Introduction

You might have discovered that books and texts don’t are consequent on the usage of the Norwegian articles ei and en when referring to Norwegian nouns. You might for instance see in one text that a girl is being written as ei jente, while in another text you might find en jente. What is the correct Norwegian article to use?

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Is it correct to use ei or en?

There’s a really simple answer to this: if you have a feminine noun, you can choose whether to use the masculine or the feminine article (en and ei). Considering jente is a feminine Norwegian noun, it’s therefore correct to say both ei jente and en jente. Remember that this only applies to feminine nouns. If you have a masculine Norwegian noun, you cannot use the feminine article in front of it. It’s therefore wrong to say for instance ei gutt.

Conclusion

You have now learned that you might choose which Norwegian article you want to use in front of a feminine noun, which means that both ei jente and en jente is correct to say in Norwegian. If you want to learn more about the Norwegian language, click here.