Database Normalization in Simple English Have you heard of 2NF, 3NF, and BCNF? Do you know what the database normal forms mean? In this article, you will learn database normalization in simple English. With real-world examples, you will better understand what normal forms are, why there are different types, and why we need them. Database courses typically teach database normalization and normal forms abstractly. Functional dependencies and normalization problems are defined using letters (e.

Normal forms for relations is a required topic of a database curriculum. Besides avoiding anomalies, which is already a big issue¹, knowing them certainly helps to understand what is going on in your or someone else’s database design. Even if at some point you decide to abandon a normal form, you should know what you are doing and how to pay a price for that. Here, I want to discuss normal forms up to Boyce-Codd Normal Form (that is 2NF, 3NF and BCNF).