Den gravide kvinnen venter.

Den is the definite article used with common-gender nouns when there is an adjective before the noun.

Here, kvinne is a common-gender noun, so the pattern is:

den + adjective + noun in definite form

That gives:

den gravide kvinnen = the pregnant woman

This is different from English, where you usually just say the pregnant woman without changing the noun itself.

Because the noun is definite.

• kvinne = woman / a woman
• kvinnen = the woman

In Norwegian, when you have an adjective with a definite noun, you usually get double definiteness:

• den
  • adjective + kvinnen

So both den and -en help mark the noun phrase as definite.

Compare:

• en gravid kvinne = a pregnant woman
• den gravide kvinnen = the pregnant woman

Because adjectives usually take a special form in definite noun phrases.

The basic form is:

• gravid = pregnant

But after den/det/de in a definite phrase, the adjective usually takes -e:

• en gravid kvinne = a pregnant woman
• den gravide kvinnen = the pregnant woman

So gravide here is the expected definite/weak adjective form.

Yes. Venter is the present tense of å vente.

• å vente = to wait
• venter = waits / is waiting

Norwegian present tense is often formed by adding -r to the infinitive:

• snakke → snakker
• bo → bor
• vente → venter

So Den gravide kvinnen venter literally has the structure The pregnant woman waits / is waiting.

By itself, å vente usually means to wait.

But Norwegian also has the expression:

• å vente barn = to be expecting a child

Because the subject is a pregnant woman, some learners may wonder about that connection. In this sentence alone, venter most naturally means waits / is waiting, unless the wider context suggests something else.

So:

• Den gravide kvinnen venter. = The pregnant woman is waiting.

If you wanted to clearly say The pregnant woman is expecting a baby, Norwegian would more naturally say something like:

• Den gravide kvinnen venter barn.

This is the normal main clause word order in Norwegian:

Subject + verb

So:

• Den gravide kvinnen = subject
• venter = verb

This is the same basic order as in English:

• The pregnant woman waits.

Norwegian main clauses generally place the finite verb in the second position, and when the sentence starts with the subject, that gives you normal subject + verb order.

The dictionary forms are:

• den = demonstrative/article form used with common-gender definite nouns
• gravid = pregnant
• kvinne = woman
• å vente = to wait

In the sentence, some words appear in changed forms:

• gravide is the definite adjective form of gravid
• kvinnen is the definite singular form of kvinne
• venter is the present tense of å vente

Kvinne is usually treated as a common-gender noun in Bokmål.

That affects the forms you use:

• indefinite article: en kvinne
• definite singular: kvinnen
• definite article with adjective: den gravide kvinnen

If it were a neuter noun, you would expect det instead of den.

So the noun’s gender helps determine the article pattern.

That would be:

En gravid kvinne venter.

Compare the two:

• En gravid kvinne venter. = A pregnant woman is waiting.
• Den gravide kvinnen venter. = The pregnant woman is waiting.

Key differences:

• en instead of den
• gravid instead of gravide
• kvinne instead of kvinnen

This contrast is very useful for learning how Norwegian handles indefinite versus definite noun phrases.

A careful approximation is:

den gra-VEE-de KVIN-nen VEN-ter

A few helpful notes:

• den is usually pronounced with a short vowel
• gravide has stress on -vi-
• kvinnen has stress on the first syllable: KVIN-nen
• venter also has stress on the first syllable: VEN-ter

Exact pronunciation varies a bit by dialect, but this stress pattern is a good starting point.

In standard Bokmål, den gravide kvinnen is the normal form.

Using den gravid kvinnen would sound nonstandard to most learners of standard written Norwegian, because adjectives in definite phrases usually take the -e form.

So for standard Norwegian, stick with:

den gravide kvinnen

not

den gravid kvinnen

A very useful pattern is:

den/det/de + adjective in -e form + noun in definite form

Examples:

• den gravide kvinnen = the pregnant woman
• det store huset = the big house
• de små barna = the small children

So this sentence is a great example of definite noun phrase structure in Norwegian.