"Gutten leser et brev."

Translation: The boy is reading a letter.

[nunes89]

Ett should be acceptable as a typo... not fair for Swedish learners </3

[EivindMeyer]

Using ett implies that you are emphasizing the fact that it is one letter, not two or three.

[nunes89]

Ohh, so it is a difference between article and numeral? :) I understand now, thanks :D

[EivindMeyer]

Jeg ser ett fjell - I see (only) one mountain.

Jeg ser et fjell - I see a mountain.

[OwenSannap]

When you listen, how do you distinguish between ett and et?

[InbarSimana]

I am just starting, but I have a Norwegian friend, so he explain to me, the et it's sounds just like et, and ett it's just like that but longer, like etttt (but you're not say that like what I wrote)

[deactivated user]

Correct IPA pronunciation is /et:/.

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Click here for more information about pronouncing these symbols the correct way and download the new International Phonetic Alphabet.

Follow this Forvo link to listen to a native speaker pronouncing this word (ett tusen - one thousand).

[Giorgia269732]

Gutten leser en brev. Why is it the child is reading a letter an not the child reads a letter? I dont understand. Leser is present continuous not simple present? Please someone explains!

[InbarSimana]

as far as I'm aware, Norwegian doesn't have that kind of conjunction, but the sentence "Gutten leser et brev" can't be "The boy reads a letter" because it wouldn't make sense grammatically as he is reading the letter now. You could say "Gutten leser brev", which would be equivalent to English "The boy reads letters", meaning he generally reads letters, but not necessarily right now
Hope it helped:)

[FanddenRidder]

Why is the word "brev" pronounced like "briev"?

[Robbadob]

It should be pronounced /breːʋ/. It doesn't sound like "briev" to me here, unless they've changed the voice recording.

[2019/04/12]

[eibheargra]

Is "note" not an acceptable translation for brev?

[deactivated user]

Note and letter are nouns which describe two different objects.

vs.

[AdamPintil]

Brev=letter

[plsdosmth]

do we use 'en' for people and 'et' for items?

[awrinklyfod]

Et is used for things with no gender from what I've read, so items and such.

[InbarSimana]

There are three genders in Norwegian: masculine, feminine and neuter. Each gender has its own articles.

Masculine: en gutt (a boy), gutten (the boy)

Feminine: ei/en jente (a girl), jenta/jenten (the girl)

Neuter: et hus (a house), huset (the house)

Genders usually don't depend on logic, apart from very basic nouns like man and boy being masculine and woman and girl being feminine, but with most nouns, you just have to learn the articles along with the noun.
Also, as you might've noticed, feminine nouns can sometimes take the masculine form, it depends on dialect and personal preference

[JanjaKosti]

Is read=leser and reading=lesser?

[InbarSimana]

Norwegian doesn't have a distinction between present simple/progressive. "leser" = read/reads/(am/is/are) reading.