De liker å danse.

to

Breakdown of De liker å danse.

• like: to like
• de: they
• danse: to dance

Questions & Answers about De liker å danse.

Why is De capitalized?

Because it is the first word in the sentence. In Norwegian, just like in English, the first word of a sentence is capitalized.

So in the middle of a sentence, you would normally see de: Jeg vet at de liker å danse. = I know that they like to dance.

What does de mean?

In modern Norwegian, de is the usual subject pronoun for they.

So: de liker = they like

This is the form used when de is the subject of the sentence.

Can De also mean you?

Yes. Capitalized De can also be a very formal, old-fashioned way to say you in Bokmål.

So De liker å danse. could theoretically mean:

• They like to dance
• You like to dance (formal/old-fashioned)

In modern everyday Norwegian, this formal De is much less common than du. If a learner sees De at the beginning of a sentence, it is often just de = they, with normal sentence capitalization.

Why is the verb liker and not like?