år is the same as the singular: år, not årer.

In i tretti år, år is used as a bare plural after a number, so it stays år. You only get årene when you specifically mean “the years”, e.g.:

I de siste tretti årene har de vært gift.
In the last thirty years they have been married.

How do you pronounce foreldrene and tretti?

Approximate pronunciations (standard Eastern Norwegian):

foreldrene: /fuˈrɛldrənə/
- fo- like “fu” in full (but shorter, not like English “four”)
- -reld- like “reld” in rel-d with a tapped/flapped r
- final -ene = /ənə/ (schwa sounds, very light)
tretti: /ˈtrɛtːi/
- tr- as in English train
- -e- like e in bed
- tt is a long t sound
- final -i like ee in see

So the whole sentence is roughly:

Foreldrene hennes har vært gift i tretti år.
/fuˈrɛldrənə ˈhɛnəs hɑːr ˈvæʈ ˈjɪft i ˈtrɛtːi oːr/ (approximate)