"Hva spiser hester?"

Translation: What do horses eat?

[w-torkington]

Mmm. Thought it was "Who eats horses?"

Lookin at you, Ikea.

[chromalogue]

Having trouble getting my head around the rule. Does this mean that "Hvem spiser kjillinger?" could mean both "Who eats chickens?" and "Who do chickens eat?"

[Andy585]

No, just "Who eats chickens?" :)

[Brimming02]

Then what would 'Who do chickens eat?' be?

[CarlyErinO]

Who = hvem, so hvem spiser.... whereas "what" would chickens eat would be more correct english, ergo Hva spiser kyllingen

[Protayn]

I'm still waiting

[rodrocq24]

I wrote "what are the horses eating" and it was deemed wrong!

[Andullivan]

Hester is 'horses'. The horses would be 'Hestene'.

[poisonjackal]

thank you, i was going to ask what 'the horses' would be

[piano_leb]

Romanians!

[oldestguru]

would you care to elaborate a little?

[LeeDav84]

With what has already been explained above, it sort of makes sense (thanks, Linn!)

Is it because if you're referring to a thing (animal) that eats the horse, you'd use "det" or some kind of personal pronoun, rather than a simple "What" or "who"?

[Auzri]

How would you differentiate between "what eats horses" and "what do horses eat" with little to no context? Which one is more common?

[AnikaChau]

Tesco

[AyoKerman]

Ĉevalo manĝas, ne manĝas Ĉevalon.

[NovaTabarca]

Why not "what are the horses eating"?

[oldestguru]

it seems more natural to me too, but they don't accept it because hester has no definite article, while "the horses" with the definite article "the" would be "hestene"

[Z.97]

Then how would you say "What do the horses eat?"
I'm new in this lesson but I have not yet come across the plural of a noun with a 'the' before it, and i'm curious as to how it would look.

[FanddenRidder]

Hva spiser hestene?

[CaptainRubiks]

I put what eats horses and it took it

[oldestguru]

that's weird

[Diane216052]

Question... hest is a single syllable so why does it get the plural ending? Is there some rule I am missing here?

[GypsyBarefoot]

I am new to learning Norwegian, so I may be incorrect. The notes for this section said that 'NEUTER single syllables' mainly stay the same. 'Hest' is a masculine noun, not neuter, and so, this might be why it gets the ending added onto it.

[Christina.14734]

I wrote ,,Who eats horses,, and I think it was right. Lol, from now I´ll be vegetarian, better than eating horses, true?

[truewonderland]

I said "What are horses eating" and it is said to be wrong, but where can I see it in the original sentence?

[JCorter]

OK, so I am confused on this and still am after reading the comments. Duo did take "What eats horses?" as an answer, but said "What do horses eat?" is also right. I thought Google Translate could help, so I typed in "What eats horses?" and got "Hva spiser hester?" But when I translated it back, it says "What do horses eat?"

So, my confusion comes from this. If I wanted to say, "What do birds eat?", I'd say, "Hva spiser fugler?" But how would I say, "What eats birds?" If it's the same, how would I know the difference? Would it just be context clues?

[ashleys_duolingo]

I put in “What are the horses eating”

thought it judged me wrong, but realised it means just “horses”...how do you say “the horses” and is “a horses” a thing in Norwegian?

[deactivated user]

I said " what does a horse eat". Isn't it the same thing?

[jmee17]

And did Duolingo accept "What eats horses?" How would a Norwegian know if you are asking what horses eat or what eats horses?