Like most other European languages, Danish features grammatical genders. These have nothing to do with real-world gender, so just think of it as different categories of nouns.

You might have already heard of genders in other languages, such as Spanish where llave (key), mesa (table) and foto (photo) are feminine and perro (dog), suelo (floor) and diccionario (dictionary) are masculine. These genders obviously have nothing to do with real-life gender which is why thinking of them as noun categories rather than noun genders is a good idea.

Danish has two genders (noun categories): common gender (fælleskøn) and neuter (intetkøn). This means that each noun in Danish is either common gender or neuter gender, and in order to speak the language correctly, you have to remember the gender of every one of them.

Now, back to your question about en and et. You use en with common gender nouns and et with neuter nouns:

• en and (a duck, common)

• et æg (an egg, neuter)

• et hus (a house, neuter)

• en stol (a chair, common)

• et klasselokale (a classroom, neuter)

This rule is also used when forming the definite:

• anden (the duck)

• ægget (the egg)

• huset (the house)

• stolen (the chair)

• klasselokalet (the classroom)

The gender of a noun also affects how adjectives are declined, but you'll learn about that at a later point.