Definite Articles

Question 1

æblerne

Answer 1

the apples

Question 2

frugterne

Answer 2

the fruit(s)

Question 3

bøgerne

Answer 3

the books

Question 4

ænderne

Answer 4

the ducks

Question 5

hestene

Answer 5

the horses

Question 6

aviserne

Answer 6

the newspapers

Question 7

kattene

Answer 7

the cats

Question 8

dyrene

Answer 8

the animals

Question 9

skildpadderne

Answer 9

the turtles

Question 10

bjørnene

Answer 10

the bears

Question 11

risene

Answer 11

the rice (plural… like “the rices”…)

Question 12

vegetarerne

Answer 12

the vegetarians

Question 13

børnene

Answer 13

the children

Question 14

elefanterne

Answer 14

the elephants

Question 15

appelsinerne

Answer 15

the oranges (fruit)

Question 16

fuglene

Answer 16

the birds

Question 17

tallerknerne

Answer 17

the plates

Question 18

sandwichene

Answer 18

the sandwiches

Question 19

øllene

Answer 19

the beers

Question 20

appelsinen

Answer 20

the orange (fruit)

Question 21

TRUE OR FALSE:
Danish uses postfixing instead of marking the definite form with an article (like: the dog). Simply put, the indefinite article is appended to the end of the noun to mark definiteness: -en for common gender and -et for the neuter gender.

Answer 21

TRUE

Question 22

TRUE OR FALSE:
To make an indefinite noun ending in -e into a definite noun, often only -n (for common) or -t (for neuter) is appended (as opposed to -en or -et)

Answer 22

TRUE:
Example:
'et æble' (an apple, neuter gender)
becomes
'æblet' (the apple).

Question 23

TRUE OR FALSE:
In some cases, it is NEVER necessary to double the ending consonant of a word when forming the definite (and also the plurals).

Answer 23

FALSE, it is sometimes necessary.
Example:
'en kat'
becomes
'katten'

Question 24

TRUE OR FALSE:
Consonant-doubling for definite nouns occurs when the preceding vowel is short, and the word does not already have two consonants succeeding it (in the same syllable).

Answer 24

TRUE:
Example
The word for dog ('hund') does not double the last consonant:
'en hund'
becomes
'hunden'

Question 25

TRUE OR FALSE:
As a rule of thumb, Danish marks a short vowel by having two consonants after it in the same syllable. However, it does not double the same consonant if nothing follows it.

Answer 25

TRUE:
Hence, it is ‘kat’ in Danish and not ‘katt’ but ‘katten’ in the definite form. Another example is ‘æg’ (egg), which in the definite form is ‘ægget’ (the egg).

Question 26

TRUE OR FALSE:

In the plural definite form (such as ‘the cars’), nouns in Danish add -ne to the plural form.

Answer 26

TRUE:
‘en kvinde’ (a woman) has the plural ‘kvinder’ (women) and adds -ne to become ‘kvinderne’ (the women).
‘en dreng’ (a boy) has the plural ‘drenge’ (boys) and adds -ne to become ‘drengene’ (the boys).

Question 27

TRUE OR FALSE:

Some nouns are irregular, and simply adding -ne to make it definite isn’t correct.

Answer 27

TRUE:
‘en mand’ (a man) has the plural ‘mænd’ (men) but regains the lost -e in the plural, adding -ene to become ‘mændene’ (the men).