When do you use the accent aigu, like é, in Norwegian?

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Accent aigu/acute accent/akutt aksent

Accent aigu is simply the accent that looks like this: (´). Examples of this are: é, á and ó. 

Accent aigu in Norwegian

In Norwegian, the main uses of the accent aigu are in names and some loanwords. The reason we use the accent aigu, is to show which part of the word that is stressed. This affects how you pronounce the Norwegian word.

An example of this is armen (the arm) and arméen (the army). In the first example, the first syllable is stressed. In the second example, the last syllable is stressed. Listen below to hear the differences in pronunciation:

Armen: 

Arméen:

In your study of the Norwegian language, you might have come across words like idé, komité, kafé and so forth. You might also have read ide, komite and kafe in the same text or in another text. Do these words mean the same? Do they have the same pronunciation?

Yes. They mean exactly the same thing and the pronunciation is identical. The reason that some people write idé and some people write ide, is that it’s optional to use the accent for loanwords.

You can therefore either write: en idé – idéen – idéer – idéene or en ide – ideen – ideer – ideene. 

Other examples of Norwegian words like that are: distré and allé. 

In Norwegian, you often come across én and enÉn means one and en means a/an.

Conclusion

I hope you learned something new about the accent aigu in Norwegian. Let me know if you have any questions!

By Peder B. Helland

I am the creator of Learn Norwegian Naturally. I hope you enjoy the content on this site and I would love to get feedback from you. Feel free to subscribe to my newsletter to receive useful content from Learn Norwegian Naturally directly in your inbox. You can unsubscribe whenever you want.