"What is water?"
Translation:Hva er vann?
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No, "vann" or water is not quantified. You don't say "en vann" in norwegian, it just won't make any sense. Same goes for "sand", "luft" and "melk".
And when you mean a bottle of water, can you say "en vann"? Like in "A pepsi and a water please!"
Yes, but then there's an implied "flaske" (bottle) in there, and that's what makes it countable. It would still be much more common to say "en flaske vann", though.
That's a good question. I think you can cuz it seems like an exception. In such a case you're a customer asking for a thing in a certain amount/quantity.
'vann' is neuter, so it should be 'et'. However, 'et vann' means 'a lake'.
- et - indefinite article for nouns of neuter gender,
- en - indefinite article for nouns of masculine gender,
- ei - indefinite article for nouns of feminine gender.
Also, en can be used instead of ei (both ei kvinne and en kvinne are correct).
"et" like "en" or "ei" (in front of a nomen) is like the english "a(n)", but gendered. "er" is the presens of the infinitiv "(å) være" meaning "to be".
Water in Norwegian is et vann (neuter gender) but this implies that it's countable which it isn't (you can't say one water, two waters etc.) so the indefinite article is omitted.
Definite singular is vannet (the water).
