Introduction

You have already learned how to inflect Norwegian nouns. This article will show you how to inflect Norwegian adjectives.

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Video about Norwegian Adjectives

If you prefer to watch a video instead of reading, you can watch our video on Norwegian adjectives here. The article continues below the video if you want to read instead.

How to inflect Norwegian adjectives in attributive form

Norwegian adjectives in attributive form (attributive form = e.g. ‘a nice car’) vary in forms depending on whether the noun is in singular or plural, the gender of the noun and whether it’s in indefinite or definite form. Let’s look at some examples. Here’s a masculine noun with an adjective in different forms:

En kul gitar – a cool guitar (indefinite, singular)

Den kule gitaren – the cool guitar (definite, singular)

Kule gitarer – cool guitars (indefinite, plural)

De kule gitarene – the cool guitars (definite, plural)

The pattern for adjective inflection is identic for feminine and masculine nouns, but it’s a bit different for neuter nouns. Let’s look at an example:

Et fint hus – a nice house (indefinite, singular)

Det fine huset – the nice house (definite, singular)

Fine hus – nice houses (indefinite, plural)

De fine husene – the nice houses (definite, plural)

The examples above illustrate in a good way the different forms Norwegian adjectives take in attributive form. This can generalized be written with just the suffixes (the ending of each form) like this:

Masculine and feminine:
Singular: – and -e (indefinite and definite)
Plural: -e and -e (indefinite and definite)

Neuter:
Singular: -t and -e (indefinite and definite)
Plural: -e and -e (indefinite and definite)

How to inflect Norwegian adjectives in predicative form

There is also something else we have to address in this article, and that is adjectives in predicative form. This simply means that you for instance say: the car is cool, instead of the cool car. Another example of adjectives in predicative form is: the house can be scary.The inflection in masculine and feminine form is also here identical. Let’s look at an example with a feminine noun:

Ei/en lampe kan være fin – a lamp can be pretty (indefinite, singular)

Lampa kan være fin – the lamp can be pretty (definitive, singular)

Lamper kan være fine – lamps can be pretty (indefinitive, plural)

Lampene kan være fine – the lamps can be pretty (definitive, plural)

Let’s look at an example with a neuter noun:

Et fjell er ofte høyt – a mountain is often high (indefinite, singular)

Fjellet er høyt – the mountain is high (definite, singular)

Fjell er ofte høye – mountains are often high (indefinite, plural)

Fjellene er høye – the mountains are high (definite, plural)

Here’s the conclusion on how to inflect adjectives in the predicative form:

Masculine and feminine:
Singular: – and – (indefinite and definite)
Plural: -eand -e (indefinite and definite)

Neuter:
Singular: -t and -t (indefinite and definite)
Plural: -e and -e (indefinite and definite)

Conclusion

You have now learned to inflect Norwegian adjectives in attributive and predicative form. We have touched upon definite and indefinite articles, but let’s take a closer look at Norwegian definite and indefinite articles.