#23 "Noe" or "noen"? what they can mean and how they are used. [vokabular] [grammatikk]

This notorious word pair confuses even advanced learners, but today I'm breaking it down into simple, manageable parts that will transform your understanding.

The secret lies in recognizing three distinct usage patterns. 

First, when these words stand alone, "noe" means "something/anything" while "noen" means "someone/anyone." Norwegian doesn't distinguish between these pairs the way English does—it's all about context. 

Second, when talking about plurals (books, people, cars), always use "noen" regardless of whether you'd say "some" or "any" in English. Uncountable nouns in singular form need "noe", no matter the gender. 

And third, with singular countable nouns, the gender dictates your choice: "noe" for neuter nouns and "noen" for masculine/feminine ones.

What makes this topic fascinating is how native speakers often bypass grammar rules entirely. They might say "noe penger" (technically incorrect) because they conceptualize money as a mass rather than countable units.

Let me know how it went :) 

Chapters

• 0:15 Introduction to Noe and Noen
• 1:03 Standalone Usage: Something/Someone
• 6:19 Using Noen for Plural Nouns
• 12:25 Noe for Uncountable Nouns
• 19:10 Gender-Based Usage with Countable Nouns
• 27:42 Common Mistakes and Natural Usage
• 33:08 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hello, is there anyone here? Is there anybody here? Can you hear anything? Do you hear anything? Is there anybody here? Hör du noa? Do you hear anything?

Speaker 1: 0:30

Hello and welcome to this episode about noa and noen, two words that can mean quite many different things depending on the context. We're gonna dive into that and look at the different meanings in different contexts and how to know what to use. So I will divide this into three different parts, because there are three different ways to use them. Ways to use them. The first part is the easiest one. Here you use noa and noan by themselves. They do not refer back to anything you've talked about before. They have a full meaning in themselves. They do not need anything to point back at, and that is when they mean something and someone or anything, anyone.

Speaker 1: 1:33

We do not differentiate between those two. It depends on the sentence. So if you have, if it's a question sentence, then it means anything or anyone. Or if it's a sentence with negation so for instance with icke, with not then it also means anything. So we don't really need to differentiate. So, for instance, if I say I see something, this is a normal sentence, not a question and not a negated sentence. So here it means something. Nå means something or anything, depending on your sentence. So I see something, but if I turn it into a question, do you see anything or do you see something? Do you see anything or do you see something? Jag ser ikke noe, I don't see anything. I don't see something. You see, it doesn't really matter which one you put, it means the same thing, right? Så noe, that's noe, whereas noen with an n in the end is someone or anyone. But not like when you say like anyone can do it, which means like no matter who. It's not that meaning, it's not no matter who. It really means someone. It's just that in english, when you have a question sentence or a negated sentence you would use, you would say anyone, right, I don't see anyone or do you see anyone. So it's the meaning anyone, as in someone. Same meaning, just in English.

Speaker 1: 3:45

You use two different words in different grammatical sentences. That's it, okay. So, for instance, jag ser noen, I see someone, and then, if I negate that sentence, jag ser icke noen, and then, if I negate that sentence, I don't see anyone or I don't see someone. Question sentence Do you see anyone? Do you see someone or do you see somebody? Same thing, someone, somebody, anyone, nån. Okay, so here you do not have to worry about what am I referring to? Is it plural, is it singular? Which gender, etc. Etc. There it's just nån or no one. Nån, it's just noe or noen, noe, something, anything, noen, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody, all of those.

Speaker 1: 4:54

And now you might wonder but how do I say anyone or anybody, as in no matter who, no matter who can do it? In that case it's a completely different phrase you're going to use. You're going to say vem som helst, three words, vem som helst. That's how you would say anyone or no matter who Som helst. That ending means no matter. So you can add that to any question word. So I could say vud som helst, anywhere. Okay, so that was just a small parenthesis so that you see that we differentiate between those two kinds of anyone. Same thing with anything. If I want to say I can do anything, as in no matter what, then it's not noe, it's going to be vad som helst Jag kan göra, vad som helst, I can do anything, no matter what or Anyone, no matter who can do it.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Okay, so now let's go back to noe and noen again. So a way to remember the difference between these two, because I know they look so similar. Right, there's only one letter in difference. So how do I remember which one is which? And I highly recommend to just make silly ways to remember it. It doesn't matter how you remember it, just find some way to remember it. So a suggestion is that when you talk about people right, no one, someone as opposed to things. Well, people are worth more than things, right? So people have something extra, and that extra thing is that N that you put in the end, so N because people are worth more than things. You add something extra to them.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Okay, and this leads me to the next way of using noe and noen, and I'm going to start with noen. When you talk about things in plural or people in plural and it doesn't matter, you have more of something or someone, right? Then you use no one as well, so it can mean some or any. We do not differentiate between some and any when referring to more things. So, for instance, some books or any books, some people, any people, okay, any, as in.

Speaker 1: 8:14

When used in a negated sentence and in a question Okay, still, it's just a grammatical difference, it's not a difference in meaning, just different kind of sentence. So, for instance, when you say I have some books, if you turn that into a question, you would probably say do you have any books, do you have some books? Right? So it's that kind of meaning of any. It's just when you turn your some sentence into a question or a negated sentence so I don't have any books or I don't have some books, okay, in both case. In all of those three cases normal sentence, negated sentence with icke and question sentence we use noen in all of those cases. We do not differentiate between any and some. It's gonna be noen in all of those cases.

Speaker 1: 9:18

Okay, so jag har noenøker. I have some books. Har du noen bøker? Do you have any books? Do you have some books? Jeg har ikke noen bøker, I don't have any books, I don't have any books.

Speaker 1: 9:48

And just for a side note, icke, noen can be replaced by ingen. No matter the meaning of icke noen, whether it's no one or none, you can replace icke noen with ingen. Jag har ingen bøker, jag har ikke noen bøker. Same thing. Jag har ikke noen bøker, I have not any books. Or I don't have any books, jag har ingen bøker, I have no books. Same. Just two ways of saying exactly the same thing. Okej, så, icke noen and ingen. Same thing, same meaning. And the reason why I started with no one here is because I wanted to help you to remember which one to use is going to be no or no one.

Speaker 1: 10:48

When I talk about plural, when I talk about many things or more than one thing could be two, right, doesn't have to be many, but more than one, well, more than one is more. So you want to have something extra, right? So you want to add that N, just like adding that N for people, because people have more value than things, right? You also want to add that N when you talk about more than one thing, because that's well, that's more. It's a little bit extra, so you add an N. That's so stupid, I know, but it's really just a way to remember it so that you don't have to ask yourself every single time oh my God, should I put that N there or not? If it's a person, yes. If it's more than one thing, yes, add that n, add something extra, okay.

Speaker 1: 11:49

So now we're talking about no one and here, so no one when referring to more than one thing or more than one person and here you do not have to worry about the gender of the thing. It doesn't matter. And here you do not have to worry about the gender of the thing, it doesn't matter. It's super simple. Is it more than one thing? Then use noen. Okay, I have some books, jag har noen bøker. I have some friends, jag har noen vänner. Okay, more friends, more than one friend? Noen More than one book? Noen, okay, okay. And the next one is no. Here as well, we still do not worry about the gender. Okay, this is the last way to use no and no one where you do not worry about gender. So after this one, it's going to be a little bit more complicated, but it's going to be okay.

Speaker 1: 12:40

So here, noa, as opposed to noan, is used for singular, which means one. When you refer to one thing. Okay, not more than one thing, but not all things, only the things that are uncountable. And since they are uncountable, you will never put them in plural. You're never going to say that you have two or three of these things because they're not countable. You can only have one thing of them, or you can only like, you can only refer to it as something abstract or something that is.

Speaker 1: 13:21

What can I say? You cannot count this in itself. In order to be able to count it, you have to specify exactly how you can count it. So I'm going to give an example to make it clearer. For instance, snow, snow. You don't say three snows, that's weird. Where does one snow start and where does it end? You could say three kilos of snow, so when I'm adding kilo, then it's fine, then I can count it. But snow in itself is what we call uncountable, Same thing with rain or water.

Speaker 1: 14:03

Normally we do not count these things or these concepts. Of course, there are some words that normally could not theoretically be counted, but we still count them. For instance, beer. My typical example beer. Instance beer my typical example beer. Um, if you say, can I have one beer, can I for an, we know that we're talking about a bottle or a glass, right, so we don't really say it. But in reality you would have to add that in order for the other person to understand you that what, what you actually want, because you cannot really count beer. You would have to add a unity, but we don't. We know that when you want beer, it's either in a glass or in a bottle. So we do not, we have skipped that part. And all of this is to say that for some words, you can consider them countable even though they are actually not countable.

Speaker 1: 15:14

In those cases, we can choose to use noa, and we can also choose to think differently about it, and I will come back to that in the last part of this episode. Now, first, when I use noa with a thing that is uncountable, it also means some or any. The only difference is what I'm talking about. What am I? Any what? Some, what? So let's use the example snö.

Speaker 1: 15:50

Normally, noa is only used in questions and negated sentences. I can also use it in normal sentences, but it's more common to use litt in this case. So I'm going to give you an example where you can choose between noe and litt, and I would like you to know that normally people use litt instead of noe. For example, there is some snow outside, or you could say Det er litt snø ute, or you could say there is some snow, or there is a little bit of snow outside. Okay, so here, since it's not negated and it's not a question, people tend to use litt instead of no. People tend to use litt instead of noe.

Speaker 1: 17:04

But if it was a question or negated, then noe is used whenever you want to say any. Is there any snow outside? There is not any snow outside. Er det noe snö ute? Er det noe snö ute? Is there any snow outside? Because now, when it is a question, then you're asking is there, yes or no snow outside, right? So you're not asking about quantity, you're not asking about how much, you're asking if there is any at all, right? So that is the logic why I use noa and not litt, because if I use litt, in this case it's going to be is there a little bit of snow outside?

Speaker 1: 17:56

So it, yeah, it doesn't make sense. Well, it makes sense, but it doesn't mean the same thing anymore. Make sense Well, it makes sense, but it doesn't mean the same thing anymore. And then, in a negated sentence Det är icke no snö ute. Det är icke no snö ute, there is not any snow outside.

Speaker 1: 18:22

Noe can, of course, be skipped. In both of these cases I could say Er det snö ute? Is there snow outside? I can skip any. Det er ikke snö ute, there is not snow outside, instead of there is not any snow. It doesn't change the meaning. I guess noa and any just adds the fact that there's not anything at all. It's really, really nothing, but it doesn't have any other purpose than that. So this noa is not very useful.

Speaker 1: 19:02

It's when referring to something uncountable. You don't really need it. You can skip it.

Speaker 1: 19:08

Now to the last part. This is when you need to know the gender of the thing that you are referring to. So we've talked about plural, right, if you have many things, you know, you're going to use noen, no other options. And then, when you're referring to something that is uncountable, you're going to use noa or nothing at all. So what do we have left? The words that are countable when we talk about one thing, because you know, for many things we use no one Always. So what we have left is countable things. When we talk about one thing and I'm going to tell you a secret you don't need to use NUEN here, neither. So you can actually skip this part, but I just want to talk about it so that you understand how they are used, and then it's up to you to choose if you want to use them or just skip them completely.

Speaker 1: 20:21

Okay, and in this case we do not use no and no and in normal sentences and when I say normal sentences, I know it's not the right grammatical word to use I don't remember what we call them, but sentences that are not questions and that do not contain ikke or any other negation word, like aldrig, ah, statement, that's the word statement, non-negated statements. And in this case, in this last way of using noe and noen, it always means any. It cannot mean some. I know we don't differentiate between any and some, but when you refer to a thing, a noun, that is neuter. So, for instance, house ett hus, or glass Ett glass, and we can all agree that houses can be counted right. Three houses, okay, that makes sense. Okay, so it's countable. And glasses, the ones that you drink from, can also be counted. You can have three glasses. And then noen.

Speaker 1: 22:00

The one with the N refers to masculine and feminine words. For instance, en bil, a car. Cars can be counted right. Normally you have only one, but you can count them. You can have three cars. If you want, en kopp, a cup Cups can be counted. You can have three cars. If you want, en kopp, a cup Cups can be counted. You know that you can have 10 cups if you want to.

Speaker 1: 22:31

En eilampe, just to give you a feminine one Eilampe, a lamp, and, as you know, feminine words can also be inflected as masculine ones, if you want. So I could also say en lampe, if I want to. So just remember the article en. What letter does that finish with? Yes, en. And that's the same letter as noen finishes with. So that shouldn't be too hard, should it? Okay, I'm going to give you some examples.

Speaker 1: 23:19

Har du noe hus? Do you have any house? Yeah, I know it sounds weird. You could just say har du hus or har du ett hus? Do you have a house? It's a stupid question, I know, it's really just for the example. Okay, okay, next one Har du no glass? Do you have any glass? That's maybe something you could ask about. Or har du glass, har du a glass? So I can skip it. Har du no bil, do you have any car? Har du bil? Har du en bil, do you have a car? So the A here can be skipped. I can say do you have car? So that might sound a little bit weird in English, the fact that you can actually skip everything and just say har du bil? Do you have car? And there is a nuance. There is a difference here. So when I skip the article and just say the nuance is that I do not focus on number.

Speaker 1: 24:46

The moment I add that article, I ask Do you have one car? Actually that's what I want to know Do you have one car or not? But sometimes we don't know. We don't know how many cars the other person might have. So my question is really do you have or not car or cars? It doesn't matter, do you have one or many? And if that is my question, then I would skip the article and I would say har du bil? That could mean one or many cars.

Speaker 1: 25:20

So if you live in Norway and you go to the store, at the counter then the cashier might ask you Tränger du pose, tränger du pose, which means do you need a bag, not a bag, just bag. Do you need a bag, not a bag, just bag. Do you need bag? And the reason for this is that the cashier doesn't know how many you need. He or she just wants to know if you need it or not. One or many doesn't matter, do you need it or not? So yeah, that's a little twist in Norwegian. By skipping the article, you're actually saying that it could be more than one. Anyways, so now I gave you some examples with questions with noe and noen. I'm going to give you some negated sentences as well.

Speaker 1: 26:13

Jeg har ikke noe hus, jeg har ikke noe hus, jeg har ikke noe hus, I don't have any house. That's super sad. Jeg har ikke noe hus. Or jeg har ikke hus, I don't have house. I don't have the concept of house Not one, not many None. Jeg har ikke et hus. I don't have the concept of house Not one, not many None. Jeg har ikke et hus, I don't have a house, jeg har ikke ett hus. So here are three ways of saying exactly the same thing Jeg har ikke hus, jeg har ikke ett hus, jeg har ikke noe hus. Noe, because house, house is neutral.

Speaker 1: 27:05

Jeg har ikke noe glass, I don't have any glass. Jeg har ikke glass, I don't have glass. Jeg har ikke et glass, I don't have glass. Jag har ikke ett glass, I don't have a glass. Same thing, three ways. No true difference in meaning Jag har ikke noen bil, I don't have any car Noen, because car is masculine. Jeg har ikke bil, I don't have car. Jeg har ikke en bil, I don't have a car. Same same Jeg har ikke noen kopp. I don't have any cup. Jeg har ikke kopp. I don't have cup. Jeg har ikke en kopp, I don't have a cup. Jag har ikke en kopp. I don't have a cup, nice.

Speaker 1: 28:25

So now you know what you need to know. And to clarify, the only uses of no and noen that are necessary we cannot skip it without changing the meaning of your sentence is when they stand by themselves. So the first category, where no means something or anything, no one means someone or somebody or anyone or anybody. Here you cannot skip it, you have to use it. And when you use no one in front of something you have more of or something there is more of than one, then you have to use no one. Some books, no one, bökir. In the other cases the word can be skipped, you don't really need it, but it's good to know what they mean so that you can choose to use them or not, and also so you can understand people using them. What do they actually mean and why do they use the ones that they use?

Speaker 1: 29:32

And before I end this episode, I wanted to add something that I find quite important. I end this episode. I wanted to add something that I find quite important, because when we speak, we do not think about grammar. I think that when you learn a language as a foreign language, you think more about grammar than when you have it as your first language, your mother tongue language, your mother tongue. And what is good to know is that people do not necessarily speak grammatically correct, because when you have a language as your mother tongue, as I told you, you don't think about grammar. But you have this instinct, you have an intuition about how to use it, and that is why noa and noan are not always used correctly, but the use, the wrong use, makes sense.

Speaker 1: 30:26

So sometimes we use noa, for instance, when referring to something in plural, when it's something you have more than one of, just because, even though the word in itself is plural, when it's something you have more than one of, just because, even though the word in itself is plural, it refers to something more abstract, like money, for instance, pengir. Pengir is plural, but you don't really count money. You don't say here, you go three monies, you count dollars or kroner, right? So even though the word, grammatically speaking, is plural, you don't really count it. So grammatically it would be correct to say noen pengir, but people tend to say noe pengir, because in reality it's uncountable.

Speaker 1: 31:32

And, on the same note, when I talk about something that is plural that you can count, like books. For instance, in my mind when I'm thinking about books, I might not think about it in number, I might think about it in volume, right, how much space it takes. So I might say har du no böker? Har du no böker, because if in that moment I think about books as just a big mass of books, like a big volume, then the feeling I have about books will navigate how I use noa and noan, because I'm not thinking rationally, I'm not thinking in grammatical terms when I speak. So I might say har du noa bøkid? Just so you get why sometimes we actually use noa when we should use noan, because we're talking about things that there are more of, just because our brains are considering it as just a big mass of things, of stuff.

Speaker 1: 32:51

Okay, I know that was a lot of information, but I hope you understand now the three different ways of differentiating between noe and noen. You might not remember everything, but I hope you remember some. Jeg håper att du husker noe, something. Tack för idag. Vi hörs.