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Proper Nouns vs. Common Nouns

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Nouns belong to two main groups: proper nouns and common nouns.

Common nouns (Norw. Fellesnavn) refer to things, people and places in general: boy, girl, apple, soul, school, car, idea, country, river, month.

Proper nouns (Norw. Egennavn) include names of people, countries, places, days of the week, months of the year, historical events, terms of address, holidays and religions.

They are spelt with a capital letter: Peter, Paris, the Pacific Ocean, Sunday, Ms, Jew, Catholic, the Civil War, Christmas, America, Norwegian, April.

Watch the short animation below to learn more about capital letters.

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Proper nouns and common nouns 2

CC BY-SAWritten by: Knut Inge Skifjeld.
Last revised date 01/17/2019