The gender “en”, common and “et”, neutral determine the endings of the noun:
“En kino” meaning “cinema” and “kinoen” meaning “the cinema.”
“Et hus” meaning “house” and “huset” meaning “the house.”
So, why is there an exception here:
“Kan vi gå på kafé nå?” meaning “Can we go to the cafe now?”
Why does she not say “Kan vi ga pa kafeen na?”, which, in this case, would seem more gramatically correct or is there a mistake in the Norwegian text, which should read “pa kafeen” and reads “pa kafe” instead?
I would say it is exactly the same as with some Swedish phrases, like “att gå på bio”, when in English we would say “to go to the cinema”. I would bet good money that it is right like this.
I have asked your question on the Norwegian sub-forum on the Word Reference forums, @daisy2chain, just in case someone answers there.
Here’s the link:
You might need to create an account to see this post, though. I can recommend the forum and found a lot of answers there when I first started learning Swedish.
Now I am a member of a few Facebook groups for Swedish learners which are well frequented, so I usually ask any questions there. I bet there are FB groups for people learning Norwegian, too, if you are on FB.
This probably is just a phrasal thing. Even in English this is done in some places, where the word ‘the’ is routinely omitted even when speaking of something specific (looking at you, Yorkshire, Lancashire, etc.). Or perhaps it’s just because the English prompt is bad, which I have noticed they sometimes have a tendency to be; sometimes, translations are too much ‘in spirit’ of the sentence and not literal enough to recall the wording they’re looking for – there’s a balance there that’s not always met.
I’m learning Norwegian too, so please do tell me if you ever find the official answer!