"Det er en edderkopp."
Translation:It's a spider.
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Little late but you have the word in English as well. It's "attercop" there. It derives from old english ator=poison and copp=head. In "The Hobbit" (the bok not the horrible horrible movies) Bilbo calls the spiders "attercop" to mock them.
Whoa, I do remember that scene now. And I read the book in German, so the word may have been really popular once... PS.: The films aren't that bad, if you are able to shut up the part of your brain that's always comparing them to the book while watching. PPS.: I love the word; it takes my irrational fear of those foul beasts away and makes me smile :)
Thank you, that was really helpful. Now I'll definitely remember the word 'edderkopp'.
Charlotte er en edderkopp og hun har en tryllevev... heldigvis for Wilbur.
Since the noun (en edderkopp) is masculine, why isn't den used at the beginning of the sentence instead of det? I thought that det was only used when referring to ungendered nouns.
When referring to something unknown, we default to the neuter version.
At the point where "det" is used in the sentence, the reader/listener still doesn't know that "det" is going to be a spider. If they did, then the sentence would be a bit pointless.
"Det (introducing an unknown) er en edderkopp. Den (pointing back to edderkopp) er farlig."
As a general rule, the vowel in a word with a single consonant is a long vowel, and the vowel in a word with a double consonant is a short vowel. Bear in mind that "long" and "short" in Norwegian isn't identical to "long" and "short" in English. Here are some examples:
Maten er varm. (The food is hot.) - The long a in maten is drawn out a little: ma-aten.
Matten er ren. (The mat is clean.) - The short a in matten is said quickly.
Fint, takk! (Fine, thanks!) - The a in takk is pronounced quickly.
Fint tak! (Nice roof!) - The a is drawn out.
There are, of course, exceptions, including til, om and hvis. They're not drawn out.
"This" is used to refer/point to things that are closer to you, and "that" is used for things that are farther away, either physically, emotionally or figuratively.
Examples:
"This cup (over here/in my hand) is blue, while that cup (over there) is blue."
"This bicycle is mine; that one is yours."
"I think this idea is better than that idea."
