"It is drinking water."

Translation: Den drikker vann.

[ElisaPalla]

When do we use det vs den?

[LWD2]

Different "genders" on the nouns.
Den is for hankjønn [masculine] (article en) and hunkjønn [feminine] (article ei)
Det is for intetkjønn ["Ungendered"] (article et)

[Mandalona-CH]

Where is masculine in "It is drinking water"

[JulsEDT]

Why can't it be "Det er drikker van?"

[Deliciae]

There is no present continuous tense in Norwegian, so you need to translate it to the simple present.

"[Det/Den] drikker vann."
"It [drinks/is drinking] water."

[Emorol]

I didn't know that "vatn" is also a word for water in Norwegian. O.o I'm guessing that this is Norway's version of the Swedish word "vatten"? I'm learning more and more about the similarities of Scandinavian Languages, a reason why I enjoy learning them.

[NattKullav1]

Actually, 'vatten' is (modern) Swedish version for Old Norse 'vatn'.
Danish 'vand' and its norwegianize form (Bokmål) 'vann', are from 'vatn' as well.

[mprdo]

Cory, keep it up! 15May18

[TobyvonKrh]

Is "den" really pronounced like that? Barely a noise made in one's throat?

[deactivated user]

No, this is the abridged version of den. Kidding, it's just buggy. Listen to these two pronunciations to hear what it should sound like.

• den
• den filippinske platen (The Philippine Sea Plate)

The second one has better enunciation and audio.

[mikkibelle]

Why was one of the other solutions drikkevann?

[Iorua]

"drinking water" can be either of the following

• verb + noun (drikker + vann)
• a noun (drikkevann) (potable water, drinkable water)

[CatMcCat]

I'm not sure how to report this, since there doesn't seem to be an option that works but, I typed "Det er drikkenvann" as my answer, and it was marked as correct but with a typo. So far, so good, because for this meaning, it would be "Det er drikkevann" - except that it suggested, "Den drikker vann". Also correct, if you go with the verb+noun option, but hardly a correction of a typo. If I hadn't come here to read the comments, I would have remained very confused. So, thank you, Iorua, for your 3-years-ago explanation of this, and please, take my lingot!

[deactivated user]

The AI cannot differentiate between two meanings behind "It is drinking water." (Saying this to someone who is reluctant to drink from the tap) vs (Something [a dog] is drinking water because it's thirsty after a long walk).

Thanks to this bug and @Iorua, we actually get a bonus word - drikkevann.

[JBaer1]

¨That is drinking water¨ would translate to the exact same in Norwegian as ¨It is drinking water.¨??

[TheNewRecipe]

Depends on which word you use I believe, if you're to use 'den drikker vann' it would mean 'it's drinking water' but I'm not sure about 'det drikker vann'.

[deactivated user]

Both Den drikker vann and Det drikker vann translate to "It/That is drinking water". The usage depends whether the subject you're talking about is known to you or not. If it's unknown, you use det.

If it is already established in speech, you need to know the gender of that particular noun.
Look at the following example.

Det er en stol. Den er gul. (That is a chair. It is yellow.)

En stol (masculine) is established in the first sentence. To refer to it, you need to change the demonstrative pronoun according to its gender (det - neuter, den - feminine/masculine).

Note that this is used only to refer to animals and things, not human beings.