Norwegian grammar basics: the essentials to start

Norwegian nouns are masculine, feminine or neuter (en, ei, et). The gender decides the article and some endings, so learn each noun together with its gender from the start, the way you would learn the word itself. In Bokmål many feminine nouns can also take the masculine form, which gives you some flexibility while you learn.

This is the gift of Norwegian: verbs do not change for person. Jeg er, du er, han er, vi er, all the same form. The present tense is usually just the verb plus an -r ending. You mostly need to learn the tenses (present, past, perfect, future), not a table of endings for every person.

Norwegian is a V2 language: the finite verb is the second element in a main clause. So if you start a sentence with something other than the subject, for example a time word, the verb still comes second and the subject moves after it. I dag spiser jeg, not I dag jeg spiser. This one rule explains most word-order mistakes English speakers make.

There is no separate word for the in front of a noun. Instead, the definite is built into the ending: en bil (a car) becomes bilen (the car), et hus becomes huset. When an adjective is involved you also get a double marking (den store bilen), which feels strange at first and becomes automatic with practice. This is the single habit worth drilling early.