Every noun in Norwegian belongs to a specific grammatical gender.

You must learn the gender of a word to use it correctly in a sentence.

Norwegian has three grammatical genders for nouns.

These are masculine, feminine, and neuter.

You identify them using the indefinite articles en, ei, and et.

Learning these genders is a normal part of mastering Norwegian grammar.

Let me explain exactly how en, ei, and et work.

Masculine nouns (en)

The masculine gender is the most common noun group in Norwegian.

You use the article en for masculine nouns.

This translates directly to “a” or “an” in English.

If you’re ever guessing the gender of a new noun, masculine is your safest bet.

Feminine nouns (ei)

Feminine nouns use the indefinite article ei.

This also translates to “a” or “an” in English.

There’s a very unique rule regarding feminine nouns in the main Norwegian written standard (Bokmål).

You’re actually allowed to treat any feminine noun as a masculine noun.

This means you can correctly write en bok (a book) instead of ei bok.

However, many Norwegians still prefer to use ei in their daily speech.

Neuter nouns (et)

The third noun gender in Norwegian is the neuter gender.

You use the article et for these nouns.

There’s no strict logical rule for which words become neuter.

You simply have to memorize the article when you learn a new vocabulary word.

Regional variations and dialects

Norwegian dialects treat noun genders differently depending on where you travel.

The city of Bergen is famous for completely dropping the feminine gender.

People in Bergen only use masculine (en) and neuter (et) articles.

If you visit Bergen, you’ll hear en jente (a girl) instead of ei jente.

Other regions, especially in northern and central Norway, use the feminine ei very heavily.

If you’re studying the Nynorsk written standard, the feminine gender is completely mandatory.

You can’t swap ei for en in Nynorsk like you can in Bokmål.

How genders change definite endings

Norwegian noun genders do more than just change the word for “a” or “an”.

They also determine how you say “the” in Norwegian.

English puts the word “the” before the noun.

Norwegian attaches a specific ending to the back of the noun instead.

The ending you use depends entirely on whether the word is en, ei, or et.

Masculine nouns take an -en ending.

Feminine nouns take an -a ending.

Neuter nouns take an -et ending.

Here’s a simple table showing how this works.

Memorizing the gender alongside the vocabulary word makes creating these definite forms effortless.

Make it a habit to always write down en, ei, or et when learning new Norwegian words.